Digital Commons Network^™

Molybdenum And Tungsten Metal Organic Decomposition Complex Synthesis And Characterization, Kaitlyn Clark

Theses

Synthesis and characterization of silver, molybdenum and tungsten metal organic decomposition complexes is reported. Molybdenum and tungsten are of interest, in order to expand 3D printing capabilities, by providing precursors capable of forming metal structures with superior chemical and mechanical properties. In addition to using known synthetic pathways using silver precursors, molybdenum hexacarbonyl, tungsten hexacarbonyl were reacted with three ligands: ethylenediamine, diethylenetriamine, and triethylamine to develop MOD complexes. The MOD products were characterized by NMR, FTIR and thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis. Thermal decomposition mechanisms were studied by TGA. Whereas the silver MOD complexes were found to decompose to metallic silver at …

Infomixup : An Intuitive And Information-Driven Approach To Robust Generalization, Andrew H. Meyer

Theses

The discovery of Adversarial Examples — data points which are easily recognized by humans, but which fool artificial classifiers with ease, is relatively new in the world of machine learning. Corruptions imperceptible to the human eye are often sufficient to fool state of the art classifiers. The resolution of this problem has been the subject of a great deal of research in recent years as the prevalence of Deep Neural Networks grows in everyday systems. To this end, we propose InfoMixup , a novel method to improve the robustness of Deep Neural Networks without significantly affecting performance on clean samples. …

Computational Imaging And Its Application, Helen Peng

Theses

Traditional optical imaging systems have constrained angular and spatial resolution, depth of field, field of view, tolerance to aberrations and environmental conditions, and other image quality limitations. Computational imaging provided an opportunity to create new functionality and improve the performance of imaging systems by encoding the information optically and decoding it computationally. The design of a computational imaging system balances hardware costs and the accuracy and complexity of the algorithms. In this thesis, two computational imaging systems are presented: Randomized Aperture Imaging and Laser Suppression Imaging. The former system increases the angular resolution of telescopes by replacing a continuous primary …

Coffit: An Interaction Design Project For Remote Employees To Enjoy Casual Talks And Interact With Each Other In A Virtual Environment, Yifei (Effie) Wang

Theses

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a portion of people’s way of living and forced a radical shift in working habits. Due to restrictions of non-essential travel and the need for social distancing, many companies have adopted a work-from-home policy for their employees; with some even allowing it to be a permanent move. The policy creates a number of benefits such as increased productivity, reduced commuting time costs, attracting the best talent from any location, and more. And yet challenges have appeared. Long-term remote workers frequently experience feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as a decline in …

Impacts Of Spatial Resolution And Viewing Angle On Remotely Sensed Estimates Of Spartina Alterniflora Aboveground Biomass, Avery Miller

Theses

Coastal salt marshes sequester large quantities of “blue carbon” in plant biomass and sediments, and provide numerous other valuable ecosystem functions and services. However, these ecosystems are increasingly threatened by external stressors, including rising sea levels and a changing climate, which have resulted in large losses of tidal marsh habitat. Measuring plant biomass is critical for understanding how carbon storage may be affected as stressors continue to cause marsh losses, and for improving conservation and management efforts. A number of studies have quantified aboveground biomass (AGB) in salt marshes using remote sensing techniques, and with the development of high resolution …

The Earth Disk Model: Analysis And Integration Of Protoplanetary Disk Mineralogy And Structure, William Allen Richard Grimble

Theses

Our understanding of how exoplanets form and evolve relies on analyses of both the mineralogy of protoplanetary disks and their detailed structures; however, these key complementary aspects of disks are usually studied separately. We present initial results from a hybrid model that combines the empirical characterization of the mineralogy of a disk, as determined from its mid-infrared spectral features, with the well-tested MCFOST radiative transfer disk model that takes into account realistic disk density and temperature structures, a combination we call the EaRTH Disk Model. With the results of the mineralogy detection serving as input to the radiative transfer model, …

Design Of An 8-Bit Configurable Cnn Hardware Accelerator For Audio And Image Classification, Christie Agbalessi

Theses

Picture yourself resting or attending a meeting in the back seat while your car is driving you home with all the privacy a driverless vehicle offers. Designing autonomous systems involves decoding environmental cues and making safe decisions. Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs) are the leading choices for computer vision tasks due to their high performance and scalability to pieces of hardware. They have long been run on Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) and Central Processing Units (CPUs). Yet, today, there is an urgent need to accelerate CNNs in low-power consumption hardware for real-time inference. This research aims to design a configurable hardware …

Light Scattering Studies Of Hyaluronate Solutions, Tim Mcnutt

Theses

The results of light scattering experiments on aqueous solutions of sodium hyaluronate are reported. Hyaluronate is an important component of the eye lens vitreous and many other connective tissues. The dependence of the light scattering on sodium hyaluronate molecular weight is studied and compared with a renormalization group model of polymer solution free energies. The results for the molecular weight and concentration ranges investigated fall on or near a universal scaling relationship provided by the model. This work extends previous comparisons of polyelectrolyte solutions to the same scaling relation.

World War Ii American Propaganda: The Art And Appeal Behind Women On The Domestic Front, Katherine Grace Noe

Theses

While men served their country through military duty during the second World War, women were encouraged to do their part in ways that challenged their traditional roles as the American housewife. Because so many men were off at the front, the United States government had to create new ways to manipulate and persuade American women to join the workforce. Posters and other media featured strong, relatable women and phrases that encouraged women to serve. Propaganda not only suggested how women should act, but also manipulated society’s view of women’s role in the war efforts. Most people are familiar with iconic …

Investigating Kandinsky's Inspiration From Michelangelo Buonarroti, Asal F. Morvari

Theses

This study aims to analyze Kandinsky's The Last Judgment painting and compare it with Michelangelo's The Last Judgment to show that Michelangelo's work influenced Kandinsky's painting. For this study, the mixed-methods methodology is applied, which refers to an emergent methodology of research that advances the systematic integration or combining of quantitative and qualitative analysis within a single investigation. Mathematical analysis and a review of Kandinsky's books and manuscripts are considered. Image processing analysis is applied using biorthogonal Wavelet analysis and Canny Edge detection, in conjunction with Kandinsky's writings on color theory, to determine whether Kandinsky was inspired by Michelangelo's The …

Southern African American Communities: The Portrait Photography Of Florestine Perrault Collins And Richard Samuel Roberts, Stephanie M. Woody-Groshelle

Theses

This thesis is about the portrait photographers, Florestine Perrault Collins (1895-1988) and Richard Samuel Roberts (1880-1936), and how their photographs portrayed “non-othering” representations of their sitters. Collin and Roberts’ works are compared to Southern white photographers from the Jim Crow era to argue for how “non-othering” portraits of their community members were produced. This impacts the way identity can be perceived. Religious and educational themed portraits are used to align a visually associated identity with social values the New Orleans Creole and Columbia, South Carolina communities had. This thesis considers Collins’ and Roberts’ portraits in relation to the state of …

Advanced Lease Caching, Matthew Gould

Theses

Since the dawn of computing, CPU performance has continually grown, buoyed by Moore's Law. Execution speed for parallelizable programs in particular has massively increased with the now widespread employment of GPUs, TPUs, and FPGAs, capable of preforming hundreds of computations simultaneously, for data processing. A major bottleneck for further performance increases, which has impeded speedup of sequential programming in particular, is the processor memory performance gap. One of the approaches to address this block is improving cache management algorithms. Caching is transparent to software, but traditional caching algorithms forgo hardware-software collaboration. Previous work introduced the idea of assigning leases to …

Contraband, Omer Enes Demir

Theses

Contraband is a short fiction film about a young woman’s struggle to escape from a criminal life. As she is forced to smuggle drugs during prison visits to her husband, she must decide whether to protect him or abandon him. Leaving might give her a chance to save herself and her child from this life and have a better future. The movie takes place in modern-day Los Angeles. This paper describes and analyzes my filmmaking process as the writer and director of Contraband, and how my life experience and inspirations influenced my work.

Light Directed Targeted Photodynamic Therapy Of Breast Cancer, Sara Shaut

Theses

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women besides non-melanoma skin cancer. Even when caught in early stages, the treatment for breast cancer is often accompanied by harsh and debilitating side effects. For better quality of life, treatment options that have minimal side effects but maintain effectiveness are invaluable. If such a treatment option is a targeted form of therapy, it could selectively treat cancerous cells and not healthy cells. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a relatively new light-based therapy that utilizes inherent photochemical properties of certain dyes called photosensitizers (PS) in order to kill cancerous cells. It shows great …

Towards Real-Time Classification Of Human Imagined Language, Joseph Zonghi

Theses

The primary goal of this research was to develop a system capable of predicting a given user's imagined language in real time using their brainwave data. This research analyzed both FPGA-based and software based approaches to real-time classification of imagined language. The classification was binary between English and Japanese, and a dataset containing imagined speech from both languages was also created. Another goal of this research was to consider the effects of quantization of the network weights in order to examine the resulting utilization of the FPGA to allow for other applications to run in conjunction with our proposed system. …

Hyper-Sensitive Mems Pressure Sensor Array For Microscale Bubble Pressure Measurement, Yash Rajan Rasaikar

Theses

As technology is advancing, more complex, efficient, and powerful devices are being made. These powerful devices generate a lot of heat which needs to be taken out to maximize their performance. Hence, efforts are being made to improve cooling techniques for these devices. Boiling is one such technique used in the cooling of devices. The heat transfer performance in the flow boiling systems is higher than that in pool boiling systems. With a simple add-on tapered manifold over a plain surface, we can convert pool boiling to flow boiling. This study will lead to improved performance and reliability of microelectronic …

Experimental Designs For Observing The Hong-Ou-Mandel Manifolds Using Silicon Micro-Ring Resonators, Joseph Monteleone Iii

Theses

We propose three experimental designs for observing the Hong-Ou-Mandel Manifolds using silicon micro-ring resonators. These experimental designs tackle the challenges of producing and coupling identical photon pairs to be incident on a silicon micro-ring resonator, and they describe methods of photon observation. We experimentally characterized a silicon micro-ring resonator with Mach-Zehnder Interferometer couplers. We modified the Hong-Ou-Mandel Manifold theory to include these realistic Mach-Zehnder Interferometer couplers, and computationally predict new manifold structures based on experimental power transmission spectrum comparisons. We also characterized a packaged foundry-fabricated silicon spiral photon pair source to be used as a possible identical photon pair source.

Revisiting Ad-Hoc Polymorphism, Apurav Khare

Theses

Ad-hoc polymorphism is a type of polymorphism where different function definitions can be given the same name. Programming languages utilize constructs like Type classes and Object classes to provide a mechanism for implementing ad-hoc polymorphism. System O, by Odersky, Wadler, and Wehr is a language which defines a dynamic semantics that supports ad-hoc polymorphism. It also describes static type checking for its programs and a transformation to the Hindley/Milner system. In this study, we present extensions to System O by defining constructs that make the language more practical to use. We utilize the dynamic semantics to define the ability to …

Synthesis Of Modular Do3a-Based High-Relaxivity Contrast Agents For Mri Of Prostate Cancer, Dana Qiang Murphy Soika

Theses

Contrast agents (CAs) are small molecules used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to help diagnose various forms of cancer. While MRI is advantageous over other clinical imaging techniques, limitations of today’s contrast agents containing gadolinium (Gd) hinder their safety, sensitivity, and specificity. The conventional CAs that MRI relies on are considered low-relaxivity and are not optimally effective at enhancing MR signal. Additionally, they lack cell-specificity and circulate throughout the body. Furthermore, unbound Gd3+ is nephrogenic which prevents its use in patients with impaired renal function. In the clinic, these limitations mean high dosages of these compounds must be administered to …

Methods For Quantifying Power Characteristics And Chronic Patterns Of Use Behavior Of Electronic Vaping Products, Qutaiba M. Saleh

Theses

Background: The complexity and variety of inhaled tobacco products have increased significantly with the introduction of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS). Product characteristics and human behavior are the main factors affecting products' emissions, consumption, and health effects. Combining the understanding of these two factors informs the next generation of regulations of these products. Quantifying use patterns helps health care professionals provide informed treatment of users addicted to nicotine and tobacco products. The literature lacks comprehensive studies to characterize ENDS hardware and operation, such as heating element resistance, battery performance, power, and thermal management. Human behavior is measured as use topography, …

Learning Representations In The Hyperspectral Domain In Aerial Imagery, Aneesh Rangnekar

Theses

We establish two new datasets with baselines and network architectures for the task of hyperspectral image analysis. The first dataset, AeroRIT, is a moving camera static scene captured from a flight and contains per pixel labeling across five categories for the task of semantic segmentation. The second dataset, RooftopHSI, helps design and interpret learnt features on hyperspectral object detection on scenes captured from an university rooftop. This dataset accounts for static camera, moving scene hyperspectral imagery. We further broaden the scope of our understanding of neural networks with the development of two novel algorithms - S4AL and S4AL+. We develop …

Mathematical Modeling Of Seir Model With Generalized Incidence Function And The Extension To Covid-19 Model, Shymaa Mohammad Dadoa

Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic had shown the importance of the SEIR model in predicting the outcome of the disease spread and to find the best strategies to contain the pandemic. As this type of model has a limited number of compartments, many other models were derived from the SEIR model to cover, to the maximum, the complex dynamics of the disease spread. These extensions of the SEIR model bring natural validity questions: How can we validate these models? and how far/close are these extended models from giving us real insights into the pandemic?

This thesis investigates the SEIR epidemic model and …

Data-Driven Equations For Coevolving Network Systems, Nicholas John

Theses

The framework of coevolving networks is a tool to model large-scale interacting dynamical systems undergoing change in connective structure, describing phenomena such as epidemic spreading on social networks with individuals changing their connections to avoid infection. Along with direct computational simulation, coevolving network systems are often formulated in terms of systems of ordinary differential equations in their descriptive statistics. The equation approach reduces the computational burden of analyzing the systems, but deriving equations becomes difficult as the underlying model becomes more complicated and as the desire for accuracy increases. We present an approach to construct equations for coevolving network systems …

Development Of Soil Microbial Community Structure In Created And Natural Wetlands, Wendy A. Owens

Theses

Wetlands are ecologically and economically important, providing ecosystem services such as biogeochemical cycling, carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, and wildlife habitat. Many of these services are the result of the unique microbial communities found in wetlands. Degradation and destruction of wetlands, from direct human development or indirect stressors caused by climate change, pollution, or invasive species, disrupts community structure and provision of services. Although restoration has been adopted as a mechanism to counteract net loss of function, the success rate in achieving functional equivalence with natural wetlands is low. To improve wetland conservation and outcomes for wetland creation, a better understanding …

A Method For Measuring Puffing And Respiratory Parameters Of Tobacco Users Within Their Natural Usage Environment, Shehan Jayasekera

Theses

Background: Although researchers have investigated the puffing behavior of tobacco products, no attempt has yet been made to observe both puffing and respiratory behaviors simultaneously in the natural use environment. Observation of puffing behavior alone is insufficient for predicting the health effects of tobacco use, as it can only be used to estimate the amount of emissions generated and transferred to the oral cavity. Respiration behavior must be observed for the estimation of delivery and retention of nicotine and other HPHCs in the lungs. Parameters that quantify respiratory behavior include inhalation and exhalation volumes, flow rates, and durations, as well …

Identification Of The Conserved Genes Required To Form Large Tailed Virus Particles, Sara Moran

Theses

“Giant” phages are bacterial viruses with genomes >200kb with hundreds of genes. The greater level of genetic and structural complexity of giant phages is poorly defined because the functions of many genes are unknown. My research focused on the giant phage SPN3US which infects the foodborne pathogen Salmonella enterica. Early studies indicated that SPN3US had potential to create a genetic model system which could be used to assign functions to novel giant phage genes. Since the number of giant phage genomes in GenBank has recently increased dramatically, my research focused on reassessing our hypothesis. My research showed that ~41% of …

An Investigation Of Novel Object Recognition Memory In A North American River Otter (Lontra Canadensis), Jessica J. Wegman

Theses

Memory is the mental processes of receiving and storing information for later retrieval, with long-term memories being those that are stored longer than 30 seconds. Little research has been done to investigate memory in any of the 13 species of otters. Object recognition memory has the potential to aid otters in identifying conspecifics, prey, and predators, which would contribute to better survival and fitness. Object recognition memory has been investigated in many non-human animals using the novel object recognition (NOR) task. This study was the first to investigate long-term object recognition memory in the North American river otter using the …

Clean Deconvolution Of Radio Pulsar Pulses, Olivia Young

Theses

Broadband radio waves emitted from pulsars are distorted as they propagate toward Earth due to interactions with the free electrons that comprise the interstellar medium (ISM). Irregularities in the ISM cause multipath propagation of the wavefronts along the line of sight toward Earth, with lower radio frequencies being more greatly impacted than higher frequencies. These delays result in later times of arrival for the lower frequencies and cause the observed pulse to arrive with a broadened tail, which can be described using a pulse broadening function. CLEAN deconvolution, as outlined in Bhat et al. (2003) for use in pulsar scattering …

On Uncertainty Propagation In Image-Guided Renal Navigation: Exploring Uncertainty Reduction Techniques Through Simulation And In Vitro Phantom Evaluation, Peter Jackson

Theses

Image-guided interventions (IGIs) entail the use of imaging to augment or replace direct vision during therapeutic interventions, with the overall goal is to provide effective treatment in a less invasive manner, as an alternative to traditional open surgery, while reducing patient trauma and shortening the recovery time post-procedure. IGIs rely on pre-operative images, surgical tracking and localization systems, and intra-operative images to provide correct views of the surgical scene. Pre-operative images are used to generate patient-specific anatomical models that are then registered to the patient using the surgical tracking system, and often complemented with real-time, intra-operative images. IGI systems are …

Using Gmos Spectroscopy To Study Star Formation And Agn In The Candels Cosmos And Uds Fields, Isabella G. Cox

Theses

Spectroscopic measurements of galaxies can help us to better understand their properties. Spectroscopy allows for the measurement of spectroscopic redshifts, which have better precision than redshifts derived from photometry. Precise redshifts are needed to eliminate distance un- certainties when deriving distance-dependent properties of galaxies. Additionally, spectroscopy provides insight into the physical state and processes within a galaxy, such as its rate of on- going star formation, its chemical abundance, and the properties of the interstellar medium within the galaxy. Spectroscopy is particularly powerful when coupled with broad, multiwavelength photometric data. The five extragalactic fields from the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep …