Digital Commons Network^™

Designing For Situations Of Elevated Stress, Minsoo Kim

Theses

This graduate thesis project examined the importance of information design in the context of problems where stressful situations can compromise the function of design solutions to communicate messages clearly and effectively.

Polymerization Of Methyl Acrylate And As Comonomer With Ethylene Using Single-Site Catalysts, Sameer S. Vadhavkar

Theses

Because of the excellent control over polymerizations provided by single-site catalysts (SSCs), numerous research groups are trying to find such catalysts, which would also be efficient for the polymerization of polar monomers. However, many SSCs are deactivated by undergoing reactions with the electronegative atoms in the polar groups. In the present work, we attempted to copolymerize ethylene with methyl acrylate using three SSCs: (1) a bis(imino)pyridyl iron(II) chloride / methylaluminoxane catalyst, (2) a chiral metallocene / tris(pentafluorophenyl) borane catalyst, and (3) an in situ trifluromethyl substituted nickel (II) enolate catalyst. Only the first two catalysts led to polymer formation. The …

The Film Title Sequence As An Influence On The Design Of Print Promotion, Rajat Khullar

Theses

Graphic design solutions for promotional purposes pose a special challenge for designers who must not only make certain that the design is conceptually strong and engaging in itself, but also that it is successful in conveying the worth of a product, a brand, an organization or company to a diverse audience. Promotional design is all about presenting its subject in the most attractive manner possible in order to draw viewer attention to that which is being promoted. Such design solutions aim at creating a need or demand for a specific type of goods or services offered by a client. Alternatively …

Image Segmentation And Pigment Mapping Of Cultural Heritage Based On Spectral Imaging, Yonghui Zhao

Theses

The goal of the work reported in this dissertation is to develop methods for image segmentation and pigment mapping of paintings based on spectral imaging. To reach this goal it is necessary to achieve sufficient spectral and colorimetric accuracies of both the spectral imaging system and pigment mapping. The output is a series of spatial distributions of pigments (or pigment maps) composing a painting. With these pigment maps, the change of the color appearance of the painting can be simulated when the optical properties of one or more pigments are altered. These pigment maps will also be beneficial for enriching …

Angle Of Repose, Toni Pepe

Theses

This thesis explores the notion of loss as an overarching theme for the examination of memory and the feminine as constructed tools for identity. Certain paradigms related to gendered roles, domesticity, femininity and the female psyche are investigated. The thesis also addresses ideas within Lacanian theory; concentrating on the male gaze, female representation and the artist as both photographer and subject. Absence and presence are also significant themes, as both narrative tools and as inherent photographic characteristics. The idea of loss is further emphasized by absence/presence within the photograph, calling to mind the relationship of the photograph to memory.

Design And Analysis Of Rocket Nozzle Contours For Launching Pico-Satellites, Brandon Lee Denton

Theses

Rochester Institute of Technology’s Microsystems Engineering & Technology for the Exploration of Outer Regions (METEOR) project has been investigating and pursuing a low cost alternative launch system for launching pico-satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). A major component of this system is a three-stage rocket for orbital insertion. Of all the parts that make up a rocket engine, the nozzle and its ability to convert thermal energy into kinetic energy is the most important in creating an efficient rocket. This paper develops a computer code which uses the Method of Characteristics and the Stream Function to define highefficiency nozzle contours …

Color In Scientific Visualization: Perception And Image-Based Data Display, Hongqin Zhang

Theses

Visualization is the transformation of information into a visual display that enhances users understanding and interpretation of the data. This thesis project has investigated the use of color and human vision modeling for visualization of image-based scientific data. Two preliminary psychophysical experiments were first conducted on uniform color patches to analyze the perception and understanding of different color attributes, which provided psychophysical evidence and guidance for the choice of color space/attributes for color encoding. Perceptual color scales were then designed for univariate and bivariate image data display and their effectiveness was evaluated through three psychophysical experiments. Some general guidelines were …

3d Reconstruction Of A Female Lung Using The Visible Human Data Set To Predict Cigarette Smoke Particle Deposition, Jackie Russo

Theses

A detailed comparison of particle deposition of a female smoker lung compared to a nonsmoker is vital when trying to gain a further understanding of lung cancer. To make this comparison, two airway models were created that consisted of the oral cavity, oropharynx, laryngopharynx, larynx, trachea, and generations up to the 3rd, 4th or 5th generation. The difference between the two models is in the shape of the oral cavity. The smoker model has an oral cavity that represents the mouth during the inhalation of a cigarette and the nonsmoker model represents normal oral breathing. The oral cavity models were …

The Study Of The Effect Of Oxygen Permeation Resulting From Adding A High Barrier Shrink Film To A Pet Beer Bottle, Jeffrey T. Spiwak

Theses

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of oxygen permeation from adding a high barrier shrink film to PET beer bottles at ambient temperature and humidity. The testing method used for this research is based off ASTM D 3985 'Standard Test Method for Oxygen Gas Transmission Rate through plastic film and sheeting using a coulmetric sensor.' The test results indicated that there was statistical difference between the samples that were covered in barrier shrink film and those that were not covered. The results demonstrated that at ambient temperature and humidity, there was significant improvement over plain PET …

Political Snapshots: The Undecided Voter’S Perceptions Of Internet Based Imagery During The 2004 Presidential Election Campaign, Joseph Kunz

Theses

In the 2004 election, public perceptions of President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry were shaped through a new medium: the Internet. A survey of 124 registered voters in Monroe County of New York State found a contingent of undecided voters to be significantly smaller than previously thought and that 4.5% of the sample reported being influenced by still imagery viewed on the Internet. Negative images had a greater influence on the respondents than positive images, although the source of the image played a significant role in determining whether an image was deemed positive or negative.

A Monocular Color Vision System For Road Intersection Detection, Michael Scott Kurdziel

Theses

Urban driving has become the focus of autonomous robotics in recent years. Many groups seek to benefit from the research in this field including the military, who hopes to deploy autonomous rescue forces to battle-torn cities, and consumers, who will benefit from the safety and convenience resulting from new technologies finding purpose in consumer automobiles. One key aspect of autonomous urban driving is localization, or the ability of the robot to determine its position on a road network. Any information that can be obtained for the surrounding area including stop signs, road lines, and intersecting roads can aid this localization. …

Aspects Of Hardware Methodologies For The Ntru Public-Key Cryptosystem, Kyle Wilhelm

Theses

Cryptographic algorithms which take into account requirements for varying levels of security and reduced power consumption in embedded devices are now receiving additional attention. The NTRUEncrypt algorithm has been shown to provide certain advantages when designing low power and resource constrained systems, while still providing comparable security levels to higher complexity algorithms. The research presented in this thesis starts with an examination of the general NTRUEncrypt system, followed by a more practical examination with respect to the IEEE 1363.1 draft standard. In contrast to previous research, the focus is shifted away from specific optimizations but rather provides a study of …

Multimodal Breast Imaging: Registration, Visualization, And Image Synthesis, Karl Baum

Theses

The benefit of registration and fusion of functional images with anatomical images is well appreciated in the advent of combined positron emission tomography and x-ray computed tomography scanners (PET/CT). This is especially true in breast cancer imaging, where modalities such as high-resolution and dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and F-18-FDG positron emission tomography (PET) have steadily gained acceptance in addition to x-ray mammography, the primary detection tool. The increased interest in combined PET/MRI images has facilitated the demand for appropriate registration and fusion algorithms. A new approach to MRI-to-PET non-rigid breast image registration was developed and evaluated based on …

Homes For The Soul, James Hardy

Theses

This thesis describes the creation of a body of paintings, "Homes for the Soul," inspired by the paintings found in Retablos and home altars in Mexico. The paintings also incorporate wooden housing structures and found objects. The themes of the paintings express the artist's Christian spirituality. The thesis presents historical background on Retablos and home altars of Mexico and the southwestern U.S., then describes the themes and creation of each piece of art in the artist's thesis show.

Automatic Image Registration And Defect Identification Of A Class Of Structural Artifacts In Printed Documents, Kartheek Chandu

Theses

The work in this thesis proposes a defect analysis system, which automatically aligns a digitized copy of a printed output to a reference electronic original and highlights image defects. We focus on a class of image defects or artifacts caused by shortfalls in the mechanical or electro-photographic processes that include spots, deletions and debris missing deletions. The algorithm begins with image registration performed using a logpolar transformation and mutual information techniques. A confidence map is then calculated by comparing the contrast and entropy in the neighborhood of each pixel in both the printed document and corresponding electronic original. This results …

Estimation And Control Of The Pump Pressure Rise And Flow From Intrinsic Parameters For A Magnetically-Levitated Axial Blood Pump, Aditi Khare

Theses

An increase in the number of cardiac patients and a decrease in number of heart donors has triggered the development of artificial heart pump to support the proper functioning of the heart. There is also an increase in demand for smaller sized pumps with long term application. All these factors have stimulated the use of a magnetically-levitated rotary blood pump as Left Ventricular Assistant Devices. The demand of volume and pressure of blood varies from person to person. Moreover, the prevention of cannular ventricle collapse at suction, dependence of pump performance on its inlet, and outlet conditions has necessitated control …

Monte Carlo Modeling Of Direct X-Ray Imaging Systems, Norman Matos

Theses

We present a new model for the image-formation processes in a direct x-ray imaging system. The imaging system is composed of an x-ray source, a phantom (target) and a direct digital x-ray imager. Image-formation for this system is defined as a cascade of nine stages: (1) x-ray source photon generation, (2) photon-phantom interaction, (3) photon absorption in detector, (4) electron-hole pair generation, (5) charge collection, (6) charge spreading, (7) pixel creation, (8) addition of electronic noise, and (9) digitization. The output of the model is a raw x-ray image of the phantom with statistical properties representative of the properties of …

Physical-Virtual Workspaces, Samuel Breneman

Theses

Connecting Physical and Virtual mediums From a product design standpoint, we are encountering demands for solutions that exist between hard and soft mediums, and there is a need for workspaces that can support and connect both the physical and virtual development of such ideas. These hybrid products are bridging a gap between our physical and virtual experiences and creating new challenges as well as new solutions. In essence, they are serving to connect the tangible and the intangible aspects of our lives. My thesis is focused on the connection between the physical and virtual mediums of information and experience. I …

Subthreshold Circuits: Design, Implementation And Application, Hrishikesh Kanitkar

Theses

Digital circuits operating in the subthreshold region of the transistor are being used as an ideal option for ultra low power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) design. The use of subthreshold circuit design in cryptographic systems is gaining importance as a counter measure to power analysis attacks. A power analysis attack is a non-invasive side channel attack in which the power consumption of the cryptographic system can be analyzed to retrieve the encrypted data. A number of techniques to increase the resistance to power attacks have been proposed at algorithmic and hardware levels, but these techniques suffer from large area and power …

Kerberos Phone Secure Messenger, Nabeel Al-Saber

Theses

Security is becoming vital in today's open insecure Internet. While popular Internet enabled mobile devices are spreading widely, the security of such platforms is not maturely addressed. This research extends the popular Kerberos authentication protocol to run on mobile phones and builds a novel Kerberos Secure Phone Messenger (KSPM) on top of the protocol. Moreover, the Kerberos network authentication protocol provides user authentication and message privacy with the convenience of secret key cryptography. Such an advantage in mobile phones helps reduce the computational burden and power consumption if compared with public key cryptography. KSPM achieves high standards in terms of …

Cortical Location Of Saccadic And Vergence Oculomotor Learning Using Fmri, Yelda Alkan

Theses

Motor learning is critical to the survival of a species and changes throughout life via neuroplasticity. The brain receives most of its information about the external world via the visual system. Eye movements are used to direct the visual information of interest to the fovea, the area of the retina which has the highest density of photoreceptors, and the largest amount of cortical area. This research will study how two of the five eye movement systems utilize oculomotor learning. Saccadic eye movements are used to quickly shift the fovea to objects using conjugate movements typically used during reading. The vergence …

Structure And Thermochemistry Of Disulfide-Oxygen Species, Shyamala Pravin Pillai

Theses

Sulfur compounds are known to form aerosols that can counteract the greenhouse effect, and recent studies suggest that aerosols can also contribute to global warming; sulfur species are also known as major contributors to acid rain. Both of these atmospheric chemistry interactions involve SO₂, which is formed by oxidation of sulfur hydrocarbons and H₂S. This study describes the structure, internal rotor potentials, bond energies and determines thermochemical properties (Δ_fH°, S° and Cp(T)) on the S-S bridge system in the sulfur bridged molecules CH₃SSOH, CH₃SS(=O)H, HSSOH, HSS(=O)H and CH₃SSOCH …

Ultra-Fine Particle Formation Using Principle Of Rapid Expansion Of Supercritical Solutions`, Miraj Minesh Sheth

Theses

There are indications in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries that the reduction in size of a crystalline particle can lead to better performance of the drug compound, particularly for water insoluble drugs, in the final dosage form. Many particle formation techniques have been investigated in recent years by researchers to obtain desired particulate sizes and size distributions. Supercritical fluid technologies have been successfully investigated for particle formation due to its unique gas/liquid properties in the supereritical state. In this report, results of particle formation using the principles of Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions (RESS) have been documented.

In the RESS …

Mixing Of Nanoparticles In A Stirred Tank In High Pressure Carbon Dioxide, Nitin Aggarwal

Theses

Mixing of nanoparticles of different compositions offers wide opportunities in manufacturing new nanocomposite materials with unique electronic, optical, mechanical, and chemical properties. However, due to large cohesive forces between nanoparticles, they often form large micron-sized agglomerates, thus losing their main advantage of small size and high surface area. Therefore, breaking of these agglomerates is necessary prior to mixing. One of the techniques to achieve deagglomeration and mixing of nanoparticles is based on rapid depressurization/expansion of supercritical suspensions. where the suspension of initially premixed agglomerates in supercritical CO₂ pass through the nozzle undergoing deagglomeration as a result of rapid expansion …

A Stereoscopic System Using Knowledge Propagation To Achieve Accurate Depth Calculation, Chaitali Mulay

Theses

With the advent of the twenty first century, stereoscopic systems have found a widespread use in the engineering industry. Several biomechanical analyses utilize this concept for efficient information extraction. Some examples of its applications are gait analysis, hand shape recognition, facial surface recognition etc.

The primary goal of this thesis was to optimize the existing stereoscopic system, to increase accuracy and precision of the depth information extracted. The process included redesign of the existing equipment set-up, automation of image acquisition unit and modification of conventionally used correspondence test to achieve higher accuracy. The acquired data was used to estimate depth …

Retransmission Strategies For Moving Networks Over Ricean Fading Channels, Alex Ruiz Lee

Theses

The problem of designing retransmission protocols based on Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) for moving networks over Ricean fading channels has been considered. The scenario of interest consists of one receiver traveling at a given speed while connected to a wireless network based on OFDM (e.g., WiMax) through several base stations located along the path. Five different retransmission protocols that combine HARQ with handover between adjacent base stations are considered. Their performance in terms of number of retransmissions per packet via numerical simulations, considering both frequency selective and nonselective channels are presented. The results obtained show the relevant advantage that …

Multi Well Uni-Axial Stretch Injury Device, Mridusmita Choudhury

Theses

Most diffuse brain injury is the result of uni-axial stretch of brain axons in traumatic brain injury. Traumatic injury to axons throughout the brain and is believed to be a major cause for coma, and other complications. Diffuse axonal injury is mostly multi-focal and appears throughout the deep cortical and sub-cortical regions.

Several models have tried to replicate this phenomenon. Previous models, like the Penn model, have lower throughput as they conduct experiments on one well at a time, and it has lower reproducibility as well. The other problem with these models is that they are not very user friendly, …

Using Wavelet And Template Analysis To Classify Hand Postures In Unsupervised Daily Activities, Soha Hassan Saleh

Theses

This project's goal was to identify determinants that characterize different types of activities an individual do in daily life, knowing the quality of hand function is essential to plan more effective rehabilitation therapies and treatments for upper limb movement disorders. The first part of the project was Jebsen-Taylor study where healthy individuals and individuals with brain injury performed seven activities classified as precision grasp, cylindrical grasp, and palmar grasp while metacarpal joint angles were measured in real time. The data from those seven activities was used to determine parameters that characterize each type of activity and which might be used …

Ignition Of Metal Powder By Electrostatic Discharge Stimulation, Ervin Beloni

Theses

Energetic formulations with metal fuel additives are extensively used in propellants, explosives, pyrotechnics, and incendiaries. Currently, replacement of regular metal powders with nanocomposite metal-based materials is being considered. Such nanocomposite reactive materials are capable of very high reaction rates while maintaining the high combustion enthalpies characteristic of metals. However, such novel reactive nano-materials are often highly sensitive to impact, friction, and electrostatic discharge, making them difficult to handle. In particular, their high electrostatic discharge sensitivity (ESD) was reported. While ESD testing is very common and standardized, the mechanisms of powder ignition by electric spark remain unclear. This project is aimed …

Long Driving Hours And Health Of Truck Drivers, Stephen J. Benstowe

Theses

In recent time, the health of truck drivers has become a concern for regulatory agencies and safety professionals all over the world. Fatal and non-fatal injury rates for truck drivers are among the highest of all occupations. Truck driving is an important and tedious job. Driving for long hours, drivers are confined to a small space, sit with static lower and upper extremities posture, mentally focus and absorb vibrations.

This thesis provides an in-depth review of the literature related to the problems of long distance truck drivers and commercial motor vehicle operators. The Literature suggests that continuous exposure of truck …