Digital Commons Network^™

Low-Rank Multivariate General Linear Model And One-Way Random Effect Models For Brain Response Analysis, Yidan Yang

Theses

Human brain is the central organ of human nervous system, the activity in brain becomes a significant topic in neuroscience and medical science field. New techniques for detecting brain regions activity has been developed very fast in recent year, a basic method is functional MRIs which can measure brain activities based on oxygen level in bloodstream. This work will introduce a new approach to analyze brain region relationships through low-rank multivariate general linear model and one-way random effect model. By using fMRI and low-rank multivariate general liner model, this model contains a new penalized optimization function, which can lead to …

Prediction Of Treatment Target For Ventricular Tachycardia Using Multi-Task Machine Learning, Vishwanath Raman

Theses

Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is a type of abnormally fast heart rate that arises from abnormal electrical conductivity in the ventricles of the heart. Most VTs involve an abnormal origin of electrical activation inside the ventricles. An effective way to treat VT is catheter ablation that destroys the origin of VT by radiofrequency energy. To accurately localize the origin of VT therefore is an important factor for the success of ablation therapy. An Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a recording of the electrical activity of the heart with features that correspond to stages in the cardiac conduction system. Earlier works have shown that …

Development Of Topography Monitors For Inhaled Nicotine Delivery Systems, Samantha "Emma" Sarles

Theses

Significance – Tobacco related disease is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. The global inhaled tobacco product market is rapidly evolving as new products such as ‘electronic cigarettes’ and ‘heat not burn’ grow in popularity around the world. It is not yet fully understood whether these relatively recent tobacco products will have a negative, neutral, or positive impact on public health in the USA and around the world. This thesis is focused on the design, development, and deployment of a family of monitors which can be deployed with users in their natural environment to better understand …

Sustainability Implications Of Consumer Electronics Adoption In The United States, Shahana Althaf

Theses

High rates of technological innovation and consumer adoption in the consumer electronics sector has led to increasing concerns about the potential implications on resource consumption and waste generation. Despite growing public and policy attention on recycling as a strategy to curb resource demand and waste management impacts, less than 50 percent of end-of-life electronics are recovered for recycling in the U.S. A critical barrier to sustainable management of electronics is the lack of data and tools to proactively estimate consumption and waste flows, to create solutions that respond to the dynamic nature of this product sector. For sustainable solutions to …

Analyzing Binary Black Hole Spacetimes, Jam Sadiq

Theses

With the first ever detection of gravitational waves from merging black-hole binaries by LIGO (Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory), a new era of gravitational wave astronomy was started. With its increased sensitivity, LIGO will see many more black-hole binaries in the future. To detect the gravitational waves and elucidate the properties of their sources, one needs theoretical waveform templates. These, in turn, require solving Einstein field equations, at least approximately. Approximate techniques like post-Newtonian theory and black-hole perturbation theory can produce waveforms that are accurate for certain phases of binaries evolution. Numerical relativity, on the other hand, can in principle produce …

Clean Transportation: Effects Of Heterogeneity And Technological Progress On Ev Costs And Co2 Abatement, And Assessment Of Public Ev Charging Stations, Ranjit R. Desai

Theses

The advent of Electric Vehicles (EV) in the private transportation sector is viewed as a means of reducing emissions and making significant efforts towards reducing climate change impacts. However, when it comes to adopting and/or promoting a new technology through subsidies, the consumers’ needs are seldom given significant attention. Moreover, most analyses informing policy making assess the potential of new and cleaner technologies like EVs based on an average consumer’s needs and behavior. Given heterogeneity, these analyses miss subpopulations that benefit (or lose) more than an average consumer. In fact, private transportation greatly depends upon how the diversity of consumers …

Autocorrelation Reduction And Consistency Analysis Of Correlation For Human Brain Activity Data, Xiaowen Zhou

Theses

In recent years, the number of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on human brain activity has increased rapidly, which has become a hot topic in medical and academic fields. The autocorrelation and correlation problems in the time series of human brain activity have also become an important research direction. It is found that there are relative residuals in the time series of human brain activity processed by smoothing splines. To solve this problem, B-spline is used to smooth the curve. By choosing the right knots, a better smoothness method to process the human brain activity data is provided. …

Crime Scene Blood Evidence Detection Using Spectral Imaging, Jie Yang

Theses

Blood is the key evidence for forensic investigation because it carries critical information to help reconstruct the crime scene, confirm or exclude a suspect, and analyze the timing of a crime. Conventional bloodstain detection uses chemical methods. Those methods require cautious sample preparations. They are destructive to samples in principle. Some of them are carcinogenic to investigators. They require experienced investigators and constrained conditions. Spectral imaging methods are an emerging technique for bloodstain detection in forensic science. It provides a non-destructive, non-contact, non-toxic, and real-time methodology for presumptive bloodstain searching, either in the field or in the laboratory.

This thesis …

Multiple Identity Tracking And Motion Extrapolation, Ashley Buck

Theses

Multiple Identity Tracking (MIT) is a paradigm in which individuals track the location and identity of moving objects in the environment. The first goal of the present study was to determine if individuals are able to extrapolate the position of moving objects and their identities while objects are occluded. There is conflicting research on the source of a decline in tracking ability. Either the amount of time an object is occluded for, or the distance an object moved during an occlusion (i.e., displaced) could equate to a decrease in performance. The present study aimed to evaluate which variable (occlusion time …

The Dynamic Roles Of Red Blood Cell In Microcirculation, Sitong Zhou

Theses

Erythrocytes (otherwise known as red blood cells (RBCs)), are the most common cell type in the body. They are responsible for oxygen (O2) transportation as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange. Different from most cells, red cells have no nuclei in mammals due to the enucleation during the maturation. The structure of erythrocytes was shown to have a phospholipid bilayer membrane, membrane proteins and cell skeleton. It provides the stability that RBCs need for the circulation in the body systems. Also, this well-established structure makes it possible for them to accomplish ion and gas exchange, which therefore keeps the osmolality …

Methodology For The Integration Of Optomechanical System Software Models With A Radiative Transfer Image Simulation Model, Keegan S. Mccoy

Theses

Stray light, any unwanted radiation that reaches the focal plane of an optical system, reduces image contrast, creates false signals or obscures faint ones, and ultimately degrades radiometric accuracy. These detrimental effects can have a profound impact on the usability of collected Earth-observing remote sensing data, which must be radiometrically calibrated to be useful for scientific applications. Understanding the full impact of stray light on data scientific utility is of particular concern for lower cost, more compact imaging systems, which inherently provide fewer opportunities for stray light control. To address these concerns, this research presents a general methodology for integrating …

Utility Analysis For Optimizing Compact Adaptive Spectral Imaging Systems For Subpixel Target Detection Applications, Sanghui Han

Theses

Since the development of spectral imaging systems where we transitioned from panchromatic, single band images to multiple bands, we

have pursued a way to evaluate the quality of spectral images. As spectral imaging capabilities improved and the bands collected wavelengths outside of the visible spectrum they could be used to gain information about the earth such as material identification that would have been a challenge with panchromatic images. We now have imaging systems capable of collecting images with hundreds of contiguous bands across the reflective portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that allows us to extract information at subpixel levels. Prediction …

The Role Of Insurance Agents In The Prevention Of Environmental Loss And Damage, Leslie Ellen Arnold

Theses

Over the past several decades, businesses have been placed under great pressure from government and the public to avoid environmental loss and damages. To mitigate environmental loss and damages, companies purchase environmental insurance, which protects companies from direct financial liability and transfers the risk to the insurance agency. Thus, insurance companies to have a vested interest in preventing payouts to businesses by ensuring that their clients protect against environmental losses.

Past literature in the field of environmental management has paid little attention to the role of insurance companies and their agents in the prevention of environmental loss and damage. However, …

Annealing Of Fused Filament Fabricated Nylon 6 With Elevated Isostatic Pressure, Anthony G. Tantillo

Theses

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is the most common form of 3D-printing used today. It combines ease-of-use with broad material options that allow for a wide spectrum of applications. Parts made this way are still considered only prototypes due to their relatively weak strength as compared to traditional manufacturing methods. Two factors leading to a decrease in strength are the interior voids and poor bonding roads. A chamber was created to implement pressurized annealing cycles on nylon 6 co-polymer parts to decrease interior voids and increase road bonding. A designed experiment was used to determine main effect parameter estimates for five …

Exploration Of Gpu Cache Architectures Targeting Machine Learning Applications, Gerald Kotas

Theses

The computation power from graphics processing units (GPUs) has become prevalent in many fields of computer engineering. Massively parallel workloads and large data set capabilities make GPUs an essential asset in tackling today's computationally intensive problems. One field that benefited greatly with the introduction of GPUs is machine learning. Many applications of machine learning use algorithms that show a significant speedup on a GPU compared to other processors due to the massively parallel nature of the problem set. The existing cache architecture, however, may not be ideal for these applications. The goal of this thesis is to determine if a …

Accessibility Lab #1: Audio Cues, Jan Guillermo

Theses

An increasingly large number of people with disabilities are using software nowadays. However, much of the software created today is inaccessible to people with disabilities. The WorldWideWeb Consortium (W3C) and many other well-known companies have provided the best practices of creating accessible software. Unfortunately, developers either struggle to sympathize with accessibility issues, do not know the best practices of accessibility design, or both. Hence, there is a need to teach developers about accessibility and how to create accessible software. Unfortunately, accessibility is not widely taught in education.

The Accessibility Learning Labs (ALL) were created to address the limitation of readily …

Numerical Model To Predict Hemolysis And Transport In A Membrane-Based Microfluidic Device, Matthew D. Poskus

Theses

Microfluidics has become an increasingly popular tool in the design and development of medical devices and artificial organs. Two promising applications of microfluidics are dialyzers and oxygenators. As a step toward portable dialysis treatment, continuous microfluidic dialysis may resolve many clinical issues with current dialysis treatments. Additionally, commercially available oxygenators exceed the blood volume of neonatal patients; low-volume microfluidic devices may safely deliver oxygen to these patients. Two critical parameters in the development of these devices is mechanical hemolysis and membrane diffusion, which are intricately connected to the geometry, flow rate, properties of the membrane, and each other. A computational …

An Exploration Of Emirati Parents’ Involvement In Their Children’S English Reading Of Primary Grades: A Mixed-Method Study, Shaikha Mohammed Ali Saeed

Theses

This study aimed at exploring the Emirati parents’ involvement in their children’s English reading in primary grades (1 through 3). The Study used an Explanatory Sequential Mixed Method Design. In the first phase of the study, a questionnaire (PIQ) was distributed to parents (n=498) who have children in those grades. In the second phase of the study, parents (n=10) were interviewed with regards to their involvement with their children in English language reading. The study found that: Parents have high involvement in their children’s English reading. Parents also reported high involvement in terms of communication, followed by involvement in academic …

Automatic Cancer Tissue Detection Using Multispectral Photoacoustic Imaging, Kamal Jnawali

Theses

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have become increasingly popular in recent years because of their ability to tackle complex learning problems such as object detection, and object localization. They are being used for a variety of tasks, such as tissue abnormalities detection and localization, with an accuracy that comes close to the level of human predictive performance in medical imaging. The success is primarily due to the ability of CNNs to extract the discriminant features at multiple levels of abstraction.

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a promising new modality that is gaining significant clinical potential. The availability of a large dataset of …

Design Of A Multiband Stacked Microstrip Patch Antenna For Satellite Communications Application, Hadef Ahmed Alshamsi

Theses

In this thesis, a multiband stacked patch antenna for satellite communications is proposed. Since handheld devices used for satellite communications are mainly monopole antennas, this thesis explores the possibilities of developing a microstrip patch antenna that can be integrated in the satellite communications’ handheld devices. Therefore, a designed antenna for satellite communications that operates around the two bands 1.487 GHz and 1.578 GHz is proposed. The antenna composes of two stacked patches with total dimensions of 45 x 45 mm and 40 x 40 mm for the lower and upper patches, respectively, separated by FR_4 as a dielectric material. The …

Exploring The Effectiveness Of Privacy Preserving Classification In Convolutional Neural Networks, Prathibha Rama

Theses

A front-runner in modern technological advancement, machine learning relies heavily on the use of personal data. It follows that, when assessing the scope of confidentiality for machine learning models, understanding the potential role of encryption is critical. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are a subset of artificial feed-forward neural networks tailored specifically for image recognition and classification. As the popularity of CNN increases, so too does the need for privacy preserving classification. Homomorphic Encryption (HE) refers to a cryptographic system that allows for computation on encrypted data to obtain an encrypted result such that, when decrypted, the result is the same …

Joint Source-Channel Coding For Image Transmission Over Underlay Multichannel Cognitive Radio Networks, Long Pham

Theses

The increasing prominence of wireless applications exacerbates the problem of radio spectrum scarcity and promotes the usage of Cognitive Radio (CR) in wireless networks. With underlay dynamic spectrum access, CRs can operate alongside Primary Users, the incumbent of a spectrum band, as long as they limit the interference to the Primary Users below a certain threshold. Multimedia streaming transmissions face stringent Quality of Services constraints on top of the CR interference constraints, as some packets in the data stream have higher levels of importance and are the most vulnerable to packet loss over the channel. This raises a need for …

Etching Processes For Gan Nanowire Fabrication And Single Photon Emitter Device Application, Gildas Ouin

Theses

As they have exhibited great potential for light emitting devices, Gallium Nitride (GaN) nanowire (NW)-based devices have attracted a lot of interest over recent years. Ultra-thin GaN NWs can be used to manufacture many novel devices for future communication and encryption systems, such as single photon emitters (SPEs). However, the conventional growth techniques have limitations in terms of manufacturability, creating the need to explore top-down, etch reliant GaN NW fabrication processes.

This work focuses on improving the fabrication methods for top-down GaN nanowires and lay out a potential process for the manufacturing of SPEs. Using a combination of dry and …

Task Scheduling Balancing User Experience And Resource Utilization On Cloud, Sultan Mira

Theses

Cloud computing has been gaining undeniable popularity over the last few years. Among many techniques enabling cloud computing, task scheduling plays a critical role in both efficient resource utilization for cloud service providers and providing an excellent user experience to the clients. In this study, we proposed a priority cloud task scheduling approach that considers users input to calculate priority, while at the same time, efficiently utilizes available resources. This approach is designed for the consideration of both user satisfaction and utilization of cloud services. In the proposed approach, clients will be required to input their time and cost preferences …

Attracting Investment From Kosovar Diaspora, Dritëro Bajrami

Theses

The economy of Kosovo for decades has been fueled by remittances sent from Kosovar diaspora. These remittances have improved the standard of living in Kosovo, however, the full potential of diaspora for economic development of Kosovo has not been utilized properly by Kosovo’s institutions. Thus, this study focuses on analyzing the current framework of institutions in Kosovo that aim to translate the contribution of diaspora from sending remittances, which in short term increases the budget of their families, to direct investments that have an impact in the overall economy of Kosovo. Using both primary and secondary data this study will …

The Feasibility Of Conducting Epidemiological Studies In Kosovo, Anila Abazi

Theses

Environmental pollution remains a salient global problem because of the impacts it has on climate change, economic activity and human health. Increases in the level of pollutants such as PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2 and O3 have been correlated with increases in the number of people diagnosed with various respiratory, circulatory diseases and cancers as well as death from these diseases. Therefore, for policymakers to be able to address this issue, a plethora of epidemiological studies, using time-series and longitudinal data, have been conducted in different countries to study the linkage between health and environmental pollution. The results from these …

Comparative Analysis Of Parallel Vs Series Hybrid Electric Powertrains, Ahmed Zia Sheikh

Theses

In the United States, more than a quarter of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions (27%) are attributed to the transportation sector which comprises mainly of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICE). To reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and the resulting GHG emissions associated with conventional ICE vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles are being promoted as a viable near-term vehicle technology. This paper is a comparative experimental study of two types of hybrid systems: parallel (also known as plug-in hybrid) and series (also known as extended-range electric) hybrid systems. The two hybrid systems are modelled on an electric bicycle platform and …

Adding Renewables To The Grid: Effects Of Storage And Stochastic Forecasting, Naga Srujana Goteti

Theses

The electricity sector contributes to a quarter of global greenhouse emissions, and managing its evolution is a critical sustainability challenge. The context for the development and operation of electricity grids has dramatically changed in recent years. Wind and solar power have become much less expensive. Lower costs combined with increased policy action to address carbon emissions is leading to substantial shares of electricity generated by intermittent renewables. Maintaining a stable electricity supply with intermittency is a critical challenge; storage and natural gas are possible solutions. While policymakers promote storage as green grid technology, low-cost natural gas from hydrofracturing extraction raises …

Functional Comparison Of Current Software Tools For Genomic Assembly From High Throughput Sequencing Data, Lars J. Olsen

Theses

De novo genomic sequencing, which is the process of discovering the sequence of a genome which has not previously been elucidated, provides unique challenges, especially for larger genomes. Modern high-throughput sequencing technologies have addressed the issue of covering the entire genome in a reasonable time by fragmenting the genome into portions that can be examined in a massively-parallel approach. While these have saved considerable time and cost for the chemical process of determining the sequence of a genome, they result in sets of many tens of millions of sequence fragments called reads, each of which is typically on the order …

Breaking The Stigma: Major Depressive Disorder, Joanna Cox

Theses

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a mood and mental disorder affecting the brain; it is caused by the reduction of three monoamine neurotransmitters: serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine (Rot, M. A., Mathew, S. J., & Charney, D. S. 2009). MDD is one of the world’s most common mental disorders, affecting a predicted 4% of the world’s population and roughly 16.1 million adults in United States alone (Major Depression. 2019; Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. 2018). The concentrations of these neurotransmitters are reduced in the brains of people with MDD due to their increased reabsorption from synapses in the brain back into …