Digital Commons Network^™

Delivering Highly-Characterized Low-Dose X-Ray Radiation To Biological Samples, Jaclyn D'Avanzo

All Theses

Since the advent and swift adoption of x-ray imaging in 1986, the understanding of radiation among the general populace has markedly increased as has the average annual radiation exposure. The biological effects of high doses and high dose-rates, particularly related to x-ray radiation, became a concern of the scientific and medical communities within the same year due to the unregulated use of such imaging. The dangers of these high doses sparked extensive studies, health recommendations, and regulations. However, after it became common practice to use the lowest dose necessary to facilitate medical treatment, the research on the biological effects of …

Affordance Judgment For Collision Or Bypass Of Objects By Rotating Panels, Balagopal Raveendranath

All Theses

We interact with rotating panels like doors in our day-to-day life. Doors afford the action of entry and exit from an enclosed space. Since a rotating door can pose a risk of collision to a person standing within the swept volume of the door, the ability to judge a safe distance from the door is imperative. The current study investigated the optical information available to judge whether a rotating panel would collide with or bypass a stationary object nearby. On a desktop computer, participants saw the top-down view of a door-like panel, which rotated about one of three different axes …

Development Of Guidelines For Support Structure Design And Placement In Metal Additive Manufacturing, Lucas M. Morand

All Theses

Support structures used in metal additive manufacturing (AM) have traditionally been used to overcome process limitations. A new approach explored in this study used novel design and placement of support structures to reduce part deformation. First, a case study was conducted with a simple production part at a major OEM. Changing the support structures used in the print reduced the average deformation by up to 21% and the maximum deformation by up to 24%. Once this opportunity for customized support structure design was established, interviews with AM engineers were used to identify the most common challenge features that would benefit …

Cloud-Based Low-Cost Wireless Distributed Indoor Temperature And Humidity Monitoring System, Ningxuan Wen

All Theses

In the U.S., buildings are usually responsible for about 40% of total energy consumption, indicating a great potential for energy saving. It is reported that in EU countries, about 60% to 70% of the consumed energy in buildings are for space heating, and the rest of the energy are mostly accounted by hot water and electrical appliance. On the other hand, the indoor climate comfort is strongly related to the life quality and productivity of the occupants. There is no doubt that any improvement in building control and optimization will lead to a significant energy savings while still maintain the …

Promoting A Safe Hospital Environment Through Autonomy, Christopher Lee Sousa

All Theses

The use of ultraviolet-C (UVC) radiation for disinfecting high contact surfaces in areas with a high risk of transferring infection causing bacteria and viruses such as hospitals is a growing practice that has proved to be more effective than currently used disinfection methods. Current practices of hospital room disinfection via UVC radiation include running a stationary UVC source for a large amount of time in a space to allow all surfaces to receive the radiation dosage required to eliminate the targeted surface-dwelling pathogens. This method relies on either passively reflecting rays around a room to achieve adequate disinfection of hidden …

Bovine Intervertebral Disc Organ Culture For Assessing Regenerative Therapeutics For Herniation Repair, Mario Josef Krussig

All Theses

Annually over 3 million people suffer from intervertebral disc (IVD) herniation (IVDH)¹ and approximately 500,000 discectomies are performed in the United States alone. Within one-year post-operation, up to 15% of patients must undergo a second discectomy or spinal reconstruction due to re-herniation². One potential method to overcome limitations associated with discectomies is to develop tissue engineered constructs to augment the surgical procedure. Previously two novel scaffolds have been created by our lab: an annulus fibrosus repair patch (AFRP) and acellular bovine nucleus pulposus (ABNP); however, these constructs require extensive testing before implementation in humans. Therefore, the purpose …

A Cross-Sectional Assessment Of Cem Curriculum Offerings At The Pre-College Level In The Carolinas, Cayla Lenore Anderson

All Theses

Career and Technical Education (CATE or CTE) is essential at the pre-college level since students primarily make career decisions during this time. CTE curriculum is implemented in various schools, including Title 1, to develop knowledge for students regarding technical careers. The construction, engineering, and management (CEM) curriculum is a type of CTE curriculum designed to educate pre-college level students about careers in the construction industry. Knowledge opportunities about the construction industry can contribute to a workforce shortage. Research suggests a shortage of future workforce in the construction industry within the next decade or by 2040. Assessing the CEM curriculum at …

Constitutive Expression Of The Inositol Polyphosphate 5- Phosphatase Gene Alters Plant Development And Enhances Abiotic Stress Tolerance In Creeping Bentgrass, Chen Chang

All Theses

Inositol-1,4,5-triphosphate (IP3), a second messenger molecule and a very important component of phosphoinositide (PI) signaling, participates in plant growth and response to various abiotic stresses. Strict control of the IP3 balance is critical for normal plant development. Type I Inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatase (InsP 5-ptase) functions to hydrolyze soluble inositol phosphates, such as IP3. It has previously been reported that transgenic Arabidopsis, a dicotyledonous plant species overexpressing InsP 5-ptase exhibit a sharply declined IP3 level, but enhanced tolerance to various environmental adversities, indicating an important role the InsP 5-ptase plays in regulating phosphoinositide (PI) signaling to mediate plant stress responses. To …

Tarn: Towards A Traffic Analysis Resistant Network, Christian Geddings Barrineau

All Theses

The Internet today is made up of large networks known as autonomous systems (AS). These networks are given ownership over static blocks of IP prefixes, which they announce using the border gateway protocol (BGP). These static mappings of IP prefixes to ASes are well known and publicly available. This makes it easy for individuals, corporations, and governments to target specific entities for traffic analysis. This thesis describes traffic analysis in terms three scopes of trust, discussing the risks and requirements at each level. It then looks at traffic captured at Clemson University, showing how much information is actually made available …

Thermal Modeling Of Fused Deposition Modeling Process Using Discrete Elements, Chelsea Charles Menezes

All Theses

Over the years various models have been proposed to predict the material behavior during fused deposition modeling (FDM) process. FDM produced components show anisotropic material properties as compared to the virgin materials produced via injection molding. The thermal phenomena subjected to the filament during the FDM process leads to temperature gradient between filaments within a layer and across layers. This affects the adhesion and bond formation between the filaments and leads to directional differences in bonding strengths throughout the component. In this study, discrete elements have been used to study the thermal cooling behavior of FDM deposited filaments. This approach …

Image Segmentation Applied To Electrical Impedance Tomography, Scott Randall Scruggs

All Theses

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has many significant applications and has gained popularity due to its ease of use and its non-invasiveness. While it has notable applications, EIT is severely ill-posed. Since EIT is ill-posed, various techniques have been considered to solve the inverse problem. While the inverse problem has been well-studied, a common question is to ask how we can improve in solving the inverse problem of the electrical impedance tomography?

In this thesis, we consider using image segmentation alongside with iteratively-regularized Gauss-Newton Method (IRGN) to solve the inverse problem of EIT in various geometries. A comparison between the reconstruction …

Detecting Eating Episodes From Daily Patterns Of Wrist Motion Using Recurrent Neural Networks, Adam Patyk

All Theses

This thesis considers the problem of detecting when a person is eating during everyday life by examining daily patterns of wrist motion with recurrent neural networks. Our novelty is analyzing an entire day of data to classify and segment meals with a model we call the “daily pattern classifier”. Previous research has only analyzed short windows on the order of seconds or minutes long that miss larger day-to-day patterns. The goal of this work is to utilize daily contextual indicators to improve eating episode detection and reduce false detections that occur throughout the day.

The wrist motion data used in …

A Tightly Integrated Generic Instruction Risc-V Accelerator (Tigra) For The Rocket Core, Theresa Thao Le

All Theses

Custom accelerators are largely beneficial for compute intensive applications such as data encryption or floating point arithmetic. These accelerators allow for a very specific task to be offloaded to its own unit so that the rest of the pipeline is not overwhelmed by these complicated instructions. To further achieve speed, a custom accelerator can be offloaded to an FPGA while still being on the same die as the CPU. Intel had announced this new technology back in 2014 and recently at the end of 2020, AMD released a patent application describing a similar approach.

In this thesis, we present a …

Root System Architecture That Improves Biomass Production And Yield Of Soybean, Enoch Noh

All Theses

Soybean [Glycine max (L.)] is the most important oilseed and one of the most important and affordable protein sources worldwide. Enhancing the acquisition of belowground resources has been identified as an opportunity for improving soybean productivity worldwide. Root architecture is gaining interest as a selection criterion in breeding programs for enhancing soil resource acquisition and developing climate-resilient varieties. The objective of this research was to investigate whether root system characteristics are related with aboveground growth and yield of 11 selected soybean genotypes under rainfed conditions. Our goal was to identify beneficial root traits and genotypes that can be included in …

The Effect Of Carbon Black Electrocatalyst Type And Ink Composition On The Production Of H2O2 With Gas Diffusion Electrodes, Alexander Gex

All Theses

Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is a powerful oxidizing agent that produces no known disinfection by products (DBPs), making it an ideal candidate for water treatment if produced efficiently. This study compared the efficiency of H₂O₂ electrosynthesis between different conductive carbon electrocatalysts, binding agents, and current densities, with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) as the electrolyte in a gas diffusion electrode (GDE). The results showed that for any given binding agent, the electrocatalyst that produced the most H₂O₂ changed based upon the current density applied to the cathodes. A current density dependent impact …

Evaluation Of Long-Term Boron Leaching Rates In Industrial Grade And Laboratory Created Coal Ash, Allison Mclane

All Theses

Understanding boron speciation is critical in determining how leaking coal ash basins could potentially affect nearby agricultural or drinking water sources due to its non-reactive and highly mobile nature. While boron is not typically considered a health risk driver at many coal ash basin sites, it is required for detection monitoring and generally indicates the leading edge of a plume when present downstream. Boron leaching rates from coal fly ash has been studied in many scenarios, but there is a lack of knowledge in the literature about bottom ash as a source of boron in basin pore waters. Additionally, most …

Data-Driven System Identification And Optimal Control Framework For Grand-Prix Style Autonomous Racing, Rongyao Wang

All Theses

For the past 30 years, autonomous driving has witnessed a tremendous improvements thanks to the surge of computing power. Not only did we witness the autonomous vehicle navigate itself safely in the urban area, stories about more diverse autonomous driving applications, such as off-road rally-style navigation, are also commonly mentioned. Just until recently, the exponential increase in GPU and high-performance computing technology has motivated the research on autonomous driving under extreme situations such as autonomous racing or drifting.[25] The motivation for this thesis is to offer a brief overview about the main challenge of autonomous driving control and planning in …

The Second-Person Narrative Mode Used As A Proposed Engagement Form In Virtual Reality Storytelling, Rodney Florencio Da Costa

All Theses

Methods of storytelling in cinema, theater, and literature have well-established conventions that have been built throughout narrative history and the development of these more traditional formats. In virtual reality, though, many of the techniques that have formed part of this cinematic language or visual narrative are not easily applied. In general, when the virtual reality narrative term is used, it is associated with filmed or rendered 360º videos that use head-mounted displays for presentation and most often uses first and third-person narratives, which may compromise a director's intent for story flow.

This thesis aims to put a new light on …

Shining Light On Retroreflectivity: Perceived Brightness Of Surfaces With Varying Reflective Properties, Savana King

All Theses

Typical road users appear not to understand retroreflectivity despite nightly exposure to retroreflective materials such as road signs. While retroreflective surfaces have been engineered to reflect light back in the direction of its source, retroreflectors appear to be diffuse reflectors in most viewing conditions. This may lead road users to underestimate its value in nighttime roadway applications and contribute to vulnerable road users’ under-use of retroreflective markings to enhance their own conspicuity at night. In this context, a critical benefit of retroreflective materials is a robustness to changes in entrance angle, the angle at which the light strikes the material.This …

Evaluation Of Two-Phase Anaerobic Digestion For Increased Sludge Handling Capacity And Energy Production At The F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center, Julia Ann Funk

All Theses

Two-phase anaerobic digestion (AD) of municipal wastewater separates the hydrolytic-acidogenic phase from the methanogenic phase, resulting in optimization of the respective microbial communities, increased stability, shorter residence times, and increased methane production rates compared to conventional single-phase treatment. Anaerobic co-digestion of fats, oils, and grease (FOG) with municipal wastewater also offers the potential for increased methane production rates; however, FOG can lead to system upsets and overall digester failure if not managed properly. Anaerobic co-digestion in a two-phase system could offer the potential of alleviating many of these upsets, including more efficient conversion of long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) and …

Applications Of Set-Theoretic Topology In The Construction And Analysis Of Engineering Design Spaces, Joshua Bronson Ortiz

All Theses

The idea of design spaces in engineering has appeared in many forms and served a variety of purposes in practice, research, and literature. Yet very few of the definitions put forth have a concrete mathematical structure that can be practically applied by the designer in real-time. This research seeks to address this gap by taking advantage of tools and techniques in point-set topology, a field that has been used successfully in a number of different areas. The primary objective of this undertaking is to formalize definitions for design spaces as topological structures that will encapsulate many of the relevant characteristics …

Framing Ludens: Pawn Swapping And Game Mode Alteration In An Unreal Engine Game Level, Jeffrey Paul Martell

All Theses

Knight of Drones is a hybrid twin-stick top-down shooter and side-scrolling platformer that aims to bring vintage gameplay to a contemporary game engine. A single swatch of the top-down game mode and a pair of levels from the side-scrolling game mode will be presented beginning with the player characters and player pawn assets and then extending to the level design and game design assets.

The game deals with the fallout effects of climate change and serves as a cautionary tale against pollution and weaponized AI. This message will appear primarily in the game's atmosphere, literally in the background in some …

Design And Studies Of Cvd Graphene-Based Membranes On Modified Support For Water Treatment Applications, Mansour Saberi

All Theses

Although almost 70% of the world is covered by water, less than 3% is fresh. The remainder—most of the Earth’s water is saline. To meet humanity’s increasing and unavoidable need for water, we must convert saline water into freshwater through desalination. Many desalination technologies are available, and membrane-based technologies, such as reverse osmosis (RO), are widely used. Though RO is especially common, desalination through RO faces several challenges. For example, high operation cost due to high pressure during the process or its degradable polymeric active layer in contact with chlorine-containing compounds. In terms of general functionality and energy consumption, water …

Comparing Change Management Processes For Requirements And Manufacturing: An Interview Based Study, Meredith Grace Sutton

All Theses

This study compares requirement and manufacturing change management processes to determine the processes in use and if similar processes can be used for both types of changes. A literature review is used to identify prescribed process stages. Ten stages are identified for both requirements and manufacturing change management. A series of interviews are then conducted with four different population groups to determine the process stages actually used in the field. The resulting requirement and manufacturing change process models are compared with the process models from the literature and with each other. Further, a thematic analysis is performed on the interview …

Analysis Of Relative Frequency Of Commuting Modes During Covid-19 Pandemic", Shreya Chintawar

All Theses

At the end of December 2019, a new coronavirus spread in Wuhan, China, and worldwide and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this outbreak of the COVID-19 virus a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Different states and cities implemented various strategies including school closure, working from home, and restaurant and shop closures to control the virus spread, resulting in reduced travel demand. COVID-19 provided an opportunity to understand the differential impacts of a pandemic on travel demand. This study investigates the changes in the U.S. transportation mode use and factors influencing changes in mode use frequency for commuting during the …

Were The "Best Made Better" Without In-Person Programming? Content Analysis Of Extension 4-H Programming During The Covid-19 Pandemic In South Carolina, Lauren Burdine Hood

All Theses

Since 1902, 4-H Youth Development programs have been implemented by Cooperative Extension Agents or Educators for teaching, influencing, and leading youth to new life skills that can shape and influence their futures. The motto of 4-H is “learn by doing” and is practiced with a hands-on learning approach. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 4-H programs and clubs around the nation were confined to home or distance learning and no group interaction, some even still confined to virtual-only events. This study analyzes how 4-H, specifically in South Carolina, was implemented without meeting in person. 4-H participants and their parents in South Carolina …

Thermoplastic-Thermoset Bonding Via Reactive Interfaces, Eric Charles Rozelsky

All Theses

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) is widely regarded as a high-performance thermoplastic material due to its desirable properties, including a high strength to weight ratio and excellent chemical stability. However, a practical challenge to working with PEEK is that its chemical resistance and inertness make the adhesion of functional coatings to PEEK surfaces quite difficult. To this end, we have developed a method for promoting adhesion between PEEK and a thermoset epoxy coating by introducing a reactive and mechanically robust polymer layer at the interface, which bonds with both the substrate and the coating.

Our process involves pre-treatment of PEEK using …

Fluid Rheological Effects On Insulator-Based Dielectrophoresis, Joseph Armakan Bentor

All Theses

Insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) has been increasingly used to focus, trap and separate particles and cells for various microfluidic applications in the fields of analytical chemistry, bioanalysis, cell biology and clinics etc. It exploits insulating structure(s) to create electric field gradients for dielectrophoretic manipulation of particles and cells in microchannels. However, iDEP has thus far been demonstrated to work with Newtonian fluids only in the majority of the reported applications. As many of the biological (e.g., blood, saliva, DNA solutions, etc.) and chemical (e.g., polymer and colloidal solutions) fluids exhibit non-Newtonian behaviors, it is important and necessary to understand how the …

Initial Investigation Of Connection Behavior For Buckling-Restrained Braces (Brbs) In Precast Concrete Frames, Hannah Dillingham Kessler

All Theses

Recently, there has been increased interest in using buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) in pinned precast concrete frames located in seismic zones. BRB frames (BRBFs) are a relatively new, but well-understood lateral force resisting system for steel structures. A codified method of design for precast BRBFs cannot be created due to a lack of experimental studies on this system. To act as a first step in the codification process, the objectives of this thesis are to complete an extensive review of potential brace-to-frame connection designs for precast BRBFs and to experimentally test a connection design through representative seismic loads. To complete the …

Demystifying Structure-Property Correlations For Perovskite Oxides Using Machine Learning To Discover Lead-Free Alternatives Solar Cells, Afrid Mazhar Shirsekar

All Theses

Discovering optimal materials for a given application has become extremely difficult due to the vast scope of structure possibilities and requires substantial computational expense to evaluate even one of all possible structures. An increase in the structural complexity can offset combinatorial explosion and could take months, if not years, even with the advanced computational architecture, to screen every candidate.Here in this study, we propose a computational approach based on statistical learning combined with DFT based computations that can effectively screen over the entire range of possible candidates and predict the material’s electronic properties with high fidelity. Specifically, we use advanced …