Digital Commons Network^™

Design, Analysis, And Testing Of In Vivo Surgical Robots, Tyler David Wortman

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Advances in technology have shaped the history of surgical procedures. Recent developments have allowed surgical procedures to become less invasive than traditional open procedures. The transition to Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has resulted in decreased recovery times, improved cosmetic results, and reduced costs. For these reasons, there is interest in further reducing the invasiveness of surgical procedures by accessing the abdominal cavity through a single incision, such as with Laparoendoscopic Single-Site (LESS) surgery. Added complexities, such as unintuitive controls and limited dexterity, prevent the widespread adoption of LESS for complex surgical procedures. Multi-functional in vivo surgical robots have been designed …

Feasibility Analysis And Concept Development Of A Crash Cushion Diaphragm Structure For High-Speed Race Tracks, Curt Lee Meyer

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A new diaphragm and dual guide rail system was designed for use in a crash cushion for high-speed race tracks. These structural components were designed to provide sufficient lateral support to redirect impacting vehicles and compress the energy-absorbing elements of the crash cushion. The primary design criteria stated that the diaphragm/guide rail system should be capable of withstanding a 100-kip lateral impact load. The guide rail was to be configured in order to not require replacement after a design impact event. Initial design and modeling resulted in two candidates for guide rail sections which were evaluated during physical testing. The …

Relational Neighborhood Inverse Consistency For Constraint Satisfaction: A Structure-Based Approach For Adjusting Consistency And Managing Propagation, Robert J. Woodward

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Freuder and Elfe [1996] introduced Neighborhood Inverse Consistency (NIC) as a local consistency property defined on the values in the variables' domains of a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). Debruyne and Bessiere [2011] showed that enforcing NIC on binary CSPs is ineffective on sparse graph and too costly on dense graphs. In this thesis, we propose Relational Neighborhood Inverse Consistency (RNIC), an extension of NIC defined as a local consistency property on the tuples of the relations of a CSP. We characterize RNIC for both binary and non-binary CSPs, and propose an algorithm for enforcing it whose complexity is bounded by …

Use Of Constraint Solving For Testing Software Product Lines, Jiangfan Shi

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A new software engineering methodology, software product line (SPL) engineering, has been increasingly studied in academia and adopted inindustry in the past decade. It allows the delivery of similar, but customized, software products to customers in the same domain within a short timeperiod. Software product line engineering produces an SPL by defining feature commonality and variability, and is supported by a well-managed asset base. SPL engineering can improve productivity from three to ten times, however, we require more efficient testing methods, so that we canensure the correctness of SPLs with the same resource allocation percentage as in the traditional software …

Herpetofaunal Diversity At Yankee Hill State Lake And Wildlife Management Area, Lancaster County, Nebraska, Shelby Klima

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

A survey for amphibians and reptiles was conducted in March through October 2011 at Yankee Hill Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster County, Nebraska. The survey was conducted using several different techniques including: visual and auditory encounters, artificial and natural cover objects, aquatic trappings and road surveys. A total of 145 individuals representing 12 species were identified including seven reptiles and five amphibians. A total of 48% of the species that may potentially occur on the site were encountered, all of which are common, widely distributed generalist species. Neither Graham’s Crayfish Snake nor the Massasauga, both target species for this survey, …

Economic Analysis Of Continuous Monitoring Of Commercial Truck Tire Pressure Using Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (Tpms) And Rfid Technologies, Afolabi A. Ogunwemimo

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The trucking industry is a major contributor to the US economy. By providing the essential services of transportation and distribution needed in today’s dynamic industry, the transportation industry has evolved into an integral player in various supply chains. The trucking industry is the largest transportation provider for other industries and employs 10.1 million workers in the United States (ATA, 2003).

This research is an analysis of the economic impact of maintaining proper air pressure in the tires of commercial trucks. Various studies have been carried out on understanding the relationship between tire pressure and fuel consumption (National Research Council, 2006). …

The Urban Fabric Of The Great Plains, Andrew Becker

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

To most Americans the Great Plains region of North America is mysterious place. There are disagreements when defining its limits, and some people just refer to it as the Midwest. The Great Plains has been a place under an ocean, a place under glaciers, and a place on fire. It was once dubbed “the Great American Desert,” but is now known for its agricultural viability. The Great Plains sparks imagination because it is so massive and was one of the final frontiers for Euro-American settlement. The Great Plains is seen as a rural place but the majority of the region’s …

Assessing Flood Inundation Mapping With The Use Of A Dem And Gis Along The Missouri River At Sioux City, Iowa, Kathryn A. Pfaffle

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

There are various methods that are used to predict flood inundation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided inundation maps for the 2011 Missouri River flood event that did not utilized aerial photo imagery. This study assesses the suitability of using a digital elevation model (DEM) in combination with aerial photo imagery within a geographic information system to predict flood inundation mapping along the Missouri River in Sioux City, Iowa. GPS data was collected during the height of this flood event in order to validate the positional accuracy of the DEM. Using the GPS receiver’s accuracy standards to determine the …

Location Cheating: A Security Challenge To Location-Based Social Network Services, Mai Ren

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Location-based mobile social network services such as Foursquare and Gowalla have grown exponentially over the past several years. These location-based services utilize the geographical position to enrich user experiences in a variety of contexts, including location-based searching and location-based mobile advertising. To attract more users, the location-based mobile social network services provide real-world rewards to the user, when a user checks in at a certain venue or location. This gives incentives for users to cheat on their locations.

In this thesis, we investigate the threat of location cheating attacks, find the root cause of the vulnerability, and outline the possible …

Mariners All Access: An Inside Look At The Role Of A Producer At Root SportsTm, Carrie S. Tachiyama

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

The experience of producing a full episode and several segments of Mariners All Access provides an in-depth look at the inner workings of a production at a regional sports network. Examining the role of the producer, what lessons are learned and discovering more effective ways to produce Mariners All Access.

The producer in this instance is a manager of a small staff, a researcher and a creator of storylines. From previous experience an assumption is made that sports networks and news stations operate the same way. After the author’s experience in producing Mariners All Access it is shown this …

Identifying Barriers And Incentives Related To Attending The Performing Arts: An Examination Of First Year College Students, Laura J. Sweet

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

Young adults entering their first year of academic study beyond high school face seemingly limitless opportunities. For the first time, they’re on their own: deciding everything from when to eat to where to study and what to do in their free time. Campuses are rich with possibilities. From official student organizations and clubs, to impromptu pizza parties and dorm floor trivia contests, daily decisions create the experiences that shape the life to come. On many large campuses, alongside academic buildings are art galleries and performance spaces. Research shows that early exposures to the arts lead to increased engagement during student …

Four Perspectives On Architectural Strategy, C. Jason Woodard, Joel West

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A recurring theme in the literature on technology and organizations is the concept of mirroring, which posits a duality between technological and organizational design decisions. In this paper we highlight a second, orthogonal duality between components and interfaces: designers of both products and organizations must decide what information to hide within component boundaries and what to expose to other designers. Although the component-interface duality appears in many settings, it presents especially vexing strategic challenges in the design and production of complex digital artifacts. We present a typology of four interlinked perspectives on these kinds of strategic design problems, and discuss …

Chanticleer | Vol 60, Issue 12, Jacksonville State University

Chanticleer

No abstract provided.

Workers' Compensation, H. Michael Bagley, J. Benson Wood

Mercer Law Review

The 2010-2011 survey period featured decisions of Georgia appellate courts in areas ranging from medical care to intervening accidents, with no significant legislation impacting the Workers' Compensation Act

Real Property, Linda S. Finley

Mercer Law Review

The survey period, June 1, 2010 through May 31, 2011, saw continued dire economic times for Georgia and the entire United States, which were marked with a record-breaking number of foreclosures. Georgia courts and the Georgia General Assembly began to pay attention to the foreclosure process, the diminution of property values, and how these issues affect Georgia families. Although the purpose of this Article is not to specifically address these serious issues, judicial and legislative trends indicate that these issues will be around for some time.

Table Of Cases

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Degradation Of Atrazine By White Rot And Soil Fungi, Gerald Presley

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The widespread use of atrazine in agriculture has lead to an abundance of this toxic chemical in the environment. Fungi that have the ability to degrade atrazine into less toxic products have been identified and used in the remediation of atrazine. In this study atrazine degradation in a defined liquid media was characterized in a diverse group of white rot basidiomycete and deuteromycete soil fungi. Atrazine did not have an effect on fungal growth although each species produced a different amount of biomass in culture. Statistical analysis showed that biomass production was an important factor in determining the amount of …

Nutrient Management In Beef Feedlots And Forage Replacement With Byproduct And Crop Residues, Annie J. Doerr

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Finishing cattle performance and mass balance was evaluated with Micro-Aid was fed in diets containing wet distillers grains plus solubles (WDGS) at 35% (DM basis). Micro-Aid is a feed ingredient derived from a Yucca extract which contains saponins, and was included in the treatment diet at 1 g/hd daily in the supplement. There was no difference in performance and carcass characteristics between treatments. In the winter experiment, cattle fed Micro-Aid had a greater amount of OM and DM removed from the pen surface. Micro-Aid in the diet increased the amount of manure N and decreased N lossis in the winter. …

Understanding Svocs, Ying Xu, Jianshun Zhang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - All Scholarship

Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) are an important class of indoor pollutants that are of great health concern. However, they have not received much attention within the ASHRAE community. This column provides an overview of the sources, sinks, transport mechanisms, and potential health effects, and discusses how HVAC systems may affect occupants’ exposure to SVOCs.

Dynamic Botanical Filtration System For Indoor Air Purification, Zhiqiang Wang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - Dissertations

A dynamic botanical air filtration (DBAF) system was developed, tested and modeled for indoor air purification. The DBAF system consisted of an activated-carbon/hydroculture-based root bed for potted-plant, a fan for driving air through the root bed for purification, and an irrigation system for maintaining proper moisture content in the root bed. Results from test conducted in a full-scale open office space indicated that the filtration system had ability to supply clean air equivalent to 80% of required outdoor air supply for the space. The DBAF was effective for removing both formaldehyde and toluene at 5 to 32% volumetric water content …

Fair Use As A Collective User Right, Haochen Sun

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Design And Implementation Of An Open Framework For Ubiquitous Carbon Footprint Calculator Applications, Farzana Rahman, Casey O'Brien, Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, He Zhang, Lin Liu

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

As climate change is becoming an important global issue, more and more people are beginning to pay attention to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To measure personal or household carbon dioxide emission, there are already plenty of carbon footprint calculators available on the web. Most of these calculators use quantitative models to estimate carbon emission caused by a user's activities. Although these calculators can promote public awareness regarding carbon emission due to an individual's behavior, there are concerns about the consistency and transparency of these existing CO₂ calculators. Apart from a small group of smart phone based carbon footprint calculator …

One Year Performance Of Longitudinal Waterborne Paint Pavement Markings Used On Primary And Secondary Roads Of South Carolina, Sudhakar Pandurangan

All Theses

Pavement markings are made retroreflective so that roads are more visible. But retroreflectivity degrades over time due to a number of factors. Although the Federal Highway Administration has yet to finalize minimum standards for retroreflectivity, the degradation of pavement marking retroreflectivity can be detrimental to safety. The primary objective of this thesis was to use statistics to develop and validate regression models to predict the degradation of water borne pavement marking retroreflectivity. This will provide the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) a systematic means to determine when markings should be replaced.
To achieve this objective an LTL-X handheld retroreflectometer …

Building Preliminary Guideline For Earthquake Evacuation, Guang Miao

All Theses

Disaster frequency appears to be increasing. The impact of those disasters has increased substantially in terms of mortality and economic losses. Evacuation, as an inevitable part of disaster management systems, plays a critical role in disaster mitigation. The efficiency of all-hazard disaster evacuation could be increased by making appropriate decisions on policies and practices for planning, preparedness and response, and taking certain traffic operations, management and control. Common principles for large disaster evacuation have been established, mostly based on the experience of hurricane events. However, earthquakes have a series of special characteristics, which are different from other disasters, such as …

Temporal Pier Scour Evolution Under Stepped Hydrographs, Mark Schillinger

All Theses

The present study was aimed at measuring the scour hole profile at bridge piers under clear water scour. Scour tests were performed under both steady state flow and under stepped hydrographs. Multiple smaller flood events were run to determine how flood history affects scour hole development. Various equilibrium scour depth equations and proposed temporal scour models were compared. The similarity of the scour hole profiles with time and flow history were evaluated.
Experiments were conducted in a 14.8 m long, 1.19 m wide, 1.22 m deep rectangular flume with a model bridge pier. A uniform sediment bed (d₅₀= …

Modeling Impacts Of Foothills Parkway Construction On Stream Water Quality Using Real-Time Remote Monitoring, Clark Chewning

All Theses

ABSTRACT
The need to monitor surface water quality has been increasingly recognized in recent years in environmental and natural resource management. The advent of real-time remote monitoring technologies has accelerated and enhanced this process. Field observations of water quality data are able to be conducted and analyzed in ways that were previously unavailable.
The objectives of this research were to deploy and test a real-time remote monitoring system for three small watersheds (Hembree, Dunn, and Rudd Hollows) in the Great Smoky Mountains. The watersheds ranged in size from 12 to 19 ha. Real-time remote monitoring stations were established in three …

A New Approach To Dynamic Modeling Of Continuum Robots, Nivedhitha Giri

All Theses

ABSTRACT
In this thesis, a new approach for developing practically realizable dynamic models for continuum robots is proposed. Based on the new dynamic models developed, a novel technique for analyzing the capabilities of continuum manipulators to be employed in various real world applications has also been proposed and developed.
A section of a continuum arm is modeled using lumped model elements (masses, springs and dampers). It is shown that this model, although an approximation to a continuum structure, can be used to conveniently analyze the dynamics of the arm with suitable tradeoff in accuracy of modeling. This relatively simple model …

Influence Of Aging And Severe Plastic Deformation On The Shape Memory Behavior Of Ti-50.6at%Ni, William Shirley

All Theses

Martensitic phase transformations were investigated for Ti -50.6 at % Ni processed via severe plastic deformation (SPD) and subsequent aging for temperatures between 400 and 550C and times ranging from 1hr to 100hrs. Phase transformations of the SPD material were compared to material processed via solution treated at 800C and 850C for 1hr. Transformations were investigated with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) with optical microscopy being used to determine grain size. Solution treated samples displayed a single (1-1) B2↔B19' transformation prior to and upon initial aging, i.e. 400C/1h, 450C/1/10h. Intermediate aging conditions, 450C/100h; 500C/1/10/100h; and …

Role Of Surface Coatings In Lithium-Ion Batteries, Archana Kayyar

All Theses

Rechargeable batteries that can charge and discharge at high rates have applications in hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles and they provide energy storages for wind energy. Various methods like reducing particle size, aliovalent doping and carbon coating have been researched in order to attain higher charge and discharge rates in rechargeable Li-ion batteries. In this work, the electrode materials were coated with amorphous films in an attempt to improve the rate capability of the batteries.
A study by Kang and Ceder suggested that a Li₄P₂O₇-like 'fast-ion conducting surface phase' could form on the surface …

In Vitro Study Of Fluid Diodes In The Pulmonary Valve Position, John Porcher

All Theses

Every year many people suffer from severe chronic pulmonary insufficiency. Problems that can be incurred include the valve becoming stenotic, where it inhibits antegrade flow, and incompetent, allowing retrograde flow. When either of these conditions occurs with great severity, it is often necessary for the native valve to be replaced. There are no acceptable, permanent solutions currently available for a pulmonary valve replacement. Previous research, based on regurgitant fraction and transvalvular gradient, has indicated that a fluid diode could possibly serve as a permanent valve replacement solution. This study investigated the effectiveness of a diode to reduce the workload of …