Engineering Commons^™

Cellulose Ester As Membranes For Controlled Release Fertilizer’S, Muhammed Salman Fajis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Growing environmental pollution and non-sustainable materials has escalated the need for research in sustainable practices for many areas including crop production and fertilization. The conventional coating for the controlled-release fertilizers (CRFs) is non-biodegradable. Hence, the development of novel biodegradable coatings for fertilizer prills has emerged as an important area of study. In this thesis, conducting synthesis and application of cellulose esters (biomass membrane) as an encapsulation for the controlled release fertilizers. Therefore, the coating would be effective for a controlled release of nutrients to the crops by sustaining nature. Here, synthesized biodegradable cellulose esters by 8 and 16-carbon fatty acids …

Wastewater Treatment Using Encapsulated Chabazite In Polyvinyl Alcohol-Sodium Alginate Hydrogel Biofilm Carriers, Susieanna Nevada Persaud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen discharge from wastewater is a global issue and with increased urbanization as well as industrialization, it has become even more essential to develop more efficient wastewater treatment systems. The dominant form of nitrogen in wastewater is ammonium. Biological oxidation of ammonium to nitrite and nitrate is the first step in biological nitrogen removal processes. If left untreated, nitrogen can cause toxicity to aquatic life, unsafe changes in water quality, and eutrophication.

Biofilm carriers can help to improve the efficiency of traditional activated sludge wastewater treatment systems by reducing operating costs and reducing hydraulic retention time. Biofilm carriers also promote …

Mining Multibeam Transit Data For Deep Ocean Polymetallic Nodules: Case Study In Se Pacific Ocean, Mark E. Mussett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Occurrences of nodules on the seafloor represent benthic habitats and present potential deposits of economically important metals. Better understanding their extent throughout Earth’s oceans will aid in resource management and determining different factors which influence their formative factors and respective local characteristics. Multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data, along with auxiliary data suggest an area of seafloor near the Foundation Seamount chain in the southern Pacific Ocean, centered around -36.84° latitude, -119.75° longitude, contains a previously uncharted polymetallic nodule occurrence. Our analysis of Simrad EM12 DUAL (12 kHz) multibeam data, collected during a 1997 transit, shows an area of strong backscatter …

Hurricanes And Tropical Storms’ Impact On Water Quality In Lake Okeechobee, Florida, Daniela Vasquez Diaz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hurricanes are natural events with catastrophic outcomes, while climate change's effects on their intensity and frequency remain discussed. However, it is crucial to analyze these through models and statistics to understand their behavior and impact on the basins. Particularly in lakes on tropical coasts since disruptive events such as hurricanes tend to be highly affected. Lake Okeechobee is a unique lake located in Florida and one of the largest freshwater lakes. The lake and some of its significant stations are the locations chosen to perform the investigation. The main focus of the investigation is determining the effect that hurricanes have …

Knowledge Integration In Domain-Informed Machine Learning And Multi-Scale Modeling Of Nonlinear Dynamics In Complex Systems, Phat K. Huynh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nonlinear dynamical systems have been extensively used to model various phenomena in the changing world around us, especially in science and engineering fields. Thanks to breakthrough advancements in sensing technologies, an increasingly high volume of multi-modal sensor data has been collected, which enables us gain better insights into complex systems dynamics and build sophisticated data-driven machine-learning-based dynamic models without having the access to the underlying governing equations. However, integrating domain-specific knowledge in machine learning algorithms remains pivotal for various reasons: it promises enhanced predictive accuracy, better model interpretability, and increased generalizability. This dissertation delves into three core research questions, each …

Analyzing Multi-Robot Leader-Follower Formations In Obstacle-Laden Environments, Zachary J. Hinnen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Observations in biological formation from nature likes flocks of birds, herds of mammals and packs of wolves have inspired the innovation of robotic architectures. This thesis presents an approach that aims to use robotic systems to mimic leader-follower behaviors in the navigation and formation of sparse and dense environments. The goal of this work is to extend and further analyze the original work of Weitzenfeld et al [3] to evaluate new swarm and pack based multi-robot architectures with the inclusion of obstacle avoidance and variations in group formations. The multiple robot architecture is based off a wolf pack with a …

Novel Fpga Speed Grade Authentication Method For Counterfeit Identification, Ana Maria Camacho Negrete

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today's society runs on modern microelectronics. Whether it is our computers, smartphones and tablets, navigation systems, and even automobiles, the impact of inferior components on our society's functioning is a well-known and serious challenge.Inferior components, in this context, refer to non-specification compliant parts that are known to enter the global supply chain either due to manufacturing/quality control errors or intentional component counterfeiting by non-OEM (original equipment manufacturer) sources. This thesis discusses the latter, which is a well-documented and growing challenge that poses a serious risk to every sector of our society. This has been further exacerbated by the global pandemic-driven …

Effects Of Downdrag On Pile Performance, Ruthvik Pendyala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The behavior of piles under varying load conditions has sparked significant interest and research within the geotechnical engineering field. Specifically, in the context of MSE wall-type embankments, piles are installed before embankment construction commences. In these scenarios, soil settlement beneath the embankment initiates following pile installation, consequently generating downward lateral shear loads on the piles, known as downdrag.

Research pertaining to the downdrag phenomenon in cohesionless granular soils is limited. Hence, the primary focus of this study revolves around examining the impact of downdrag on pile performance in sandy soils using numerical modeling as the investigative approach. To accomplish this, …

The Development Of A General Watershed - Highway Mathematical Model, Robert W. Higgins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Aging Workforce: How It Relates To Incident Rates Within A Distribution Warehouse And A Chemical Manufacturing Building, Elisabeth V. Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 20 years or so, the average age of the global population has slowly increased. This is due to low birth rates as well as increased life expectancy. With this global population aging, there has also been a shift in the global labor market causing a trend termed the “aging workforce.” However, with the aging workforce comes a new set of issues for the health and safety professional because they create new hazards. This is due mostly because of the body undergoing physical, psychological, and cognitive decline as someone ages which causes decreased capabilities. Thus, the purpose of …

Cyber-Physical Multi-Robot Systems In A Smart Factory: A Networked Ai Agents Approach, Zixiang Nie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on addressing the technical challenges of non-stationarity in smart factories through the use of cyber-physical AI agents. Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing with smart factories as a central role, have a growing demand for Just-in-Time (JIT) and on-demand production, as well as mass customization—all while maintaining high productivity, resource efficiency and resilience. This research positions Multi-Robot Systems (MRS)-driven smart factories. The heterogeneous production and transportation robots in an MRS collaborate to form multiple real-time adjusted production flows achieving the flexibility to accommodate such on-demand, mass customization.

However, the implementation of MRS introduces new sets of challenges, including …

Exploration Of Corona Charge As A Novel In Vitro Human T Cell Dna Transfection Method, Molly A. Skinner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With gene-based immunotherapies on the rise to treat a multitude of diseases, the ability to genetically modify cells in a rapid and efficient fashion is necessary to keep up with demand. Gene electrotransfer (gene transfer by electroporation) is an appealing transfection method due to its low cost, high efficiency compared to other physical forms of gene delivery, and low toxicity compared to liposomal or viral vectors.

Traditional gene delivery via electroporation is done within a cuvette where the cell suspension is placed between two plate electrodes. This method requires cells to be moved from the treatment cuvette to a growth …

Optimizing The Membrane-Assisted Recovery Of Solids (Mars) Technology For Nutrient Removal And Recovery From Concentrated Waste Streams, Ben Yamin Hoque

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effective management of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, in decentralizedwastewater treatment environments is a pressing challenge. These nutrients pose significant risks to the environment and public health when discharged into water bodies, while their recovery and reuse can help alleviate nutrient shortages in various industries, including agriculture. Conventional biological treatment methods used in centralized facilities are not suitable for decentralized systems due to operational complexities and space limitations. Chemical treatment mechanisms, such as adsorption, ion exchange, precipitation, and air-stripping, offer potential solutions but are accompanied by challenges like high costs and logistical issues. Therefore, finding a sustainable and …

Exploration Of Shared Passenger Urban Air Mobility – Integrated Network Design, Operation Scheduling And System Configuration, Zhiqiang Wu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban air mobility (UAM) is an emerging concept proposed in recent years that uses electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs). UAM is expected to offer an alternative way of transporting passengers and goods in urban areas with significantly improved mobility by making use of low-altitude airspace. Considering the high capital investment of eVTOLs and relative high fee of using UAM passenger service, a viable UAM format is shared passenger service. Such a service is usually station-based, i.e., with vertiport located in popular sites where potential passengers can access. To understand the viability of such use cases, the vertiport owners …

Enhancing And Securing Wireless Medical Technology For Diagnosis And Treatment Of Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction, Farhath Zareen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lower urinary tract dysfunction (LUTD) is a debilitating medical condition that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Urodynamics is the current gold standard for diagnosing LUTD but uses non-physiologically fast, retrograde cystometric filling to obtain a brief snapshot of bladder function. Current state-of-the-art research in bladder monitoring includes ambulatory urodynamics using wireless implantable devices to evaluate bladder function during natural filling for long-term monitoring. However, there are various challenges and limitations to this multi-sensor approach. This research focuses on developing frameworks for automated event detection, data analysis, and optimization of long-term bladder recordingsto improve the diagnosis and treatment of LUTD. In …

Optimization Techniques For Machine Learning Inference And Near Memory Image Processing In Hardware For Highly Constrained Iot Edge Nodes, Rajeev Joshi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing demand for fast and energy-efficient hardware for resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices has highlighted the limitations of conventional computing architectures. This research focuses on addressing the demand for fast, optimized, and energy-efficient machine learning inference engines as well as image processing in IoT edge applications. In this work, we address three challenging research problems and devise efficient solutions. Our investigation involved comprehensive exploration and analysis, leading to the proposal of effective approaches for overcoming these demanding issues. Through our work, we contribute novel solutions that offer improved efficiency and effectiveness in handling these research problems.

First, …

Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2v) And Vehicle-To-Infrastructure (V2i) Based Intersection Movement Assist, Lane Change Assist, And Rear Traffic Jam Formation Safety Applications, Gustavo Olenscki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) technology can be implemented in many different ways in terms of communication protocols. Utilizing Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) in the implementation of V2V, or even Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X), may prove to be extremely effective in solving issues related to transit safety as well as traffic flow. Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Slow Moving Vehicle (SMV), and Lane Keep Assist (LKA) are some examples of V2V safety applications whereas Platoonig may be considered to focus on improving traffic flow and fuel efficiency. Vehicles can be equipped with inexpensive embedded devices known as on-board units (OBUs) which offers the capability of data …

Secure Lightweight Cryptographic Hardware Constructions For Deeply Embedded Systems, Jasmin Kaur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lightweight cryptography plays a vital role in securing resource-constrained deeply-embedded systems such as implantable and wearable medical devices, smart fabrics, smart homes, radio frequency identification tags, sensor networks, and privacy-constrained usage models. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a standardization process for lightweight cryptography, a relatively-long multi-year effort, which eventually concluded in February 2023. Side-channel attacks (SCAs) exploit the vulnerabilities of a system by observing and analyzing side-channel information leakages. Fault analysis attacks are a type of active SCAs, where an intelligent adversary injects bit/byte faults into the implementation of a cryptographic cipher to recover the secret …

Enhancing Smart Grid Security And Reliability Through Graph Signal Processing And Energy Data Analytics, Md Abul Hasnat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Situational awareness in a large, dynamic, and complex cyber-physical critical infrastructure, such as a smart grid, is vital for ensuring its smooth and uninterrupted operation. With the evolving realities of the modern-day smart grids, new challenges associated with the situational awareness of these systems are emerging that demand intelligent and efficient solutions. This dissertation intends to address several problems for enhancing situational awareness by studying the dynamic interaction among the components of the smart grids through energy data analytics using various data-driven, machine learning, and graph signal processing (GSP) techniques. The presented work provides valuable insight into the data-driven analysis …

Enhancing The Safety And Reliability Of Closed-Loop Medical Control Systems, Shakil Mahmud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a rapidly advancing field that relies heavily on semi- or closed-loop Wearable and Implantable Medical Devices (WIMDs). In recent years, there has been renewed interest in clinical automation, with researchers looking for innovative solutions for Physiological Closed-Loop Control Systems (PCLCS). However, these devices can have various security issues, including vulnerabilities in software and firmware, physical attacks, weak encryption/authentication, and compromised system components. Government agencies, including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), emphasize the importance of ensuring the safety and reliability of PCLCS since malfunctioning medical devices can …

Characterization And Implementation Of An All-In-One Heating, Impedance, And Pulsing Device For Molecular Delivery Applications, Alex Otten

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cancer impacts millions of Americans every year, with an estimated 1.9 million new cases and 600,000 deaths predicted to occur in 2023 [1]. Medical professionals and scientists have developed several techniques and procedures to combat this disease including gene therapies, surgeries, and chemotherapies. Several of these techniques incorporate the use of pulsed electric fields to deliver molecular material to treat, or directly destroy, the cells of the tumor. These pulsed electric field techniques are known as gene electrotransfer, electrochemotherapy, and irreversible electroporation. All three techniques utilize different electrical parameters to achieve their target tumor reduction or expression goals. Efforts to …

Adsorption Of Long And Short Per- And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (Pfas) Onto Granular Activated Carbon And Porous Organic Polymers, Yan Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are man-made environmental contaminants causing increasing global concern due to their adverse effect on environmental and human health. Conventional treatment methods are ineffective in removing short-chain PFAS because of their hydrophilicity and resistance to degradation. This study is to design an appropriate adsorption system to remove both long- and short-chain PFSA at environmentally relevant concentrations and conditions. Four primary research tasks were designed to evaluate the performance of a structurally-tunable and chemically-stable porous organic polymers (POPs) for PFAS removal under realistic environmental conditions, including the assessment of POPs’ performance without co-contaminants (Chapter 2), the assessment …

Acetate-Encapsulated Linolenic Acid Liposomes Reduce Sars-Cov-2 And Rsv Infection, Andrew R. Mcgill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), is an ongoing pandemic-endemic. In the United States, it remains the third leading cause of death in 2022. SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus, has a genome prone to rapid mutation, generating variant species capable of resisting therapies and vaccination efforts. However, it has been estimated that more than 40% of SARS-CoV-2 infections may be asymptomatic, which calls into question any biological differences between the asymptomatic and afflicted groups. Additionally, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the most significant cause of bronchiolitis and asthma in neonates, with an increasing burden on the …

Exploratory Data-Driven Models For Water Quality: A Case Study For Tampa Bay Water, Sandra Sekyere

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water, a crucial resource for sustaining life, covers approximately 70% of the earth's surface. Nonetheless, the quality of water is deteriorating rapidly due to the rapid growth of urban areas and industries, which is a worrying trend causing harm to human health and the ecosystem. Water quality forecasting has a key role in water resources management by enabling effective pollution control, ecosystem monitoring, and decision-making.

Previously, traditional statistical models were used to forecast water quality, but they were unable to examine the non-linear relationships between water quality parameters, and they assumed that all datasets were distributed normally. This study uses …

Advances In Multiagent Systems Control: Multiplex Information Networks-Based Approaches And Beyond, Kimberly Witke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multiagent systems control designs offer numerous advantages to increasingly complex civilian, military, and scientific tasks ranging from intelligent satellite swarm controls or autonomous traffic controls to remote triage and repair or remote wildlife observation, where the performance of a single agent is insufficient to execute the task at hand. Traditional methods in multiagent systems controls, however, have been infeasible for use in scalable, large-group formation controls.

With this in mind, the contribution of this dissertation is to bridge the gap in knowledge through both theoretical and experimental validation of multiagent systems control architectures. It addresses the challenges presented by unreliable, …

Deep Learning Enhancement And Privacy-Preserving Deep Learning: A Data-Centric Approach, Hung S. Nguyen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep Learning and its applications have become attractive to a lot of research recentlybecause of its capability to capture important information from large amounts of data. While most of the work focuses on finding the best model parameters, improving machine learning performance from data perspective still needs more attention. In this work, we propose techniques to enhance the robustness of deep learning classification by tackling data issue. Specifically, our data processing proposals aim to alleviate the impacts of class-imbalanced data and non- IID data in deep learning classification and federated learning scenarios. In addition, data pre-processing strategies such that dimensionality …

Fabric-Based Organic Electrochemical Transistor Towards Wearable Ph Sensing Electronics, Nestor Osvaldo Marquez Rios

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wearable electronics interest has attracted the attention of a few sectors because of their applicability in different areas like healthcare, military, and our daily basis. Still building circuits on fabrics to make these wearable electronics is challenging. As transistors are the building blocks of electronic circuits and most of the biosensors, recently, fiber-shaped electrochemical transistors have been studied extensively for a lot of applications including bioelectronics. Fiber-based devices are getting popular in different applications due to their low fabrication cost, lightweight, and flexibility without losing their properties. Additionally, they are potentially suitable for making sensors on garments.

In this work, …

Resource Recovery From Crew Metabolic Wastes In Lunar And Martian Habitats: Reuse Of Effluent From An Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Treating Fecal Organic Matter As Fertilizer Source For Plants, Alexandra A. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As humans set their sights on exploration of the Moon and Mars human focused challenges like providing potable water, supplying nutritious food to the astronaut crew, and managing their waste present themselves. There are no readily available resources on the Moon and Mars, therefore nothing should be considered unusable including the organic wastes (i.e., feces and urine) produced by the crew. Fecal matter is not currently recycled and is treated as solid waste. After collection, it is discarded out of the International Space Station where it is incinerated upon re-entry. This approach will not work on the Moon’s surface. There …

Anaerobic Digestion Of Brewery Waste Including Spent Yeast And Hops, Dhanashree Rawalgaonkar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Florida is home to more than 300 craft breweries, that brew over a million barrels of beer annually. Brewing is an energy intensive process and produces large quantities of high strength waste including spent grains, yeast, hops, and high strength wastewater. Brewery wastewater, and spent yeast have high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentrations between 5000 mg/L – 10,000 mg/L, and 200,000 mg/L – 300,000 mg/L respectively. Brewery effluent wastewater is sent to Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) which implement high surcharges based on the strength of brewery effluent (COD concentration). While some of the spent yeast and hops can be …

Exploring Alternative Electron Donors For Heterotrophic Denitrification At A Water Reclamation Facility In Tampa Bay, Tejas Athavale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An excess of nitrogen in water can pose problems, ranging from algal blooms to creating toxic environments for marine life. Therefore, wastewater treatment plants need to remove nitrogen from wastewater during the treatment process. Biological nitrogen removal is one process these plants may use, which commonly involves nitrification and denitrification, converting nitrogen in the form of ammonia to nitrate, and then ultimately nitrogen gas. The process of denitrification often requires an electron donor, and methanol is a common choice. However, it is flammable, and therefore there is a need to explore alternative electron donors. Alternative donors can include manufactured chemicals …