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Infrared Detectability Of Whale Species And Behaviors To Enhance Automatic Detection For Real-Time Vessel Strike Avoidance, Laura J. Howes

Graduate Masters Theses

Real-time detection of large whales at sea is critical for mitigating serious injury and mortality from ship strikes and other human activities such as seismic surveys, especially for endangered species such as the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Traditional marine mammal observers are limited by environmental conditions and human factors, necessitating a robust, 24-hour solution. This study investigates the efficacy of a novel onboard detection tool infrared (IR) technology to detect whale blows and body parts. While IR is a promising advancement, its performance under varying sea conditions (e.g., fog, humidity) and its ability to …

Introduction To Film, Teresa A. Fisher

Open Educational Resources

An introduction to the filmmaking process including film history, narrative, mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography, sound, and acting. Includes a chapter on documentary film, experimental film, and animation.

The Grasshopper's Journey To The Bloch Sphere, David Llamas

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The Grasshopper Problem asks a simple geometric question. A grasshopper lands on a lawn of fixed area and jumps a fixed distance in a random direction. What shape of lawn maximizes the probability that the grasshopper remains on the lawn after jumping? The jump rule is rotationally symmetric, but the best lawns do not have to be. This dissertation studies how that symmetry breaking occurs, maps the continuum problem to a novel constrained spin system, and uses the spherical Grasshopper Problem to compare quantum singlet correlations with classical local models.

For planar lawns, boundary-integral and perturbative calculations explain why the …

A Statistical Mechanics Approach To Reinforcement Learning, Jacob Adamczyk

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Reinforcement learning (RL), the study of optimal decision-making over long timescales in stochastic systems, has recently seen remarkable advances due in large part to the efforts of the deep learning community. RL has witnessed great success in solving problems in video games, robotics, biological control, and language modeling. However, a unified statistical mechanics framework to understand and develop the corresponding algorithms is lacking. To address this issue, we begin by showing that the reinforcement learning problem can be formulated and solved using the tools of statistical mechanics. Drawing on physical principles of free energy minimization and invariance, we address important …

Genomic Based Environmental Health Assessment: Vieques, Puerto Rico, Valeria Hernandez Talavera

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

From 1941 to 2003, the United States Navy and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) used Vieques, Puerto Rico, for military training, which led to long-term pollution from metals, organic chemicals, explosives, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). While earlier research found these contaminants in the environment and in living organisms, their combined effects on local ecosystems remain poorly understood.

This dissertation used a Genomic-Based Environmental Health Assessment (GEHA) framework to study the ecological risks from past military pollution in Vieques. The approach combined sediment toxicity tests, chemical analysis, gene expression studies, microbial community analysis, and community-based research. The four main …

Governing Climate Change For Sustainable Food Security In The Busoga Region Of Uganda, James Kintu

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Busoga, Uganda's most sugarcane-intensive sub-region, hosts seven mills and an expanding outgrower economy, yet remains among Uganda's most food-insecure areas, with over half of its households food-insecure. This study examined how governance of climate change and sugarcane expansion shapes capabilities for food access, land tenure, and decision-making among women, youth, and land-poor households in Jinja and Buyende.

The study developed an integrated CA-CEP-RFS framework, combining the Capability Approach, Comparative Environmental Politics, and the Resilient Food Systems framework, with Sen's Entitlement Framework bridging capabilities to production, trade, own-labor, and transfer entitlements. A qualitative case study drew on a documentary review, 27 …

Process And Change In The Global Governance Of Sustainable Development, S. Beth Fascitelli

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

In 2015, to euphoric acclaim, the world adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. But with less than five years to deliver its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Agenda’s “transformational vision” remains unrealized. To understand why, this dissertation looks not to the Agenda’s implementation but to its birth, asking how the three-year process that produced it was designed, implemented, and experienced, and whether its mechanisms reinforced or challenged the structures that shape global sustainability governance. The premise is simple: how global agreements are negotiated matters as much as their substance. The study thus pushes back against a celebratory view …

Shaping Disease: Colonial Stigma And The Politics Of Health In Banyuwangi, The Early Twentieth Century, Rifa'i Shodiq Fathoni, Skriptyan Noor Hidayatullah Syuhri, Vini’Matu Hikmah, Ardhita Zahra Namira

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article examines the colonial stigma attached to Banyuwangi as an “unhealthy region” in the early 20th century, a label used to justify massive exploitation of its natural resources. Using a historical method, this research analyzes how this stigma not only served as a tool for colonial legitimation but also causatively created conditions that triggered ecological disasters and a public health crisis in a previously isolated area. Through an analysis of primary sources such as colonial reports, health journals, and newspapers, this article traces how large-scale plantation exploitation, enabled by the stigma, led to deforestation, uncontrolled labor migration, and poor …

Responding To Medetomidine In Philadelphia: Narrative Summary Of The Public Health Response To A New Psychoactive Substance, Tareva Warrick-Stone, Serge-Emile Simpson, Phil Durney, Dennis Goodstein, Catherine Abrams, Raymond Bobb, Kory London, Daniel Teixeira Da Silva

Division of Internal Medicine Faculty Papers & Presentations

BACKGROUND: Despite the emergence of medetomidine as the dominant adulterant in Philadelphia's illicit opioid supply, coordinated public health responses are limited or non-existent in the literature. Thus, we summarize a recent Summit in Philadelphia of outpatient and inpatient service providers who specialize in the care of persons who use drugs to discuss medetomidine response readiness and building ongoing community readiness for potential destabilizing drug supply changes.

PURPOSE: Describe a public health intervention that distributed information about practices across health care settings and mobilized key informants to identify and address barriers to treatment.

METHODS: Descriptive summary of the in-person Summit organized …

Effect Of Cracks On The Natural Frequency Of Cylindrical Shell Structures, Marwah . Husain, Mohsin Al-Shammari

Engineering and Technology Journal

Shell structures are liable to different kinds of defects and damage like cracking and corrosion which may destroy their structural safety and affect the service life. The cracks' effects are significant considerations in the design of cylindrical shell structures as they influence the vibration characteristics and safety. This present work is an experimental study on the free vibration analysis of a cylindrical shell involving circumferential surface crack. The influence of the ratio of shell’s radius to a shell’s thickness (R/h)of the shell structure, crack length in the shell, crack depth in the shell, crack location of the shell, and crack …

Application Of Treated Iraqi Rice Husk As Adsorbent For Phosphate Removal From Aqueous Solution, Anaam Sabri, Yaser Hashim

Engineering and Technology Journal

In the present work, agricultural waste, (Iraqi rice husk A’anbar type) was developed with thermal and chemical treatments for using as an adsorbent to remove phosphate anion from aqueous solution and the thermal treatment at 500oC was the best.Batch experiments were conducted to obtain the maximum removal of phosphate via changing the parameters of the process, such as contact time, pH, adsorbent dose, initial solute concentration, and the existence of competitive anions upon the removal of phosphate and was investigated. The adsorbent characterization was performed employing Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), scanning electron microscope (SEM), the BET surface …

Evaluation Of Eutrophication Levels In Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Lake, Iraq (Biological And Chemical Study), Suhair Al-Sharifi, Salih Al-Bakri, Sataa Al-Bayati

Engineering and Technology Journal

Within Al-Najaf lake, that is one of the important shallow lakes in Iraq, the lake facing tremendous pressure due to encroachments, discharge of untreated domestic and industrial waste, drainage water from cultivated orchards, dumping of solid waste and illegal diversion of water and currently it's still suffering from these problems and neglect. The study aimed to evaluate the eutrophication status. Eutrophication is a grave problem in lakes, a knowledge about the eutrophic state help in providing a make efficient realization of the eutrophic problem.This study conducted to assess the Eutrophication level with a scale 0 – 100 depending on the …

The Solubility Of Phosphogypsum And Recovery Of Heavy And Radioactive Elements, Waleed Rashid, Israa Alkadir, Moayyed Jalhom

Engineering and Technology Journal

The essential purpose of this paper is to illustrate and inspect the leaching characteristics of Iraqi Phosphogypsum (PG). The paper presents the results of the dissolution characteristics of heavy and radioactive elements from PG, which is a by-product result from the industry of phosphate fertilizers. Leachability of heavy and radioactive elements in deionized water that has been inspected under various states of leaching, including solid/liquid ratio (10, 20 and 50 /1g/L) and temperatures (25, 45 and 85 °C), with constant other parameters such as string speed (300 rpm) and contact time (60 minutes). For the most analysis elements, the progressive …

Properties And Behavior Of Starch Biopolymer Concrete, Waleed Abbas, Hawraa Mohsen

Engineering and Technology Journal

Starch act as natural polymer has been got from Wheat, Tapioca, and Corn. Corn starch has been investigated as biopolymer and has been added to concrete in different percentages (0%, 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%) by cement weight and the study shows the effect of using starch on some properties of concrete in the fresh state ( slum and fresh density) and at hardened state (compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength) at 28 days. The mix proportion was(1:2.3:2.3) (cement: sand: gravel) respectively and at constant w/c equal to 0.47.The results indicate that the optimum percentage of starch addition was …

Path Planning Of Mobile Robot Using Improved Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, Rkaa Kamil, Mohamed Mohamed, Bashra Oleiwi

Engineering and Technology Journal

A modified version of the artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (ABC) was suggested namely Adaptive Dimension Limit- Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (ADL-ABC). To determine the optimum global path for mobile robot that satisfies the chosen criteria for shortest distance and collision–free with circular shaped static obstacles on robot environment. The cubic polynomial connects the start point to the end point through three via points used, so the generated paths are smooth and achievable by the robot. Two case studies (or scenarios) are presented in this task and comparative research (or study) is adopted between two algorithm’s results in order to evaluate …

Study Of The Influence Of Different Variables On Clathrate Practical Applications In Phenol Removal, Riyadh Al- Mukhtar, Shurooq Remedhan, Marwa Hussin

Engineering and Technology Journal

In this work, effluent wastewater treated by using cyclopentane-water Clathrate system to treat water contaminates with phenols at concentrations (300, 250, 200, 150, 100 and 50) ppm in order to investigate the capability of process performance. Clathrate or hydrate are strong crystal structures including water (host particles) and little particles (guest particles). The experiments were conducted at different cyclopentane-water volume ratios (1: 2 and 1: 4). The work was done in a 250 ml glass cell with an electric mixer at a constant speed of 280 cycles per minute. Phenol was highest removal percent at 300ppm at 1: 4volume ratio …

Experimental Study On Performance And Emission Characteristic Of Diesel Engine Using Sunflower Oil Biodiesel Blends, Ghassan Ali, Abed Al-Kadim Hassan

Engineering and Technology Journal

Biodiesel fuel is a liquid biofuel produced by chemical process form new and used phytogenic oils, animal fats. Biodiesel fuels can be utilization alone or mixing with the pure diesel at different proportion. In the present work a diesel engine type (FIAT) , four cylinder, variable speed, direct injection was operated by sunflower oil methyl ester , biodiesel at different blend ratio . five different ratio of biodiesel blends 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% by volume is used in this study and compared with using of pure diesel at variable loads and variable engine speed. The effect of biodiesel …

Experimental Investigation Of Thermodynamics, Kinetics, And Equilibrium Of Nickel Ion Removal From Wastewater Using Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles As The Adsorbent, Shurooq Remedhan

Engineering and Technology Journal

In the present study commercial zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles in the size of 30 nm were utilized as an adsorbent for the removal of Ni (II) ion from synthetic waste aqueous solution. Adsorption capacity of ZnO for removing Ni (II) ions from aqueous solutions was measured at different pH, adsorbent dose, contact time, temperature and metal ion concentration. Moreover,  adsorption isotherms, kinetics and thermodynamics were studied to understand  the  nature  and  mechanism  of  adsorption. ZnO nanoparticles were characterized by X-Ray diffract analysis(XRD),Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy(FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM),energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDS) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The maximum amount of Ni …

Prediction The Influence Of Machining Parameters For Cnc Turning Of Aluminum Alloy Using Rsm And Ann, Hind Abdulridha, Aseel Helael, Ahmed Al-Duroobi

Engineering and Technology Journal

The main objective of this paper is to develop a prediction model using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for the turning process of Aluminum alloy 6061 round rod. The turning experiments carried out based on the Central Composite Design (CCD) of Response Surface Methodology. The influence of three independent variables such as Cutting speed (150, 175 and 200 mm/ min), depth of cut (0.5, 1 and 1.5 mm) and feed rate (0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mm/rev) on the Surface Roughness (Ra) were analyzed through analysis of variance (ANOVA). The response graphs from the Analysis of Variance …

An Efficient Approach For Detecting And Classifying Moving Vehicles In A Video Based Monitoring System, Sajidah Mahmood, Laith Saud

Engineering and Technology Journal

Moving objects detection, type recognition, and traffic analysis in video-based surveillance systems is an active area of research which has many applications in road traffic monitoring. This paper is on using classical approaches of image processing to develop an efficient algorithm for computer vision based on traffic surveillance system that can detect and classify moving vehicles, besides serving some other traffic analysis issues like finding vehicles speed and heading, tracking specified vehicles, and finding traffic load. The algorithm is designed to be flexible for modification to fulfill the changes in design objectives, having limited computation time, giving good accuracy, and …

Engine Performance With Diesel-Biodiesel Blends Fuel And Emission Characteristics, Marwa Kareem, Adel Saleh

Engineering and Technology Journal

In this study, the sunflowers oil was utilized as for producing biodiesel via a chemical operation, which is called trans-esterification reaction. Iraqi diesel fuel suffers from high sulfur content, which makes it one of the worst fuels in the world. This study is an attempt to improve the fuel specifications by reducing the sulfur content of the addition of biodiesel fuel to diesel where this fuel is free of sulfur and has a thermal energy that approaches to diesel.20%, 30% and 50% of Biodiesel fuel were added to the conventional diesel. Performance tests and pollutants of a four-stroke single-cylinder diesel …

Semi-Quantitative Risk Assessment In The Chemical Stores Of The University Of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq, Azhar Haleem

Engineering and Technology Journal

Chemicals are used daily at the university, by its students or staff so it’s necessary to develop a chemical management system to protect their workers and students from accidents caused by exposure to chemicals of various forms, the present study explains the methodology for assessing the health effects and risks of exposure to chemicals in the chemical stores of University of Technology (UOT) by using semi- quantitative risk assessment technique depends on a descriptive analytical approach, by collecting the requested information for seven main stores within the university by questionnaire form included inquiries about personal information about employees, level of …

Synthesis Of Some New Derivatives Of Pyrrolidine-2-One And Studying Their Antibacterial Potentials, Nadia Betti, Redha Hussain, Sahar Kadhem

Engineering and Technology Journal

New derivatives of pyrrolidine-2-one have been synthesized through lactamization of γ –butyrolactone (GBL) by hydrazine hydrate (80%), ethylene diamine and ethanol amine to afford compounds (1-aminopyrrolidin-2-one), (1-(2-aminoethyl)pyrrolidine-2-one) and (1-(2-hydroxyethyl)pyrrolidine-2-one), respectively. Compound (1-aminopyrrolidin-2-one) underwent several reactions to synthesize the rest of these derivatives. All synthesized compounds were approved by their FT-IR, 1H-NMR and some by Mass spectra. The biological activities of these derivatives were evaluated against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Many of these derivatives showed moderate biological activity against one or both kind of bacteria in comparison to amoxicillin and some showed no biological activity at all.

Key Generation From Multibiometric System Using Meerkat Algorithm, Duha Salman, Raghad Azeez, Abdul Mohssen Hossen

Engineering and Technology Journal

Biometrics are short of revocability and privacy while cryptography cannot adjust the user’s identity. By obtaining cryptographic keys using biometrics, one can obtain the features such as revocability, assurance about user’s identity, and privacy. Multi-biometrical based cryptographic key generation approach has been proposed, subsequently, left and right eye and ear of a person are uncorrelated from one to other, and they are treated as two independent biometrics and combine them in our system. None-the-less, the encryption keys are produced with the use of an approach of swarm intelligence. Emergent collective intelligence in groups of simple autonomous agents is collectively termed …

Characteristics Of Exhaust Emissions For A Diesel Engine Fuelled By Corn Oil Biodiesel And Blended With Diesel Fuel, Abdulrahman Mahmood, Haqi Qatta, Saadi Al-Nuzal, Talib Abed Abed

Engineering and Technology Journal

Environmentally friend biodiesel fuel from corn oil was tested in single-cylinder 4-stroke diesel engine operated. Three blends of fuels were prepared from corn oil and diesel fuel viz. 7, 15, and 20 % (designated as B7, B15, and B20, respectively). Tests were conducted on this engine using these blends at a constant speed (1500 rpm) and varying loads (0 % to 100 %). The emissions of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NOX) and smoke opacity were measured. In all engine loads, results showed that the emission of CO, HC, and smoke emissions were reduced, while that of …

Automatic Objects Detection And Tracking Using Fpcp, Blob Analysis And Kalman Filter, Hadeel N. Abdullah, Nuha H. Abdulghafoor

Engineering and Technology Journal

Object detection and tracking are key mission in computer visibility applications, including civil or military surveillance systems. However, there are major challenges that have an effective role in the accuracy of detection and tracking such as the ability of the system to track the target and the response speed of the system in different environments as well as the presence of noise in the captured video sequence. In this proposed work, a new algorithm to detect moving objects from video data is designed by the Fast Principle Component Purist (FPCP). Then, we used an ideal filter that performs well to …

Assessment Of Uranium In Urine Samples Of Primary School Students, Sahar Amin, Azhar Haleem

Engineering and Technology Journal

The environmental monitoring of radon in the children urine has been carried out by using solid state nuclear track detector CR-39. This study has been undertaken for the purpose of health risk assessments. The concentration of uranium values excreted with the boy's urine samples ranged from 0.203 Bq.L-1 (1.246 ng/L) and 2.201 Bq.L-1 (13.486 ng/L) with an average value of 0.698 Bq.L-1 (4.007 ng/L). While the concentration of uranium values excreted with the girl's urine samples ranged between 0.290 Bq.L-1 (1.777 ng/L) and 0.675 Bq.L-1 (4.135 ng/L), with an average value of 0.474 Bq.L-1 (2.901 ng/L). The amount of uranium …

In Vivo Effect Of Different Doses Of Silver Nanoparticles On The Seminiferous Tubules In Albino Rats: Histopathological Study, Ruqayah Salman, Abdulrahman Ali, Amenah Salman

Engineering and Technology Journal

The study aims to investigate the effects of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) on the seminiferous tubules in Albino rats. Several in vitro studies have been performed in different cell models, using various nanoparticles. Pure and spherical AgNPs with an average size of 30 nm, was injected into two groups of male albino rats (6 rats for each group) in different doses. Histopathological changes in testis tissues were showed a harmful effect of the silver nanoparticles, manifested by reducing the number of spermatogenic cells, and a decrease in the number of leyidg´s cells (group 1), and hypotrophy in seminiferous and enlargement …

Design Pid Neural Network Controller For Trajectory Tracking Of Differential Drive Mobile Robot Based On Pso, Mohamed Mohamed, Mohammed Hamza

Engineering and Technology Journal

This paper introduces a nonlinear (Proportional-Integral-Derivative Neural Network) (PID NN) controller for a differential wheeled mobile robot trajectory tracking problem. This neural controller is built based on the principles of neural network (NN) and the equation of conventional structure of PID controller and is applied on kinematic model of the mobile robot. The particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) is utilized to find the best values of three PID NN parameters and connection weights that minimize the error between the reference path and the actual path. The results illustrate that the PID NN controller has a satisfied ability to make the …

Toxic Effect Of Inhalation Polyurethane In Lungs, Liver, And Kidneys Fume In White Male Mice, Sura Ahmed, Amel Hussain

Engineering and Technology Journal

In this study, the toxic effect of exposure to inhalation of polyurethane resin fumes by White Male Mice was evaluated over 36 days. The study included the use of the inhalation method in an exposition room filled with the fume chemical to a period of 10, 20 and 40 minutes per day, and were then transferred to the fumigant section of the animal house. The organs of the mice was dissected, and the change of the weight determined. The lungs, liver, kidneys tissues of the exposed mice showed typical structural structures when compared with the control group. The liver cells …