Engineering Commons^™

Biofilter Media Characterization Using Water Sorption Isotherms, Guilherme Del Nero Maia, George B. Day, Richard S. Gates, Joseph L. Taraba

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Compost material has been used extensively as a gas‐phase biofilter media for contaminant gas treatment in recent years. One of the biggest challenges in the use of this type of material is adequate control of compost moisture content and understanding its effect on the biofiltration process. The present work provides a methodology for characterization of biofilter media under low moisture conditions. Results indicated that low levels of equilibrium moisture content (EMC) were obtained for high levels of equilibrium relative humidity (ERH), i.e., 99% ERH produced EMC of approximately 20% (dry basis) at 25° C. Most bacteria struggle to survive in …

Twin-Screw Extrusion Processing Of Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles (Ddgs)-Based Yellow Perch (Perca Flavescens) Feeds, Ferouz Y. Ayadi, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan, Michael L. Brown

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Increases in global aquaculture production, compounded with limited availabilities of fish meal for fish feed, has created the need for alternative protein sources. Twinscrew extrusion studies were performed to investigate the production of nutritionally balanced feeds for juvenile yellow perch (Perca flavescens). Five isocaloric (~3.06 kcal/g) ingredient blends, adjusted to a target protein content of 36.7% db, were formulated with 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) at an initial moisture content of 5–7%db, with appropriate amounts of fish meal, fish oil, whole wheat flour, corn gluten meal, and vitamin and mineral premixes. …

Use Of Remote Sensing To Support Forest And Wetlands Policies In The Usa, Audrey L. Mayer, Ricardo D. Lopez

College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science Publications

The use of remote sensing for environmental policy development is now quite common and well-documented, as images from remote sensing platforms are often used to focus attention on emerging environmental issues and spur debate on potential policy solutions. However, its use in policy implementation and evaluation has not been examined in much detail. Here we examine the use of remote sensing to support the implementation and enforcement of policies regarding the conservation of forests and wetlands in the USA. Specifically, we focus on the “Roadless Rule” and “Travel Management Rules” as enforced by the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service …

Use Of Imaging Biomarkers To Assess Perfusion And Glucose Metabolism In The Skeletal Muscle Of Dystrophic Mice, Nabeel Ahmad, Ian Welch, Robert Grange, Jennifer Hadway, Savita Dhanvantari, David Hill, Ting-Yim Lee, Lisa M Hoffman

Robarts Imaging Publications

BACKGROUND: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe neuromuscular disease that affects 1 in 3500 boys. The disease is characterized by progressive muscle degeneration that results from mutations in or loss of the cytoskeletal protein, dystrophin, from the glycoprotein membrane complex, thus increasing the susceptibility of contractile muscle to injury. To date, disease progression is typically assessed using invasive techniques such as muscle biopsies, and while there are recent reports of the use of magnetic resonance, ultrasound and optical imaging technologies to address the issue of disease progression and monitoring therapeutic intervention in dystrophic mice, our study aims to validate …

Determining A Method For Rendering Low Cost Cdse(Zns) Core(Shell) Quantum Dots Aqueous Soluble Via Amphiphilic Polymer Wrapping, Patrick Mcbride

Materials Engineering

Herein is described the procedure of two amphiphilic polymer wrapping techniques that may be employed for obtaining aqueous soluble quantum dots (QDs) for use in biological fluorescent imaging applications. The advent of QDs has led to new nanoscale fluorescent materials that exhibit unparalleled quantum yields (QYs), high resistance to photobleaching, tunable emissions, and
absorption over a large optical range. However, the QD synthesis employed here at Cal Poly to obtain bright, photostable CdSe(ZnS) core(shell) QDs involves the use of organic solvents and surfactants, leading to hydrophobic QDs. Since all of biology relies on aqueous solubility, this hydrophobicity creates a major …

A Novel Exercise Device For Users In Wheelchairs: A Study Of Abdominal Muscle Activation, Rebecca Jo Campbell

Master's Theses

This study evaluates the use of a wheelchair balance board. The balance board was created as a sensory stimulation tool for users with various disabilities. It was originally designed to create vestibular stimulation for the person after they were loaded on.  This study was used as a way to test if the balance board could be used for other things such as physical therapy and exercise.  Ten able-bodied individuals were used to show the functionality of the device.  They were asked to perform six different abdominal exercises while the muscle activity of their rectus abdominis and external obliques was measured …

Ischemia Impairs Vasodilation In Skeletal Muscle Resistance Artery, Kyle Remington Struthers

Master's Theses

Functional vasodilation in arterioles is impaired with chronic ischemia. We sought to examine the impact of chronic ischemia and age on skeletal muscle resistance artery function. To examine the impact of chronic ischemia, the femoral artery was resected from young (2-3mo) and adult (6-7mo) mice and the profunda femoris artery diameter was measured at rest and following gracilis muscle contraction 14 days later using intravital microscopy. Functional vasodilation was significantly impaired in ischemic mice (14.4±4.6% vs. 137.8±14.3%, p<0.0001 n=8) and non-ischemic adult mice (103.0±9.4% vs. 137.8±14.3%, p=0.05 n=10). In order to analyze the cellular mechanisms of the impairment, a protocol was developed to apply pharmacological agents to the experimental preparation while maintaining tissue homeostasis. Endothelial and smooth muscle dependent vasodilation were impaired with ischemia, 39.6 ± 13.6% vs. 80.5 ± 11.4% and 43.0 ± 11.7% vs. 85.1 ± 10.5%, respectively. From this data, it can be supported that smooth muscle dysfunction is the reason for the observed impairment in arterial vasodilation.

Oxidation Kinetics Of Silver Thin Films For Antimicrobial Applications In The Health Care Industry, Sean D. Morham

Materials Engineering

To determine if varying city water qualities from around the United States can support a developing “oxidation corrosion of silver thin films” method of creating aqueous ionic silver solutions for the anti-microbial treatment of healthcare linens, a test was devised holding all variables constant with the exception of water quality parameters. This corrosion style test was done in order to assess a pass/fail criteria of 25 ppb ionic silver concentration in the aqueous solutions which resulted from the corrosion of silver thin film coated substrates. Above 25 ppb being a pass, below 25 ppb being a fail. While varying the …

Study On Weight Loss And Moisture Regain Of Silk Cocoon Shells And Degummed Fibers From African Wild Silkmoths, Addis Teshome, S. K. Raina, F. Vollrath, J. M. Kabaru, J. Onyari, E. K. Nguku

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

A study was conducted to determine weight loss and moisture regain properties of silk cocoon shells, shell layers and degummed fibers of the four African wild silkmoths Anaphe panda, Argema mimosae, Epiphora bauhiniae and Gonometa postica and compare with the industry standard mulberry silkmoth, Bombyx mori. No. significant difference was observed between the moisture regain of the wild silk fibers after degumming. However, there were significant differences in weight loss and moisture regain between cocoon shells as well as shell layers. E. bauhiniae had the lowest weight loss and moisture regain of 23.19 and 5.64%, respectively while G. postica had …

Studying Milk Coagulation Kinetics With Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy, Image Processing, And Computational Modeling, Richard Joseph Hennessy

Master's Theses

The kinetics of milk coagulation are complex and still not well understood. A deeper understanding of coagulation and the impact of the relevant factors would aid in both cheese manufacturing and also in determining the nutritional benefits of dairy products. A method using confocal microscopy was developed to follow the movement of milk fat globules and the formation of a milk protein network during the enzyme-induced coagulation of milk. Image processing methods were then used to quantify the rate of coagulation. It was found that the texture of the protein network is an indicator of the current status of the …

Evaluation Of Delivery Conditions For Cutaneous Plasmid Electrotransfer Using A Multielectrode Array, Bernadette Ferraro, Loree C. Heller, Yolmari L. Cruz, Siqi Guo, Amy Donate, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

Electroporation (EP) is a simple in vivo method to deliver normally impermeable molecules, such as plasmid DNA, to a variety of tissues. Delivery of plasmid DNA by EP to a large surface area is not practical because the distance between the electrode pairs, and therefore the applied voltage, must be increased to effectively permeabilize the cell membrane. The design of the multielectrode array (MEA) incorporates multiple electrode pairs at a fixed distance to allow for delivery of plasmid DNA to the skin, potentially reducing the sensation associated with in vivo EP. In this report, we evaluate the effects of field …

Protein Structure-Based Method For Identification Of Horizontal Gene Transfer In Bacteria, Swetha Billa

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Horizontal Gene Transfer is defined as the movement of genetic material from one strain of species to another. Bacteria, being an asexual organism were always believed to transfer genes vertically. But recent studies provide evidence that shows bacteria can also transfer genes horizontally.

HGT plays a major role in evolution and medicine. It is the major contributor in bacterial evolution, enabling species to acquire genes to adapt to the new environments. Bacteria are also believed to develop drug resistance to antibiotics through the phenomenon of HGT. Therefore further study of HGT and its implications is necessary to understand the effects …

The Transfer Of Agricultural Water To Municipal And Industrial Usages, Dallin Paul Stephens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The water that is available for beneficial use in Utah is quickly approaching full appropriation; water that has been claimed is nearing the amount that is available for use. The Division of Water Resources of the State of Utah has organized a three-part plan to "Plan, Conserve, Develop and Protect Utah's Water Resources." One of these three elements has a focus to "provide comprehensive water planning." Such planning is best achieved when current and accurate data on the uses of the state's water are available.

The primary purpose of this thesis was to provide an evaluation, from data collected on …

Characterization And Application Of Dynamic In Vitro Models Of Human Airway, Hemangkumar J. Patel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In recent years, respiratory diseases have emerged as a leading cause of mortality across the globe. In the United States alone respiratory diseases are the fourth leading cause of deaths annually. Moreover, with the rapid increase of industrialization and urbanization, the occurrences of respiratory diseases are expected to remain high with strong chances of increasing in the future. To ameliorate the epidemic of respiratory disease, it is first important to understand its underlying mechanisms.

Respiratory research studies in animals have elucidated the chronological order of the pathological events and systemic responses inside the lung, but understanding the response of individual …

A Study On The Applications And Toxicity Assessments Of Carbon Nanotubes In Tissue Engineering, Rena Baktur

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one of the most popular nanomaterials. There has been increasing interest in the development and applications of carbon nanotubes due to their huge potential in industrial and medical applications. Recent applications of carbon nanotubes include development of scaffolds and drug delivery systems. Despite rapidly emerging applications of CNTs, little is known about the impact of CNTs on cellular processes, especially mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)'s differentiation. Also, the effects of nanoparticle exposure under different conditions on cellular responses have not been well characterized yet.

To characterize the effects of CNTs on creating nanoscale scaffolds for tissue engineering, …

2011 - The Sixteenth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Sixteenth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 26, 2011. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Impacts Of The Species Elaeagnus Umbellate On The Soil And Water Quality Of The Pierce Cedar Creek Institute Ecosystem, Yacoub Aljobeh, Kristin Engerer

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

The species Elaeagnus umbellate, more commonly known as autumn olive, is a shrub that is invasive to the United States and indigenous to East Asia. Even though the autumn olive is not native to North America, it was able to thrive and adapt to the new environment by using its ability to fix nitrogen. Nitrogen-fixing is a process where plants intake molecular nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into other forms of nitrogen that can be used by the plants. One of the nitrogen-fixing by-products is nitrate. Excessive amounts of nitrate can easily leach from the plant’s root …

Construction And Use Of A Direct Calorimeter To Estimate Energy Expenditure In Hibernators, Mark S. Burger, Frank Van Breukelen

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Metabolic rates have traditionally been estimated through indirect calorimetry (gas exchange or respirometry) due to its ease and availability. Oxygen consumption neglects the contributions of anaerobic metabolism, while direct calorimetry (heat production) estimates both anaerobic and aerobic metabolism. Walsberg and Hoffman (2005) report anaerobic metabolism may be more important to small rodents than was previously thought. During the non-steady state of mammalian hibernation, we hypothesize that anaerobic processes may play an even greater role in fueling metabolism. To address this question, we constructed a very sensitive calorimeter that utilizes the Seebeck effect from a thermoelectric element (Peltier device). We describe …

Event Program, Carl Reiber, Nicholle Booker

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

UNLV Undergraduates from all departments, programs and colleges participated in a campus-wide symposium on April 16, 2011. Undergraduate posters from all disciplines and also oral presentations of research activities, readings and other creative endeavors were exhibited throughout the festival.

Partnership For International Research And Education In Microfluidic Technology With Applications In Point Of Care Diagnostic, Mohammed Faghri, Sigrid Berka, John Grandin, Thomas Mather, D.M.L Meyer, Zongqin Zhang, Otto Gregory, Stephan Grilli, Christopher Baxter, Constantine Anagnostopoulos, Assem Abolmaaty

Discovery@URI

This poster summarizes the research highlights of a project conducted as part of an National Science Foundation (NSF) partnership for research and education. The objective of this multidisciplinary, international project was to conduct research on microfluidic technology and applications. The project team is comprised of participants from the University of Rhode Island and the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany. The research focuses on the following four tasks: Task 1 – Discovery of disease biomarkers; Task 2 –Streaming based microfluidic platform for pumping, mixing, separation and detection; Task 3 – Development of rapid, quantitative and sensitive microfluidic fluorescence immunosensors for …

Wright State University Celebration Of Research, Scholarship And Creative Activities Book Of Abstracts Friday, April 8, 2011, Wright State University Office Of Undergraduate Research And Stemm Activities

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

The student abstract booklet is a compilation of abstracts from students' oral and poster presentations at Wright State University's second annual Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 8, 2011.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 52 Number 4, Winter 2011, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

16 - LIFE CYCLE A Photo Essay By Susan Middleton '70. Luminous beauty drawn from two remarkable projects-Evidence of Evolution and Spineless. And a sneak peek at a show by this Guggenheim fellow opening in April at SCU's de Saisset Museum.

20 - CAN NEWSPAPERS & JOURNALISM SURVIVE THE DIGITAL AGE? DOES IT MATTER? By Jeff Brazil '85. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist goes looking for answers, talking to industry veterans, and taking stock of the new forms of journalism arising.

30 - REVEALED! THE TRUTH BEHIND NO NAME! By Sam Scott '96. On today's Rock Report: the story (and real …

Topscholar®, Creating Opportunities [Brochure], Connie Foster, Jennifer Wilson

TopSCHOLAR® Presentations and Reports

No abstract provided.

Cottonwood Riparian Site Selection On The Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Julie A. Thorstenson, Diane Rickerl, Janet H. Gritzner

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The construction of the Oahe Dam on the Missouri River eliminated thousands of acres ofriparian and floodplain lands on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Restoration is needed to replace wildlife habitat. This study focused on site selection for native cottonwood (Populus deltoides Bartr. Ex Marsh. ssp. Monilifers (Ait.) Eckenwalde) restoration to help mitigate this loss. Geographic information systems technologies were used to develop a suitability model for cottonwood restoration. Tribal lands were extracted from a digital dataset oflandownership. Those touched by or included in a 46 m border of the Moreau River were candidate sites. Of …

Do Invasive Riparian Woody Plants Affect Hydrology And Ecosystem Processes?, Julie Huddle, Tala Awada, Derrel Martin, Xinhua Zhou, Sue Ellen Pegg, Scott Josiah

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

© 2011 Copyright by the Center for Greot Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Role Of The 3'Lghrr In Tcdd-Induced Suppression Of The Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain, Jayharsh L. Panchal, Eric J. Romer, David Ellis, Tharu Fernando, Courtney E. W. Sulentic

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) inhibits antibody secretion and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) expression. Our previous work has shown that a possible mechanism for inhibition of IgH expression could be inhibition of the 3’IgH regulatory region (3’IgHRR). The 3’IgHRR has four enhancer regions (hs3a; hs1,2; hs3b; hs4) which are purported to control IgH gene expression. Previously we demonstrated a sensitive inhibition by TCDD of LPS-induced 3’IgHRR activity which is correlated with an inhibition of LPS-induced hs1,2 enhancer activity; however, the hs4 enhancer showed TCDD-induced activation following the co-treatment of TCDD and LPS. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to determine if …

Electromagnetic And Heat Transfer Modeling Of Microwave Heating In Domestic Ovens, Krishnamoorthy Pitchai

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Microwave (MW) ovens are used extensively for heating a variety of not-ready-to-eat food products. It is vital to achieve target temperature uniformly throughout the food to inactivate foodborne pathogens to assure safety. Non-uniform heating of foods in microwave ovens is the major concern in assuring microbiological safety of such products. The non-uniform heating of foods in domestic microwave ovens is due to complex interactions of microwaves with foods. A comprehensive coupled electromagnetic and heat transfer model was developed using finite-difference time-domain based numerical method to understand the complex interaction of microwaves with foods. Simulation parameters such as cell size, heating …

Blended Biogeography-Based Optimization For Constrained Optimization, Haiping Ma, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a new evolutionary optimization method that is based on the science of biogeography. We propose two extensions to BBO. First, we propose a blended migration operator. Benchmark results show that blended BBO outperforms standard BBO. Second, we employ blended BBO to solve constrained optimization problems. Constraints are handled by modifying the BBO immigration and emigration procedures. The approach that we use does not require any additional tuning parameters beyond those that are required for unconstrained problems. The constrained blended BBO algorithm is compared with solutions based on a stud genetic algorithm (SGA) and standard particle swarm …

Computational Genomic Signatures And Metagenomics, Ozkan U. Nalbantoglu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mathematical characterizations of biological sequences form one of the main elements of bioinformatics. In this work, a class of DNA sequence characterization, namely computational genomics signatures, which capture global features of these sequences is used to address emerging computational biology challenges. Because of the species specificity and pervasiveness of genome signatures, it is possible to use these signatures to characterize and identify a genome or a taxonomic unit using a short genome fragment from that source. However, the identification accuracy is generally poor when the sequence model and the sequence distance measure are not selected carefully. We show that the …

Poster Session, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, University Of Kentucky

Kentucky Water Resources Annual Symposium

• Fate of Stable Isotope Label During Predation of 15N-Tagged Wild-Type Escherichia coli by Protozoa, Ashley Barton and Alan Fryar, Dept Earth and Environmental Sciences, UK
• Cane Run Watershed Assessment and Restoration – Phase One Accomplishments, Amanda Gumbert and others, UK Cooperative Extension Service
• Improving Water Quality: Riparian Edge versus River Channel, Renee Kirtman and Kristy Hopfensperger, Biological Sciences, Northern Kentucky University
• Microscopic Population Dynamics and their Relationships to the Activated Sludge Process in a 30 MGD Wastewater Treatment Plant, Maria Lundin and David Price, LFUCG Division of Water Quality
• Southern Region Down-Well Camera Project, Glynn …