Digital Commons Network^™

Effect Of In-Situ Formed Nano-Calcite Particles On Hydration And Properties Of Cement-Based Materials, Bowen Tan

Masters Theses

The in-situ preparation of nano-calcite via bubbling method and the effects of the nano-calcite on the hydration process and properties of the cement-based materials are investigated in this research. The nano-calcite is synthesized under different conditions and added into Portland cement to prepare test samples. The bubbling method is then introduced in upcycling the municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) ashes, and the effects of the upcycled MSWI ashes on the hydration of Portland cement is investigated. Experimental results illustrate that the COâ‚‚ bubbling method can produce nanometer-to-sub- micron-sized calcite particles, and the synthesis rate and the morphology of the nano-calcite …

Developing A Vr Training Model For Improving Transportation Safety Protocols For Rural Areas, Emmanuel Olumide Adeosun

Masters Theses

"This research evaluated the effectiveness of using simulated virtual reality driving environments to improve transportation safety in rural areas. The transportation accident fatality rate is more than double the national average in rural areas and highlights an important opportunity to address these challenges through improved safety protocols and investments. A review of the literature revealed high frequency scenarios that contributed the most to fatality or injury accidents. Virtual reality driving simulations were created based on these high frequency events using a specified rural roadway identified with the assistance of the Missouri Department of Transportation. Scenarios considered weather-related conditions, such as …

Using Lake Sediment Chemistry In The Exploration For Nickel Laterite Deposits In Tropical Regions, Gabriela Yvonne Ramirez

Masters Theses

"Developing reliable geochemical indicators to guide the search for ore deposits is a long-standing goal. This particularly applies to tropical regions that are often heavily vegetated which hampers boots-on-the ground exploration efforts. Here we present the preliminary results of a study that investigates the usefulness of lake sediment chemistry in the exploration for nickel laterite ore deposits in tropical regions using Lake Izabal, Guatemala, as a case study. Lake Izabal’s catchment area contains Ni laterite deposits along its northern shore, whereas no Ni-laterite discoveries have been made in the south except for a Ni mine in the southern region that …

Integrating Remote Sensing And Model-Based Datasets In A Machine Learning Model To Map Global Subsidence Associated With Groundwater Withdrawal, Md Fahim Hasan

Masters Theses

"Quantifying groundwater storage loss is becoming increasingly essential globally due limited availability of this major hydrologic component and its long recharge time. Groundwater overdraft gives rises to multiple adverse impacts including land subsidence and permanent groundwater storage loss. In absence of spatially dense monitoring network, publicly available in-situ data, and uniform monitoring strategies, it is challenging to assess the sustained losses from overexploitation of this resource. Remote sensing based techniques have the capacity to fill this gap to increase our groundwater monitoring capacities. Exploring the interrelation between groundwater pumping and land subsidence using remote sensing datasets can be a very …

Assessing Phenotypic Response Of Plants Irrigated With Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Leachate Using Computer Visualization, Rahel Pommerenke

Masters Theses

"Most solid waste collected in the US is disposed of in sanitary landfills, which have a lingering legacy of unintended negative impacts on the environment. Landfill design and operation are expensive, prone to multiple failure modes, and often do not address human and ecological risks presented by contaminants of emerging concern. A notable and common failure mechanism is leachate production. Moisture in the waste mixes with infiltrating water to form wastewater that must be collected and treated prior to discharge. Recycling leachate at landfills by recirculating it onto vegetated landfill covers relies on the evapotranspiration potential of plants to reduce …

Lithofacies Characterization Of Marine Shelf Shale And Implicaitons On Depositional Conditions And Processes On The Continental Shelf — A Case Study Of The Upper-Cretaceous Tuscaloosa Marine Shale In Louisiana And Mississippi, U.S.A., Efren Mendez Jr

Masters Theses

"The Upper Cretaceous Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) is an unconventional shale reservoir deposited on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico Basin. Previous studies have focused on sequence stratigraphy, thermal modeling, and well-log correlations. However, a limited understanding of the stratigraphic heterogeneity of the TMS is yet to be studied. This study aims to characterize the stratigraphic heterogeneity of the TMS using core, petrographic, and well-log analyses to better understand the depositional conditions and processes that occur on the continental shelf. The TMS has been classified into four lithofacies of very fine sands – coarse silts (LF1), medium-fine …

Smart Living With Artificial Intelligence -- Potential Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Mental Well-Being, Weiyu Wang

Masters Theses

"Artificial Intelligence (AI) will result in job replacement and job elimination. Some AI technologies, such as self-driving vehicles, have the potential to disrupt existing industries. Self-driving trucks may replace the 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. Scholars at Oxford University estimated that no less than 47% of American jobs and 54% of those in Europe are at a high risk of being taken over by machines. Routine, repetitive, and predictable jobs are expected to be automated (Siau, 2018). Although new jobs will be created, the unemployment rate may go up in the short term and the emergence of a …

State Level Trends In Renewable Energy Procurement Via Solar Installation Versus Green Electricity, Eric Michael Hanson

Masters Theses

“In the past 5 years, consumer options for procuring renewable energy have increased, ranging from rooftop solar installation to utility green pricing to Community Choice Aggregation. These options vary in terms of costs and benefits to the consumer as well as grid integration implications. However, little is known regarding how the presence of a wide range of options for utility-scale renewable procurement affects demand for distributed residential solar installations. In theory, there are three possible relationships, (1) positive correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources complement each other to increase overall production, (2) negative correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources are …

Characterization Of Cermet Fuel For Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (Ntp), James Floyd Mudd

Masters Theses

“A manned flight to Mars is met with many technical challenges, not the least of which is the development of propulsion technology capable of moving a transit vehicle from Earth orbit to Mars orbit. NASA is investigating Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) as a way of reducing flight time and providing the option for a mid-mission abort. NTP, which uses a high temperature nuclear reactor to heat a propellant, requires advanced fuel materials capable of withstanding temperatures well in excess of 2000 K. Among the fuel options are ceramic metal (cermet) composites composed of refractory metals and Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics (UHTCs). …

Industry 4.0 Remanufacturing: A Novel Approach Towards Smart Remanufacturing, Prashansa Ragampeta

Masters Theses

“Smart remanufacturing has become more popular in recent years as a result of its multiple benefits and the growing need for society to encourage a circular economy that leads to sustainability. One of the most common end-of-life (EoL) choices that can lead to a circular economy is remanufacturing. As a result, at the end-of-life stage of a product, it is critical to prioritize this choice over other accessible options because it is the only recovery option that retains the same quality as a new product. This work focuses on the numerous technologies that can aid in the improvement of smart …

Particle Swarm Optimization For Critical Experiment Design, Cole Michael Kostelac

Masters Theses

“Critical experiments are used by nuclear data evaluators and criticality safety engineers to validate nuclear data and computational methods. Many of these experiments are designed to maximize the sensitivity to a certain nuclide-reaction pair in an energy range of interest. Traditionally, a parameter sweep is conducted over a set of experimental variables to find a configuration that is critical and maximally sensitive. As additional variables are added, the total number of configurations increases exponentially and quickly becomes prohibitively computationally expensive to calculate, especially using Monte Carlo methods.

This work presents the development of a particle swarm optimization algorithm to design …

Feasibility Of A Critical Experiment Utilizing Uranium Dioxide-Beryllium Oxide With Neutron Spectrum Shifting Capabilities, Ashley Rachel Raster

Masters Theses

“The goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of utilizing Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) fuel in core design with Sandia Pulse Reactor Facility’s (SPRF) Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) fuel rods as driver fuel for a critical experiment facility to support future critical and benchmark experiments for the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) handbook. This is part of the Critical Experiment Design (CED) process for future criticality experiments. These criticality experiment designs have the main goal of being performed in the same facility at different neutron energy ranges. To test the feasibility of this experiment …

Adsorption Of Arsenic Onto River Sediments, Leticia Augusta Dos Santos Ferreira

Masters Theses

“Previous studies have noted the relationship between shallow groundwater rich in sodium (Na) and bicarbonate (HCO₃) and elevated levels of dissolved arsenic. However, most experimental work on arsenic adsorption in the presence of HCO₃ and differing Na/Ca ratios has proven difficult to extrapolate to natural systems because of differences in tested mineral compositions and component concentrations. In this study, I performed a series of adsorption experiments using river sediments to evaluate the influence of HCO₃ and monovalent/divalent cations on the extent of arsenic adsorption onto natural sediment in groundwater.

Batch adsorption (kinetics, equilibrium, and metal loading) …

Man-In-The-Middle Attacks On Mqtt Based Iot Networks, Henry C. Wong

Masters Theses

“The use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices has increased a considerable amount in recent years due to decreasing cost and increasing availability of transistors, semiconductor, and other components. Examples can be found in daily life through smart cities, consumer security cameras, agriculture sensors, and more. However, Cyber Security in these IoT devices are often an afterthought making these devices susceptible to easy attacks. This can be due to multiple factors. An IoT device is often in a smaller form factor and must be affordable to buy in large quantities; as a result, IoT devices have less resources than a typical computer. …

Several Problems In Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations, Tim Van Hoose

Masters Theses

“We study several different problems related to nonlinear Schrödinger equations….

We prove several new results for the first equation: a modified scattering result for both an averaged version of the equation and the full equation, as well as a set of Strichartz estimates and a blowup result for the 3d cubic problem.

We also present an exposition of the classical work of Bourgain on invariant measures for the second equation in the mass-subcritical regime”--Abstract, page iv.

Deep Learning-Based Surrogate Models For Post-Earthquake Damage Assessment, Xinzhe Yuan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Seismic damage assessment is a critical step to enhance community resilience in the wake of an earthquake. This study aims to develop deep learning-based surrogate models for widely used fragility curves to achieve more accurate and rapid assessment in practice. These surrogate models are based on artificial neural networks trained from the labelled ground motions whose resulting damage classes on targeted structures are determined by nonlinear time history analyses. The development of various surrogate models is progressed in four phases. In Phase I, the multilayer perceptron (MLP) is used to develop multivariate seismic classifiers with up to 50 hand-crafted intensity …

Modeling Strategy For Emi Filter And Flyback Transformer, Ruijie He

Doctoral Dissertations

“The switch-mode power supply is key to miniaturizing power adapters. However, the switching nature of the circuit introduces issues in conducted emissions. In a flyback converter, the transformer serves as the path for common mode current flowing from the primary side to the secondary side. Different winding technologies have been invented and implemented to reduce the capacitance between the primary side and the secondary side. But the repeatability of the winding is still poor due to the fluctuations of the winding machine. Thus, the resulting conducted emission has a fluctuation that can lead to failure in the compliance tests. EMI …

Array Signal Processing For Source Localization And Enhancement, Sohel J. Patel

Doctoral Dissertations

“A common approach to the wide-band microphone array problem is to assume a certain array geometry and then design optimal weights (often in subbands) to meet a set of desired criteria. In addition to weights, we consider the geometry of the microphone arrangement to be part of the optimization problem. Our approach is to use particle swarm optimization (PSO) to search for the optimal geometry while using an optimal weight design to design the weights for each particle’s geometry. The resulting directivity indices (DI’s) and white noise SNR gains (WNG’s) form the basis of the PSO’s fitness function. Another important …

Characterization And Modeling Of Esd Events, Risk And Protection, Jianchi Zhou

Doctoral Dissertations

“The ESD (Electrostatic discharge) failures have been raising critical reliability problems in electronic devices design. However, not all the ESD scenarios have been specified by the IEC standard and the characterizations of the ESD risk for different scenarios are essential to evaluate the ESD robustness of the devices in the real word.

The insulation of plastic enclosures provides protection against ESD to the electronic system inside. However, seams between plastic parts are often unavoidable. Different plastic arrangements are constructed to investigate the spark length and current derivatives and to understand the ESD spark behavior for geometries having spark lengths longer …

Synthesis And Process Optimization Of Colloidal Unimolecular Polymer, Cup, Particle Formation, And Its Interfacial Surface Tension Behavior, Ashish Zore

Doctoral Dissertations

"Colloidal Unimolecular Polymer (CUP) particles are 3-9 nm size single-chain polymer nanoparticles that are made from amphiphilic acrylic co-polymers using the process of water reduction. The formation of CUP particles was driven by the polymer-polymer interactions being greater than polymer-solvent interactions as well as the charge-charge repulsion due to the increasing dielectric of the medium. CUPs provide a surfactant or additive-free nanoparticle system that was useful for studying the interfacial behavior of pure aqueous nanoparticles using a maximum bubble pressure tensiometer. The equilibrium surface tension shows a dependence on concentration and the charge density of the CUP particle. The equilibrium …

Determining Thermal Properties Via Parameter Estimation Of A One-Dimensional, Analytical Model, Lauren B. Tomanek

Doctoral Dissertations

“In thermal applications, thermal conductivity is used to predict how well a material conducts heat. The accuracy of the magnitude of the thermal conductivity becomes increasingly essential to optimize part geometry. Thermal conductivity can vary significantly from the nominal value due to post-processing. The ASTM standards available to measure thermal conductivity are challenging to reproduce because of the insulated and prescribed temperature boundary conditions that are needed. The research introduces two new methods for estimating thermal conductivity that deliver the same accuracy as the existing ASTM standards and are easier to implement. The methods account for losses in the heating …

Anti-Discrimination Ethics Rules And The Legal Profession, Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

“Reputation ought to be the perpetual subject of my Thoughts, and Aim of my Behaviour. How shall I gain a Reputation! How shall I Spread an Opinion of myself as a Lawyer of distinguished Genius, Learning, and Virtue.” So wrote twenty-four-year-old John Adams in his diary in 1759. He had been a licensed lawyer for just three years at that time and had already believed himself to be hounded by “Petty foggers” and “dirty Dablers in the Law”—unlicensed attorneys who, Adams claimed, fomented vexatious litigation for the fees they might earn.

Adams believed his embrace of virtue, along with genius …

Angels, Virgins, Demons, Whores: Moving Towards An Antiracist Praxis By Confronting Modern Investment Law Scholarship, Tara Van Ho

Faculty Articles

Racism is not a natural phenomenon. Historically, it was socialised into global exist existence through intentional acts that have become embedded parts of the international legal order and domestic social systems. Rejecting racism and developing alternative antiracist approaches similarly require intentionality. One area of concern for scholars is how our linguistic and framing choices perpetuate or reproduce racialised hierarchies. In this article, I employ I. Bennett Capers's 'Reading Black' methodology to interrogate racialised narratives embedded in four contributions to modern international investment law debates. The purpose is not to condemn the individual authors but to identify how the socialisation and …

One Age Does Not Fit All: Late Career Practitioner Policies And Managed Care, Adella Katz, John J. Locurto

Faculty Articles

A late career practitioner policy (LCPP) is an age-based approach to screening physicians for physical, cognitive, and other limitations that could impact patient care. What makes LCPPs controversial is that they subject physicians to heightened or more frequent screenings based on arbitrary age thresholds, without specific evidence that their skills have diminished, their acuity has declined, or their performance has deteriorated. Supporters justify LCPPs based on data showing that capabilities decline with age. Aging is natural, they contend, and physicians are not immune to its effects. Critics call LCPPs discriminatory, the embodiment of capricious action that stigmatizes older practitioners by …

Examining Patient Demographics Within A Physical Therapy (Pt)-Driven Proning Protocol During Covid-19 Pandemic, Christina Wood, Sidney M. Stoddard Pt, Dpt, Daniel Sawyer Pt, Dpt, Michael Pechulis Dpt, Julie M. Skrzat Pt Dpt Phd Ccs, Mark Fuse, Amanda Fox, Elizabeth A. Wetzler, Mary Loose Pt, Ryan Vetter Ms-Otr/L, Kaitlyn Musco Md, Christopher Lenivy Do, Shae Duka Bs

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

Examining Mobility Within A Physical Therapy-Driven Proning Protocol During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Sidney M. Stoddard Pt, Dpt, Daniel Sawyer Pt, Dpt, Michael Pechulis Dpt, Julie M. Skrzat Pt Dpt Phd Ccs, Mark Fuse, Amanda Fox, Elizabeth A. Wetzler, Mary Loose Pt, Ryan Vetter Ms-Otr/L, Kaitlyn Musco Md, Christopher Lenivy Do, Shae Duka Bs

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

Examining Associations Between Prone Position And Hospital Outcomes During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Sidney M. Stoddard Pt, Dpt, Daniel Sawyer Pt, Dpt, Michael Pechulis Dpt, Julie M. Skrzat Pt Dpt Phd Ccs, Mark Fuse, Amanda Fox, Elizabeth A. Wetzler, Mary Loose Pt, Ryan Vetter Ms-Otr/L, Kaitlyn Musco Md, Christopher Lenivy Do, Shae Duka Bs

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

The Benefit Of A Physical Therapy Vestibular Evaluation In The Emergency Department: A Case Study, Nicholas Boyd, Daniel Sawyer Pt, Dpt

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

Case Report Describing Mobility Progression Of A “Happy Hypoxic” Covid-19 Patient Requiring Prolonged Non-Invasive Fio2>60%, Courtney Stanlaw Pt, Dpt, James K. Miller

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

Alternative Scheduling Framework To Decrease Waitlist And Improve Patient Satisfaction In Outpatient Pediatric Rehab, Shelley Spence, Kimberly Fritts Dpt

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.