Digital Commons Network^™

Corrosion Performance Of Concrete Cylinder Piles, Kingsley Lau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Concrete cylinder piles produced by a centrifugally cast, vibrated, roller compacted process have shown promising corrosion durability in marine environments. Three bridges in the Florida Panhandle with approximately 40 years of service in aggressive marine service were examined. A newly constructed marine bridge utilizing concrete cylinder piles was also examined to verify corrosion performance of piles manufactured with modern building materials and construction compared to piles built several decades ago. Survey of the marine bridges showed minimal corrosion distress despite low design concrete cover to steel hoop reinforcements (20-40 mm). Typical concrete distress included minor rust staining but not necessarily …

Area Access Control Systems: Zone Management And Personnel Tracking, Bharath Natarajan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Area access control is defined as the process of mediating requests to enter a physical area through one or more entry points. Area access control database systems are the collections of information required for an access control system to access, query, retrieve and match real time user inputs with persistent data to ensure the integrity of the resources it protects. This thesis presents an object oriented approach to the design and implementation of a centralized area access control database system and focuses on two features, zone management and personnel tracking. Zone management is defined as the process of hierarchically …

Integrated Pricing And Seat Allowance For Airline Network Revenue Management, Baskar Mohan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The airline industry is facing unprecedented challenges in generating sufficient revenues to stay in business. Airlines must capture the greatest revenue yield from every flight by leaving no seats unsold and not over filling the cabin with discount fares. To succeed in doing the above airlines must be able to accurately forecast each of their market segments, manage product andprice availability to maximize revenue and react quickly to competitive changes in the market place. Thus seat inventory control and ticket pricing form the two major tools of revenue management. The focus of this paper is to consolidate the ideas of …

Organic Vapor Sensing Using High Frequency Thickness Shear Mode Resonators, Randolph Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors, also known as quartz crystal micro-balances (QCM) are a class of acoustic wave sensors that have been used for gas/vapor sensing. Fast and sensitive chemical vapor sensing, specifically of hydrocarbon vapors is an important application for these vapor sensors. The TSM sensors typically used have a lower sensitivity compared with other acoustic wave sensors. This thesis describes the development of high sensitivity organic vapor sensors using thin polymer film coatings on TSM devices. Commercially available AT-quartz TSM devices were milled leaving a thin quartz membrane surrounded by a thicker outer ring. This resulted in an …

Implant Annealing Of Al Dopants In Silicon Carbide Using Silane Overpressure, Shailaja P. Rao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to develop a post-implantation annealing process in silicon carbide (SiC). Due to the low diffusivities of dopants in SiC, even at temperatures in excess of 2000°C, diffusion is not a suitable process to achieve selective, planar doping. Ion implantation is therefore the most suitable means for achieving selective doping in SiC crystals. The strong covalent bonding in SiC requires that selective doping be performed via high-energy ion implantation. As a consequence of the high ion energy and flux, there is considerable lattice damage to the crystal surface. To repair the damage caused by the …

A Web100-Dummynet Testbed For Education And Research In Transport Layer Protocols, Steven Bassi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With recent developments in technology broadening the complexity and performance issues of computer networks, more work is being put into studying the behavior of network protocols under various new environments. As it stands today, TCP is the dominant protocol for communicating over the Internet. It has been shown to be reliable and efficient in the relatively low-bandwidth networks it was designed for. With the increasing availability of high-speed optical, wireless, and ad hoc networks, more research is being done to study new TCP variants that will perform well under these new environments. In order to perform such work, researchers require …

A Fuzzy Logic Based Controller To Provide End-To-End Congestion Control For Streaming Media Applications, Bay Pavlick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The stability of the Internet is at risk if the amount of voice and video traffic continues to increase at the current pace. While current transport layer protocols do work well for most applications, they still present some problems. TCP is reliable, tracks the state of some network conditions and reacts drastically to an indication of congestion. TCP serves data-oriented applications very well but it can lead to unacceptably low quality for streaming applications by multiplicatively reducing the congestion window upon a sign of congestion. The other main transport layer protocol, UDP, provides good service for streaming applications but is …

Analysis Of Statnamic Load Test Data Using A Load Shed Distribution Model, Sonia L. Lowry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the field of civil engineering, particularly structural foundations, low-cost options and time saving construction methods are important because both can be a burden on the public. Drilled shafts have proven to both lower cost and shorten construction time for large-scale projects. However, their integrity as load-carrying foundations has been questioned. The statnamic load test was conceived in the 1980s as an alternative method of testing these larger, deeper foundation elements. Performing a load test verifies that the load carrying capacity of a foundation is agreeable with the estimated capacity during the design phase and that no significant anomalies occurred …

Effects Of Using Graphing Calculators With A Numerical Approach On Students’ Learning Of Limits And Derivatives In An Applied Calculus Course At A Community College, Arumugam Muhundan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of using graphing calculators with a numerical approach designed by the researcher on students learning of limits and derivatives in an Applied Calculus course at a community college. The purposes of this study were to investigate the following: (1) students achievement in solving limit problems (Skills, Concepts, and Applications) with a numerical approach compared to that of students who solved limit problems with a traditional approach (primarily an algebraic approach); and (2) students achievement in solving derivative problems (Skills, Concepts, and Applications) with a numerical approach compared to that of students who solved derivative problems …

Human Umbilical Cord Blood Cells Migration To Stroke Cns Tissue Extracts And The Potential Cytokines And Chemokines Involved, Mary B. Newman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) cells consist of a heterogeneous population of cells, rich in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. These cells have been used in the treatment of various nonmalignant and malignant hematopoietic diseases. With in the last few years HUCB cells have been used in pre-clinical animal models of brain and spinal cord injuries, in which functional recovery has been shown. The properties of cord blood cells that could be important in cell transplantation (repair or replacement) of CNS injury or disease are currently being evaluated. The major focus of this study was to determine whether HUCB cells …

Virtual Cadaver Navigation System: Using Virtual Reality For Learning Human Anatomy, Abhijit V. Lothe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of virtual reality (VR) for visualization can revolutionize medical training by simulating real world medical training procedures through intuitive and engaging user interface. Existing virtual reality based visualization systems for human anatomy are based on 3D surface and volumetric models and simulative systems based on model libraries. The visual impact as well as facilitation for learning are inadequate in such systems. This thesis research is aimed at eliminating such inadequacies by developing a non-immersive virtual reality system framework for storage, access and navigation of real human cadaveric data. Based on this framework, a real time software system called …

Performance Optimization In Three-Dimensional Programmable Logic Arrays (Plas), Supriya Sunki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increased chip size and reduced feature size has helped following Moores law for long decades. This has an impact on interconnect length, which is resulting in chip performance degradation. Despite the introduction of new materials with Low-K dielectrics for interconnects, their delay is expected to substantially limit the chip performance. To overcome this problem the need for new technology has arrived. One such promising technology is the three-dimensional Integrated chips (3D ICs) with multiple silicon layers.

In this thesis, three dimensional integrated chip (3D IC) technology has been implemented on programmable logic arrays (PLAs). The two-dimensional PLAs are converted to …

Design And Test Of Lead-Zirconate-Titanate Flexural Plate Wave Based Actuators, Sriram Akella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current MEMS development is driven by the need to develop various 'Miniaturized Total Chemical Analysis Systems ([mu]TAS), biological and chemical sensing, drug delivery, molecular separation, microfiltration, amplification, and sequencing systems. In this work, the use of flexural plate wave devices as an actuator has been investigated.

This research was done with the aim of developing a platform to build FPW devices for use in System-On-Chip applications. It is well known that acoustic forces generated by a flexural plate wave (FPW) device can cause fluid motion, by the principle of acoustic streaming. Also the proven ability of FPW devices to cause …

Multi-Agent Workload Control And Flexible Job Shop Scheduling, Zuobao Wu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the make-to-order (MTO) industry, offering competitive due dates and on-time delivery for customer orders is important to the survival of MTO companies. Workload control is a production planning and control approach designed to meet the need of the MTO companies. In this dissertation, a multi-agent workload control methodology that simultaneously deals with due date setting, job release and scheduling is proposed to discourage job early or tardy completions. The earliness and tardiness objectives are consistent with the just-in-time production philosophy which has attracted significant attention in both industry and academic community. This methodology consists of the order entry agent, …

Iontophoretic Trans-Dermal Drug Delivery Through Sweat Glands, Vardan Ter-Antonyan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although an iontophoretic trans-dermal drug delivery is known as an effective means for drug transportation through the human skin, it is not widely used because of the various side effects that come to life due to a high applied voltage of up to 80V. This study introduces an alternative means of drug transportation through the skin by means of sweat gland activation and reduction of an applied voltage to ensure that the iontophoresis is safe. The skin conductance studies performed on the pulmar area using 50mM of NaCl showed that the activation of sweat glands led to the increase of …

Dissertations: Past, Present, And Future, Matthew D. Barton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current policies and traditions regulating the dissertation process are responsible for a devaluation of dissertations and fail to recognize the economic and technological developments wrought by the emerging Internet. Some of the problems with the current process involve ideology, such as the insistence that dissertations be single-authored, original, and owned by someone. Others involve adherence to traditions that no longer serve a useful purpose, such as forcing authors to conform to a format better suited to a printed book than an online project. Finally, economical considerations such as the costs involved with purchasing and training authors to use advanced technology …

Robust Algorithms For Property Recovery In Motion Modeling, Medical Imaging And Biometrics, Yong Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The past two decades has witnessed growing interest in physics based techniques in computer vision, computer graphics and medical imaging. The main advantage of a physical model is its mathematical rigor and physical soundness, which makes it an ideal tool to study complex nonrigid motion. However, since a model based on continuum mechanics is computationally demanding, an idealized framework is often adopted where physical motion parameters are significantly simplified, which inevitably affects the accuracy and reliability of modeling results.

In this study, a new modeling approach is developed that features the reconstruction of actual material properties such as the Young's …

Metallic To Insulating Transition In Disordered Pulsed Laser Deposited Silicide Thin Films, Houssam Abou Mourad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A metal-to-insulating transition has been observed in iron, iron oxide, iron silicide and cobalt silicide thin films when deposited on Si substrate with a native SiOx layer. This transition produced a change in resistance of 5 orders of magnitude at a temperature of 250 K. To the best of the author's knowledge, this effect has not been reported in the literature prior to this study. This work reports a systematic experimental investigation carried out to understand the fundamental mechanism involved in the manifestation of this metal-to-insulator transition. The films were deposited using the pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) in a …

Hiv/Aids Workplace Interventions In South Africa And The United States, Joel Christian Reed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the private sector response to the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and the United States (US) in multinational businesses and corporations. From an epidemiological perspective HIV/AIDS and its co infections cause acute and chronic illness in the workforce leading to programs and interventions of various complexity and effectiveness. Workforce HIV/AIDS epidemiology in South Africa and the US is reviewed and discussed. From a critical medical anthropology perspective multinational corporations are political and economic entities with immense resources and power over people, communities, and governments globally. …

Incorporating Surficial Aquifer Ground-Water Fluxes Into Surface-Water Resource Management Studies, John Mccary

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For surface-water resource management studies, it is important to quantify all of the mechanisms that contribute to water quantity and influence water quality. In this regard, various methods have been used to ground-water fluxes in lake systems. These have included physical measurements (e.g., seepage meters), flow-net analyses, water budgets, chemical tracers, ground-water flow models, and statistical analyses. The method developed for this study for calculating ground-water inflow uses a simplified, 1-layer (surficial aquifer) ground-water flow model. The test area was on a set of lakes known as the Winter Haven Chain of Lakes in Polk County, Florida. The technique combines …

Detection Of Residual Stress In Multi-Crystalline Silicon Wafers Using Swept-Sine Frequency Response Data, Shawn R. Best

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents audible vibratory mode data obtained by mechanically exciting acoustic modes in mc-Si wafers grown by EFG technique with various levels and distributions of residual stress. Stress maps obtained using scanning infrared polariscopy are presented, illustrating the variation of residual stress.

Modal analyses of the wafers are performed using the finite element method and are in remarkably good agreement with the measured frequency response data. The calculated mode shapes were further validated through classic Chladni type patterns.

The vibratory data is found to correlate with the residual stress measurements. The data is fit with both linear and quadratic …

Sedimentation Patterns And Hydrodynamics Of A Wave-Dominated Tidal Inlet: Blind Pass, Florida, David K. Tidwell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Blind Pass, a heavily structured wave-dominated tidal inlet on the west central coast of Florida, has undergone substantial morphologic changes in the past 150 years. Initially Blind Pass was a mixed-energy inlet. In 1848 a hurricane opened a new inlet to the north called Johns Pass, which captured a large portion of the tidal prism of Blind Pass. Since then Blind Pass migrated southward until it was structurally stabilized in 1937. The decreasing tidal prism resulted in significant inlet channel filling. The channel has been dredged 12 times since 1937. The present inlet is stabilized by two jetties and a …

A Game Theoretic Framework For Dynamic Task Scheduling In Distributed Heterogeneous Computing Systems, Vasanth Kumar Ramesh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Heterogeneous Computing (HC) systems achieve high performance by networking together computing resources of diverse nature. The issues of task assignment and scheduling are critical in the design and performance of such systems. In this thesis, an auction based game theoretic framework is developed for dynamic task scheduling in HC systems. Based on the proposed game theoretic model, a new dynamic scheduling algorithm is developed that uses auction based strategies. The dynamic scheduling algorithm yields schedules with shorter completion times than static schedulers while incurring higher scheduling overhead. Thus, a second scheduling algorithm is proposed which uses an initial schedule generated …

Biomechanical Evaluation Of Injury Severity Associated With Patient Falls From Bed, Bonnie E. Bowers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The incidence of falls in the elderly population is a growing concern in the healthcare industry as associated morbidity is high, particularly morbidity associated with falls from bed. Bedrails were implemented as a device intended to reduce the incidence of falls from bed; however, recent evidence may indicate that bedrails contribute to adverse events including entrapment and entanglement. As such, efforts have been made to reduce the use of bedrails and implement alternatives including height adjustable beds and floor mats. An instrumented anthropomorphic test dummy was used in the current study to measure the deceleration profiles of the head, thorax, …

Pervasive Sensing And Computing For Natural Disaster Mitigation, Daniel H. Quintela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research proposed the use of state-of-the-art wireless communications and networked embedded systems technologies to provide environmental sensing for the early detection of natural disasters. The data is acquired, processed and transmitted, from the location where the disaster originates, to potentially threatened conurbations in order to promptly notify the population. The acquired data is transformed from its raw form into information that can be utilized by local authorities to rapidly assess emergency situations and then to apply disaster management procedures. Alternatively, the system can generate alerting signals without human intervention. Furthermore, recorded historical data can be made available for scientists …

Cognitive Load Theory And Programmed Instruction, Michael L. Brazas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Programmed Instruction was a dominant force in educational research during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. During this period a new cognitively oriented psychology of education arose that eventually replaced the behaviorally driven research into programmed instruction. For some reason little work was done on integrating these two approaches. This study was designed to test a programmed instructional system based on the intrinsic programmed instructional technology of Crowder (1961) but incorporating design elements derived from cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1988). Specifically, this study tested a multimedia programmed instructional system (CLT-PI) based on work by Mayer (2001) against a text based system …

Creative Performance On The Job: Does Openness To Experience Matter?, Victoria L. Pace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Finding what is alike among the personalities of creative people has been a dream of many researchers. No single personality type has been discovered as prototypical, yet the promise of common attributes among creative people remains enticing. This study examines one of these promising characteristics - Openness to Experience, a personality factor from the Five-Factor Model. This factor has been shown to correlate positively with creativity in past studies. In the present study this relationship was partially confirmed in a sample of employees whose jobs require technical problem solving, by correlating the employees self-rated Work-specific Openness to Experience and NEO …

Uwb And Wlan Coexistence: A Comparison Of Interference Reduction Techniques, Nikhil Vijay Kajale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ultra Wideband (UWB) is an emerging technology for use in the indoor wireless personal area networks and ad hoc networks. The more common form of UWB which uses sub-nanosecond pulses without any form of carrier signal is considered in this research. UWB signals have a large bandwidth with allocated frequency spectrum from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz and maximum power restricted to -41dBm/MHz. The IEEE 802.11a is a popular standard for high data rate wireless local area networks (WLANs). The operating frequency of the IEEE 802.11a WLAN is 5 GHz which is right inside the allocated UWB frequency spectrum.

One …

Strategies For Incident Management In An Urban Street Network, Vikramaditya Bhide

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this research the problem of incident congestion on surface street networks is addressed. Microscopic simulation is used to simulate incident scenarios on various corridors in the Tampa Bay area. The effect of the three factors, namely, network, speed and signal strategies on the traffic flow is studied. The network performance is based on Highway Capacity Manual specified measures of effectiveness prepared by the Transportation Research Board.

Three inherently different city corridors, high, medium and low volume, are used to test the strategies developed. The strategies investigated include varying speed limits during incidents and using pre-timed and semi-actuated signals that …

A Security Constrained Ac Economic Dispatch Framework For Allocation Of Balanced And Unbalanced Financial Transmission Rights, Balaji Rajan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a deregulated power market financial transmission rights (FTR) serve as a mechanism for protecting market participants from price variation resulting from network congestion. Possession of FTRs allows participants to recover congestion related losses resulting from unequal locational marginal prices that arise from out of merit dispatch. There exists different strategies for allocating FTR which are in use in the deregulated market. Designing a comprehensive framework for market specific FTR allocation that includes factors like unbalanced FTR, FTR for losses and AC-OPF is currently a major research issue in the deregulated power industry.

This thesis develops a method for allocation …