Digital Commons Network^™

Event-Triggered Near Optimal Adaptive Control Of Interconnected Systems, Vignesh Narayanan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Increased interest in complex interconnected systems like smart-grid, cyber manufacturing have attracted researchers to develop optimal adaptive control schemes to elicit a desired performance when the complex system dynamics are uncertain. In this dissertation, motivated by the fact that aperiodic event sampling saves network resources while ensuring system stability, a suite of novel event-sampled distributed near-optimal adaptive control schemes are introduced for uncertain linear and affine nonlinear interconnected systems in a forward-in-time and online manner.

First, a novel stochastic hybrid Q-learning scheme is proposed to generate optimal adaptive control law and to accelerate the learning process in the presence of …

Reliability Prediction In Early Design Stages, Yao Cheng

Doctoral Dissertations

"In the past, reliability is usually quantified with sufficient information available. This is not only time-consuming and cost-expensive, but also too late for occurred failures and losses. For solving this problem, the objective of this dissertation is to predict product reliability in early design stages with limited information. The current research of early reliability prediction is far from mature. Inspired by methodologies for the detail design stage, this research uses statistics-based and physics-based methodologies by providing general models with quantitative results, which could help design for reliability and decision making during the early design stage. New methodologies which accommodate component …

Optimal Design And Freeform Extrusion Fabrication Of Functionally Gradient Smart Parts, Amir Ghazanfari

Doctoral Dissertations

"An extrusion-based additive manufacturing process, called the Ceramic On-Demand Extrusion (CODE) process, for producing three-dimensional ceramic components with near theoretical density was developed. In this process, an aqueous paste of ceramic particles with a very low binder content (<1 vol%) is extruded through a moving nozzle at room temperature. After a layer is deposited, it is surrounded by oil (to a level just below the top surface of most recent layer) to preclude non-uniform evaporation from the sides. Infrared radiation is then used to partially, and uniformly, dry the just-deposited layer so that the yield stress of the paste increases and the part maintains its shape. The same procedure is repeated for every layer until part fabrication is completed. Sample parts made of alumina and fully stabilized zirconia were produced using this process and their mechanical properties including density, strength, Young's modulus, Weibull modulus, toughness, and hardness were examined. Microstructural evaluation was also performed to measure the grain size, and critical flaw sizes were obtained. The results indicate that the proposed method enables fabrication of geometrically complex parts with superior mechanical properties. Furthermore, several methods were developed to increase the productivity of the CODE process and enable manufacturing of functionally graded materials with an optimum distribution of material composition. As an application of the CODE process, advanced ceramic components with embedded sapphire optical fiber sensors were fabricated and properties of parts and sensors were evaluated using standard test methods"--Abstract, page iv.

Lhd Vibrations Analysis And Numerical Modeling During Operations, Kgosietsile Kolobe

Doctoral Dissertations

"Load-haul-dump vehicles (LHDs) are extensively used as primary loaders in mining operations. LHDs have proven to be vigorous, extremely productive and reliable in mining applications. They have a wide range of tramming capacities that have enabled them to become an essential component in the hard rock mining industry.

Increased mining economic challenges and global competition means the mining industry has to maximize productivity by cutting down operating and capital costs. Also, improvements in safety standards have led to the demand for safer and efficient machines.

LHD operators are at a high risk of whole-body vibrations (WBVs) exposure leading to musculoskeletal …

Cognition-Based Approaches For High-Precision Text Mining, George John Shannon

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research improves the precision of information extraction from free-form text via the use of cognitive-based approaches to natural language processing (NLP). Cognitive-based approaches are an important, and relatively new, area of research in NLP and search, as well as linguistics. Cognitive approaches enable significant improvements in both the breadth and depth of knowledge extracted from text. This research has made contributions in the areas of a cognitive approach to automated concept recognition in.

Cognitive approaches to search, also called concept-based search, have been shown to improve search precision. Given the tremendous amount of electronic text generated in our digital …

Characterizing Long-Term Groundwater Conditions And Lithology For The Design Of Large-Scale Borehole Heat Exchangers, David Charles Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

"Construction of large scale ground coupled heat pump (GCHP) systems that operate with hundreds or even thousands of boreholes for the borehole heat exchangers (BHE) has increased in recent years with many coming on line in the past 10 years. Many large institutions are constructing these systems because of their ability to store energy in the subsurface for indoor cooling during the warm summer months and extract that energy for heating during the cool winter months.

Despite the increase in GCHP system systems constructed, there have been few long term studies on how these large systems interact with the subsurface. …

Atomic/Molecular Layer Deposition Prepared Size-Selective Catalysts And Supported Nickel Catalysts, Zeyu Shang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Heterogeneous catalysts are widely used because of their many advantages. In this dissertation, the application of atomic/molecular layer deposition (ALD/MLD) in heterogeneous catalyst synthesis and modification was examined.

A novel nanostructured size-selective catalyst was synthesized by depositing ultra-thin porous shells on the surface of catalysts. The ultra-thin porous shells were formed by oxidation of aluminum alkoxide films deposited by MLD. The catalytic activity of the size-selective catalyst was improved by introducing gaps between the porous shell and catalytic metal nanoparticles. The introduction of gaps greatly reduced the catalyst activity loss, which resulted from the contact areas between the active sites …

Experimental Investigations Of Natural Circulation In A Separate-And-Mixed Effects Test Facility Mimicking Prismatic Modular Reactor (Pmr) Core, Mahmoud M. Taha

Doctoral Dissertations

"After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011, significant attention was directed to investigate natural circulation thermal-hydraulics in Prismatic Modular Reactors (PMRs). Natural circulation is employed as a passive safety feature that passively removes the decay heat released after the loss of flow accidents (LOFA). Several computational studies have addressed such phenomena, however, validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is needed by providing high-quality data obtained from separate test facilities designed with reference to the corresponding reference PMRs. To address this need, a separate effects Plenum-to-Plenum Facility (P2PF) was designed and developed with dual channels and plena for …

The Maculoprotective Effect Of A Thiol Antioxidant In Retinal Degeneration Models, Hsiu-Jen Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of irreversible blindness among adults, age 60 and older, in developed countries. While oxidative stress is implicated in the pathogenesis of AMD, clinical studies have shown that dietary antioxidants can delay progression of AMD. Currently, there is no FDA-approved treatment for AMD. Therefore, we hypothesized that N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA), a thiol antioxidant, would protect retinal pigment epithelium and impede the progression of retinal degeneration. The goal of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of NACA in preventing retinal pigment epithelial cell and photoreceptor death in AMD models. To achieve this, we …

Emi Measurement And Modeling Techniques For Complex Electronic Circuits And Modules, Satyajeet Shinde

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation consists of four papers. In the first paper, a combined model for predicting the most critical radiated emissions and total radiated power due to the display signals in a TV by incorporating the main processing board using the Huygens Equivalence theorem and the radiation due to the flex cable based on active probe measurements was developed.

In the second paper, a frequency-tunable resonant magnetic field probe was designed in the frequency range 900-2260 MHz for near-field scanning applications for the radio frequency interference studies by using a varactor diode providing the required capacitance and the parasitic inductance of …

Programming Problems On Time Scales: Theory And Computation, Rasheed Basheer Al-Salih

Doctoral Dissertations

"In this dissertation, novel formulations for several classes of programming problems are derived and proved using the time scales technique. The new formulations unify the discrete and continuous programming models and extend them to other cases "in between." Moreover, the new formulations yield the exact optimal solution for the programming problems on arbitrary isolated time scales, which solve an important open problem. Throughout this dissertation, six distinct classes of programming problems are presented as follows. First, the primal as well as the dual time scales linear programming models on arbitrary time scales are formulated. Second, separated linear programming primal and …

Mass Transfer Studies In Heavy Oil Recovery Using Solvents, Vijitha Mohan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Heavy oil, sometimes called bitumen, is known for its high viscosity (above 100 cp) and low API gravity (below 22⁰). In most cases, viscosity reduction is needed for the final product. There is a considerable amount of heavy oil in Alberta, Canada and the world's largest heavy oil deposit is in Venezuela. Yet less than 1% of it can be recovered because of its high viscosity. For shallow reservoirs, it is possible to resort to open cast mining. For deeper reservoirs, steam is used at ~ 350 ⁰C which gets the oil viscosity reduced to 1cp, which can now be …

Additive Manufacturing Of Glass Using A Filament Fed Process, Junjie Luo

Doctoral Dissertations

"There are many scientific and engineering applications of glass including optics, communications, electronics, and hermetic seals, there has been minimal research towards the Additive Manufacturing (AM) of transparent glass parts. The special thermal and optical properties of glasses make them hard to be printed using conventional AM techniques. In this dissertation, two different AM techniques for glass AM were developed, Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and filament fed process.

Semi-transparent parts were printed with SLM process. However, the filament fed process was found to be more robust and promising for printing optically transparent glass parts. Therefore, this dissertation is focused on …

Rapid Quantification Of Trypsin Inhibitors In Food And Feed Formulations With Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry, Radheshyam Panta

Doctoral Dissertations

"Presence of anti- nutrients deteriorate the nutritional value of animal foods and feed formulations. The important one being trypsin inhibitors. Trypsin inhibitors in food and feed formulations lower the protein supplement and hence the ultimate consequence is the decrease in growth and development of animals. It is therefore, crucial to monitor trypsin inhibitors in animal food and feed formulations. Research work mentioned in this dissertation is based on the development of rapid, more accurate and robust method for determination of trypsin inhibitor in food and feed formulations. The developed method includes extraction of trypsin inhibitor from food and feed formulation …

Layered Crustal And Mantle Structure And Anisotropy Beneath The Afar Depression And Malawi Rift Zone, Cory Alexander Reed

Doctoral Dissertations

"Although a wealth of geophysical data sets have been acquired within the vicinity of continental rift zones, the mechanisms responsible for the breakup of stable continental lithosphere are ambiguous. Eastern Africa is host to the largest contemporary rift zone on Earth, and is thus the most prominent site with which to investigate the processes which govern the rupture of continental lithosphere. The studies herein represent teleseismic analyses of the velocity and thermomechanical structure of the crust and mantle beneath the Afar Depression and Malawi Rift Zone (MRZ) of the East African Rift System. Within the Afar Depression, the first densely-spaced …

Optimal Electric Vehicle Scheduling : A Co-Optimized System And Customer Perspective, Maigha

Doctoral Dissertations

"Electric vehicles provide a two pronged solution to the problems faced by the electricity and transportation sectors. They provide a green, highly efficient alternative to the internal combustion engine vehicles, thus reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Secondly, they bear the potential of supporting the grid as energy storage devices while incentivizing the customers through their participation in energy markets. Despite these advantages, widespread adoption of electric vehicles faces socio-technical and economic bottleneck. This dissertation seeks to provide solutions that balance system and customer objectives under present technological capabilities. The research uses electric vehicles as controllable loads and resources. The …

High-Volume Recycled Materials For Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure, Seyedhamed Sadati

Doctoral Dissertations

"The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using high performance concrete made with high-volume of recycled materials in transportation infrastructure. The main focus was to develop mixtures for rigid pavement construction. A variety of fine and coarse recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) were investigated. The feasibility of replacing 50% of Portland cement with industrial by-products and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) was also evaluated. Experimental program was conducted to quantify the effect of concrete mixture design and RCA characteristics on mechanical properties, drying shrinkage, cracking potential, and durability of concrete. The development of a database and analysis using …

Design And Performance Of Cost-Effective Ultra-High Performance Concrete For Prefabricated Elements, Weina Meng

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study presented in this thesis aims to: (1) develop a mixture design methodology for cost-effective ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) incorporating high volume of supplementary cementitious materials and conventional concrete and masonry sands; (2) developed UHPC with adapted rheology incorporating lightweight sand, hybrid fibers, and nanomaterials with improved properties; (3) design prefabricated UHPC panels with fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) for enhanced flexural properties of stay-in-place panels made with optimized UHPC; and (4) explore potential applications of such UHPC elements. The proposed design methodology produced UHPC mixtures with 28-days compressive strengths higher than 125 and 168 MPa under standard water curing and 1-d …

Experimental Study Of Natural Convection Heat Transfer And Gaseous Dynamics From Dual-Channel Circulation Loop, Ibrahim Ahmed Said Abdallah

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research focuses on establishing a range of scaled separate and integral effects experiments for studying thermal-hydraulic behavior occurring within a component or region of the prismatic very high-temperature reactor (VHTR) such as plenum-to-plenum heat transfer and gaseous dynamics during natural circulation. Natural circulation of the coolant is the leading capability for VHTR to transport the decay heat from the core to the reactor vessel during accident scenarios. To address this need, a scaled-down facility is designed and developed with only two channels with upper and lower plena. The emphasis is placed on high-resolution and high-fidelity experimental data for local …

2017 Scholarly Productivity Report, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Scholarly Productivity Reports

No abstract provided.

Inside The Black Box: Political Economy Of The Trans-Pacific Partnership's Encryption Clause, Han-Wei Liu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Among other provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, a new clause on encryption technology (‘Encryption Clause’) is particularly noteworthy. By tracing the history of decades-long encryption control, this article underscores how this clause implicates international order. Modern encryption technology was conceived and developed during World Wars. Painted by such a war-time legacy, encryption has been treated as a ‘dual-use’ technology and has been subject to export control since the end of World War II via the Coordinating Committee for the Control of Multinational Trade (COCOM) and, later, the Wassenaar Arrangement. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western …

Perpetual Evolution: A School's-Focused Public Law Litigation Model For Our Day, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

In celebrating the monumental accomplishments of the new form of public law litigation that Constance Baker Motley and her colleagues pioneered, this Essay reinterprets their paradigm-shifting body of work in a manner that obliges the current generation of civil rights advocates to change direction. In the hopes of reengaging the affirmative force of constitutional litigation after decades in which it has waned, this Essay argues that the central lesson to be derived from Motley’s generation lies not in the mode of public law litigation it pioneered but in the design of that litigation in the image of the dominant form …

The Balancing Act: Ecological Interventions And Decision Tradeoffs To Preserve Wilderness Character, Lucy A. Lieberman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Global climate change, land use intensification and increasing development are impacting federal wildernesses in new and unprecedented ways. Ecological restoration is one tool that that wilderness managers are using to combat degradation, though the decision to intervene in wilderness is complicated by the Wilderness Act’s legal mandate to preserve wilderness character and demonstrate managerial restraint. The purpose of this study is to document a baseline of ecological interventions that have occurred in the NWPS over the last five years, and to understand how wilderness managers make decisions related to ecological interventions. I sent a quantitative survey to over five hundred …

Structural Integrity And Physical Properties Of Ponderosa Pine Over Time After Death Between Vectors Of Mortality, Edward J. O'Donnell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In an era of accelerated climate change, with persistent and increasing disturbance on our landscapes it is important to increase our knowledge of how these natural disturbances effect our lands. This study investigated the changes that take place in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) stems after death when killed by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and by fire. Trees killed by mountain pine beetle as well as trees killed by fire were sampled and separated into two age classes, those dead 0-4 years and those dead 4+ years. Data was gathered on the modulus of rupture, modulus …

Ecological Momentary Assessment Of Daily Microaggressions And Stigma-Based Substance Use Among Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Individuals, Nicholas Alexander Livingston

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Background: People who identify as LGBTQ experience elevated rates of minority stress, which has been linked to higher rates of substance use. Unfortunately, most extant research on this disparity is predicated on cross-sectional or longitudinal research methods that are insensitive to the effects of daily microaggression experiences, or their possible relation to daily substance use risk. The aim of this study was to address this knowledge gap using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Method: LGBTQ individuals (N = 50) were recruited from the University of Montana, attended a 90-minute orientation to complete baseline measures, and received instruction regarding the proper use …

The Inflammatory Effects Of Natural And Engineered Airborne Particulate Matter In The Lung, And Related Cellular Mechanisms Of Immunity, Sophia Tracy Carvalho

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Asthma, defined as a complex, chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, affects approximately 300 million individuals worldwide and is the single most common chronic disease among children. Airway inflammation is the defining characteristic of asthmatic pathophysiology; and as asthma increases in severity, the airways become more susceptible to environmental insults, including air pollutants. Wildfires and prescribed burns are significant sources of airborne particles, as well as gaseous pollution, which can temporarily increase the overall levels of air pollution over hundreds or thousands of square miles. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are increasingly used in a broad range of applications, including medical …

¬Multilocus Phylogeny Of The Lichen Family Megasporaceae, Tim B. Wheeler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The lichen symbiosis is one of the oldest studied mutualisms; in fact, Frank and De Bary coined the term "symbiosis" while studying lichens (Frank, 1877; De Bary 1879). The widespread, stable association between the mycobiont and photobiont in lichens offers an ideal system for the study of co-evolution. The recent application of molecular data to lichens has begun to unveil the complexities involved in these associations (Upreti et al. 2015, Spribille et al. 2016). Lichenized fungi make up a huge fraction of fungal diversity (Nash 2008), yet very little is known of their genetic diversity. Fungal taxonomy is notoriously difficult …

An Outlay Equivalence Analysis Of South African Households, Samuel Peevey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A significant amount of evidence suggests that gender inequality in the developing world negatively impacts women and girls’ health, education and future wage potential. This thesis investigates whether households in South Africa discriminated against their girl children, in favor of their boy children. Additionally, I will investigate whether household heads favored children matching their own sex. Using the 1^st wave of the National Income Dynamics Study and Angus Deaton’s outlay-equivalence ratio method, I will estimate the impact, 8 age and sex categories have on their household’s adult goods expenditure. I found statistically significant but practically insignificant evidence, from a …

The Role Of Behavior In The Effectiveness Of Indoor Air Pollution Interventions: Results From The Artis Study, Madison J. Cole

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using panel data from a randomized placebo-controlled trial of a wood stove changeout and air filter interventions, this study addresses the role of behavior in the efficacy of air quality interventions. The effectiveness of an intervention in improving air quality depends on how households respond to and use them. Two important responses are whether the target population complies with the requirements of the intervention and whether users adjust other behaviors that can affect air quality.

This paper’s results are consistent with prior studies in finding that in the absence of interventions, a number of behaviors can affect indoor air pollution, …

The Effect Of Nursing Education On Emotional Intelligence Scores, Sally Mchugh Rappold

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this research study was to examine the difference between three levels of nursing students (sophomore, junior, senior) and their assessed emotional intelligence (EI) scores. A quantitative, quasi-experimental study was conducted with a population of nursing students from five separate campuses at Montana State University, and a control group of education students at the University of Montana. The following research question was explored in this study: What difference, if any, does nursing education have on the emotional intelligence scores of sophomore, junior, and senior Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students? Students voluntarily completed the online EQ-i 2.0 …