Engineering Commons^™

Ex Vivo Multiplex Knockdown Of Angptl3 And Cypor In Hepatocytes As A Novel Cell Therapy For Familial Hypercholesterolemia, Callie D. Clark

All Dissertations

Inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) affect approximately 1 in 800 individuals. The only curative treatment for IMDs is liver transplantation. However, transplantation carries significant risks, including organ rejection and a lifelong need for immunosuppression. Therefore, gene editing has emerged as a promising alternative to liver transplantation for treating IMDs.

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is and IMD characterized by elevated LDL-C levels resulting in premature cardiovascular disease. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing to disrupt the gene encoding angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3) in the liver represents a novel therapeutic approach for FH. Nonviral delivery performed ex vivo is safer than systemic delivery because gene editing is in …

A System And Method For Measuring Spatially Varying Surface Appearances With A Study Of Feathers, Jessica Baron-Lis

All Dissertations

Real-world materials, particularly biological structures such as feathers exhibit complex appearances that vary spatially across their surfaces. The field of computer graphics provides a means of understanding such surfaces through material modeling which uses both analytical models and data acquired from light-surface interactions. There are many efforts within the past decade in measuring materials for graphics, but common limitations in these works include not accounting for spatially varying properties and reliance on neural networks and synthetic datasets.

Feathers from modern birds present diverse appearances due to how light interacts with their unique hierarchical microstructures. Variations in those structures lead to …

Enhancing Photovoltaic Inverter Reliability Through Advanced Hardware Protection And Simulation Techniques, Buck Brown

All Dissertations

Power electronics converter reliability is an issue in today’s grid, and it is an issue that will only become more prevalent as the nation and world move toward greater renewable energy penetration. While a significant amount of research has been conducted pertaining to power electronics converter reliability, (1) there lacks a universal way to protect the most critical component in a power electronics converter—the power device—from the two most common failure modes—short- and open-circuit faults; and (2) there does not exist a tool that considers both the component- and system-levels of a photovoltaic (PV) inverter for the purposes of lifetime …

Design And Characterization Of Lignin-Based, Thermoresponsive Soft Composites With Improved Mechanical And Transport Properties, Missoury D. Wolff

All Dissertations

In an attempt to reduce reliance on petroleum-based polymers, lignin – an abundant biopolymer – has gained popularity as a sustainable alternative. However, research on lignin-containing soft composites – i.e., hydrogel (bio)composites – has largely been heuristic, providing limited insight into the fundamental structure-processing-property relationships that govern performance improvements in this emerging class of ‘green’ soft composites. As such, this dissertation presents a systematic investigation of how lignin molecular weight (MW), composite composition, and the concentrations of crosslinker and accelerator impact the mechanical and transport characteristics of soft composites composed of lignin, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm), and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA).

In the …

Understanding Conversion Of Long Chain Fatty Acids In Anaerobic Digestion Systems, Julia Ann Funk

All Dissertations

Anaerobic co-digestion with fats, oils, and grease (FOG) waste can increase energy production due to the high methane potential of lipids. However, adding FOG can lead to operational issues caused by accumulating saturated long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). My research explored why saturated LCFAs are often the primary intermediate that accumulates and the microbial sensitives of the populations responsible for their degradation. In each batch or semi-continuous experiment, all intermediates of FOG degradation, including LCFAs, volatile fatty acids (VFAs), Hydrogen gas (H₂), and endpoint methane production, were paired with temporal quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) of the Syntrophomonas genus …

Adversarial Voltage Transients In Multi-Tenant Fpga Environments, Andrew J. Gerber

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is a special type of computer chip that can be reconfigured to implement a nearly unlimited number of functions. Recent trends have led some companies to offer cloud-based FPGA solutions. Researchers are exploring how to properly secure multi-tenant environments where the designs from two or more customers are placed on the same FPGA with logical and spatial isolation, though multi-tenancy is not yet commercially available in cloud FPGAs. The digital circuits within an FPGA require a clock to synchronize timing within the design. The maximum speed that this clock can run at is determined …

Low Speed Water Tunnel Flow Testing, Humberto Cesar Grimaldo Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Water tunnels serve as controlled environments for simulating fluid dynamics, providing an essential platform for studying flow patterns for hydrodynamic effects. This report presents a comprehensive overview and refurbishment of the water tunnel system located at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, focusing on its design, operation, calibration, and visualization capabilities for fluid dynamics research. The water tunnel, originally installed in 1995, was restored and updated with structural repairs, including resolving persistent leaks and implementing an improved drain system. A calibration process using a pitot tube and differential pressure transducer was conducted to establish accurate relationships between flow velocity …

Cruising On The Beach (Cob), Juan Diego Molina Ii, Ashley Kianna Burga

Biomedical Engineering

This report details the design and development process of Cruising on the Beach (COB), a modular motorized wheelchair intended to improve beach accessibility for high school students with mobility impairments. The project aimed to create an affordable, portable, and sand-capable device using balloon wheels, an adjustable control panel, and a customizable base. Extensive background research, market analysis, design modeling, and test plans were completed. However, final fabrication was not achieved due to financial constraints and limited access to industrial machining tools needed for custom metal components. Despite these setbacks, the project delivered a robust conceptual design and a fully …

Investigating The Effects Of Hepatocyte Growth Factor On Primary Myoblast Proliferation, Grace Heller

Biomedical Engineering

Peripheral artery occlusive disease (PAOD) is a progressive vascular condition that affects over 200 million people worldwide and approximately 8 million in the United States. It is characterized by atherosclerotic narrowing of peripheral arteries, leading to reduced blood flow, ischemia, and, in severe cases, tissue loss and limb amputation. Although surgical revascularization is the gold standard, many patients—particularly those with comorbidities like diabetes— continue to experience poor outcomes, emphasizing the need for alternative therapies. One promising strategy is to enhance collateral arteriogenesis, the remodeling and enlargement of collateral arterioles that naturally bypass occluded vessels. Satellite cells (SCs), which give rise …

Vision-Based Multimodal Frameworks For Human Behavioral Analysis: Applications In Group Activity Understanding And Public Health, Naga Venkata Sai Raviteja Chappa

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Group Activity Recognition (GAR) has emerged as a crucial problem in computer vision, with wide-ranging applications in sports analysis, video surveillance, and social scene understanding. Unlike traditional action recognition focused on individuals, GAR requires understanding complex spatiotemporal relationships between multiple actors, their interactions, and the broader context in which these activities occur. This complexity introduces unique challenges, including the need for accurate actor localization, modeling of inter-actor dependencies, and understanding of temporal evolution in group behaviors. While recent advances have shown promise, existing approaches often rely heavily on extensive annotations such as ground-truth bounding boxes and action labels, creating significant …

Flexible Microelectrode-Based Impedance Immunosensor For Rapid Detection Of E. Coli O157:H7, Sonatan Kumar Biswas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract Food contamination poses a significant threat to public health, the economy, and human health worldwide, occurring at any stage of the food supply chain, from farm to fork. Escherichia coli 0157:H7, recognized as one of the principal causes of foodborne illness, poses a considerable risk to food safety. The primary objective of this investigation is to devise a flexible microelectrode-based immunosensor capable of swiftly identifying E. coli O157:H7 cells without the need for incubation in a pure culture environment. In the development of the biosensor, the gold electrode (composed of 50% Au) underwent an initial coating process involving 2-aminoethanethiol/cysteamine, …

Wind-Induced Gravel Blow-Off: Experimental Investigations And Predictive Modeling For Resilient Roof Design, Md Safwan Ahsanullah

All Dissertations

Roof gravel blow-off during severe windstorms is a major hazard, leading to roof damage and significant downwind impacts. Understanding the initiation mechanisms for gravel blow-off is critical for improving building design and mitigating windborne debris risks. Existing experimental data on the wind speed required to initiate gravel blow-off have been collected from high-speed, full-scale tests at wind tunnels. While these tests form the basis of current design guidelines, they are expensive and can lack generalizability. As a result, rooftop gravel is frequently blown off at wind speeds below the design thresholds. This dissertation investigates the onset of rooftop gravel motion, …

User Acceptance Of Shared Autonomous Vehicles, Haotian Su

All Dissertations

A dissertation is proposed to explore user acceptance of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs). SAVs are facing limited user acceptance. To systematically tackle the user acceptance barriers of SAVs, the main problem can be disintegrated into two sub-problems of user acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and ridesharing. The comfort of the ride experience in AVs is a determinant of user acceptance. Understanding the influential factors and developing methodologies to quantify human comfort in AVs are essential to facilitating future research to improve human comfort in AVs. The current pooled rideshare (PR) service closely resembles the anticipated future of SAVs. Understanding why …

Understanding The Role Of Ligamentous Constraint In Trapeziometacarpal Pathomechanics, Lizzie Walker

All Dissertations

The trapeziometacarpal (TMC) joint is the most common site for osteoarthritis (OA) in the upper limb. This joint is characterized by its wide range of motion and limited bony stability, making it susceptible to OA. The TMC joint relies mostly on ligaments and muscles for its static and dynamic stability, respectively. While importance of both volar and dorsal capsular TMC stabilizers has been demonstrated, the role of TMC ligamentous tissues in the development of thumb basal joint OA remains unclear.

The goal of this work was to identify morphometric and mechanical changes in key TMC ligament stabilizers, including the volar …

Grid Forming Inverters For Microgrid Operation Enhancement, Jan Westman

All Dissertations

Modern electric power systems are confronted with several major challenges including the increasing frequency and severity of weather events, aging infrastructure, high material costs, cyber-attacks, and substantial delays in global supply chains. Microgrids provide a solution to these challenges by insulating customers from the power outages occurring in their local distribution system. A microgrid is a small independent power system with its own power generation and energy storage resources that can supply customers’ electricity needs. When an outage occurs, a circuit breaker will disconnect the microgrid from the distribution system. Successful operation of the microgrid requires one or more devices …

The Effects Of Cigarette Smoke Extract On Osteoarthritis In A Primary Joint Tissue Explant Model, Emily Sawvell

All Dissertations

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative joint disease in the world with an economic burden of nearly $140 billion annually. Factors identified to increase the risk of developing OA include age, obesity, sex, race, genetics, and previous joint injury. However, one risk factor that has been scarcely studied in OA etiology is cigarette smoking. While some studies have reported smoking to protect against OA, increasing evidence suggests that cigarette smoking results in more severe and painful OA, increases the rate of developing OA, and reduces the efficacy of pain medications and arthritis-targeting therapies. Despite this, the impact of cigarette …

Understanding Dimensional Stability Of Polymer Surgical Mesh, Simeon J. Mckelvey

All Dissertations

Polymer surgical mesh is a biomedical implant that has revolutionized the repair of the abdominal wall and pelvic floor. Each year, over 1.6 million Americans undergo surgical procedures using polymer surgical mesh to treat conditions where internal organs protrude through weakened tissues. This material is used in approximately 90% of hernia repairs, 80% of stress urinary incontinence procedures, and 30% of pelvic organ prolapse surgeries.

Despite this widespread use of polymer surgical mesh, post-implantation complications have prompted regulatory investigation and scrutiny. These complications stem from the mesh's behavior within the human body, including wrinkling, contraction, and loss of fixation, which …

Real-Time Active Thermal Management And Degradation Forecasting Of Power Electronics Building Blocks In All-Electric Ships, Ali Moghassemi

All Dissertations

With advancements in semiconductor technology, power electronic devices play a critical role in modern power systems, enabling efficient energy conversion in applications such as renewable energy integration, electric vehicle drives, industrial automation, and Navy ship power systems. However, the increasing use of power converters presents challenges such as harmonic reduction, cost optimization, reliability improvement, and thermal management, especially in weight- and space-constrained environments like wind turbines and shipboard systems. High-frequency switching, while reducing passive filter size, increases thermal stress on semiconductor devices, impacting efficiency and longevity. Active thermal control, which regulates junction temperature through power loss management, and degradation forecasting, …

Ceramic Membrane Evaluation Via Automated Filtration Systems For Water Treatment And Resource Recovery, Weiming Qi

All Dissertations

Membranes are an advanced and mature water and wastewater treatment technology. Membrane fouling is a key difficulty for all membrane filtration processes, leading to significant attention in the literature over the years. A common problem in laboratory-scale membrane research is that the testing methods in the laboratory are often quite different than industrial applications due to the limitations of manual experimental setups. An automated membrane filtration apparatus was built in the lab to solve this problem by allowing long-term filtration, frequent backwash and CIP, and high-accuracy operation. The filtration system achieves different cleaning strategies for both theoretical research and practical …

Decomposition And Coordination For Multiobjective Optimization: A Framework And Methodology, Philip J. De Castro

All Dissertations

In this work, we consider finding Pareto efficient solutions for complex multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs). Complex MOPs are unique in the literature because they have many more objective functions than is typically considered. In fact, such complex MOPs will have 30+ objective functions. This large problem size presents computational and coginitive difficulties. Computationally, standard techniques for solving MOPs are often ineffective and cognitively it is difficult for a decision maker (DM) to handle all of the information provided in such a large problem. To address these challenges, we develop a decomposition and coordination framework. This framework will allow us to …

Integrating Artificial Intelligence For Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems: From Detection To Cyber Resilience, Reek Majumder

All Dissertations

This dissertation investigates different methods for methane detection using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The author addresses the fundamental problem of methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. The first part of the dissertation aims to create a cost-effective system for real-time methane detection and intensity prediction using ensemble learning models trained on meteorological parameters. The ensemble learning-based classification models show a high accuracy for methane detection.

The second part of the dissertation investigates cyberattack detection for UAVs using a graph-based intrusion detection system (IDS) for controller area networks (CAN). This lightweight, protocol-independent IDS uses graph-based machine learning …

User Acceptance Of Shared Autonomous Vehicles, Haotian Su

All Dissertations

A dissertation is proposed to explore user acceptance of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs). SAVs are facing limited user acceptance. To systematically tackle the user acceptance barriers of SAVs, the main problem can be disintegrated into two sub-problems of user acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and ridesharing. The comfort of the ride experience in AVs is a determinant of user acceptance. Understanding the influential factors and developing methodologies to quantify human comfort in AVs are essential to facilitating future research to improve human comfort in AVs. The current pooled rideshare (PR) service closely resembles the anticipated future of SAVs. Understanding why …

The Little Diagram That Could: Geometric Properties And Statistical Applications Of Persistence Diagrams In Topological Data Analysis, Eugene Kler

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Topological Data Analysis (TDA) is a collection of techniques for data analysis that leverages topological invariants of spaces formed from data points. These methods excel at extracting useful information from noisy or sparse data, making them attractive to many mathematicians, statisticians, and scientists. In this thesis, we explore TDA on three fronts: algebraic foundations, statistical applications, and metric properties. Throughout, the central object of study is the Persistence Diagram (PD), a summary of the changes in homology that occur as one builds simplicial complexes from the data by increasing a parameter.

A Neuroimmune Circuit Mediates Chemo Brain Pathology, Daniel Ahmadi

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Chemotherapeutic agents, while effective in targeting malignant tumors, often reduce the patients’ quality of life by inducing fatigue, pain, and motivational deficits. These symptoms are collectively referred to as “chemo brain.” The mechanisms underlying these adverse effects, and specifically whether fatigue and motivational impairments share a common etiology, remain poorly understood. The neural–immune substrates of these symptoms remain obscure, in part because standard preclinical regimens either bypass key systemic signals or introduce local toxicity confounds. Here, I establish and validate a three‑day, low‑dose intravenous cisplatin protocol that avoids peritoneal inflammation and severe renal injury yet produces robust, reversible fatigue and …

Influence Of Terrain Model Resolution On Rockfall Dispersion And Tortuosity Of Rockfall Paths, Lucas Jason Arsenith

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The geology of the Snake River Plain region of southwestern Idaho contains terraces formed from downcutting of the Boise River and columnar jointed basalt cliffs from lava flows. Within the city limits of Boise, Idaho, rockfall events originate from these columnar jointed basalt cliffs. Whitney Terrace, a rockfall-prone location in southwestern Boise, was chosen as the study site. Site-specific LiDAR data was used to create a bare earth terrain model, and rockfall boulders were geolocated and measured to be used as inputs into rockfall models. The slope below the cliff face was divided into four distinct slope zones, each with …

Development And Application Of Computational Tools For Organic Molecular Structure Prediction From Small Molecule Crystal Structure Determination To Polymer Persistence Length, Madilyn E. Paul

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation utilized two areas of computational simulations for organic molecular structure prediction. First, we investigate the possible polymorphism of both barbituric acid dihydrate (BTADH) and violuric acid monohydrate (VAMH) using density functional theory. Crystalline structures that exhibit polymorphism have an increased level of uncertainty in predicting their chemical and physical properties. BTADH was previously thought to undergo a subtle phase transition from P2₁/n to planar Pnma at 217 K. We conclude that barbituric acid dihydrate exhibits crystalline disorder in which the molecules are crystallized in a non-merohedrally twinned P2₁/n configuration below …

Reproducible Infrastructure For Modeling Thermoplastic Polymer Fusion Welding, Chris D. Jones

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Aircraft materials must balance the demands of being light-weight and fuel efficient with being safe, durable, and strong. Carbon-fiber reinforced polymer composites are able to meet both of these requirements, and as a result, they are being utilized more and more in aircraft manufacturing. Thermoset polymers are typically used as the matrix material in these composites; however, thermoset polymers require long curing times in large autoclave ovens in order to form chemical cross-links, which once present, cannot be melted upon further heating. As a result, joining smaller thermoset composite parts together to build larger structures requires using mechanical fasteners, which …

Empirical Models For The Prediction Of Lattice Constants In Perovskite Materials, Bryan Wright

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Perovskites are a class of materials famous for their many functional properties and are envisioned as a material that will pave the way for scientific advancement in the fields of renewable energy, high tech sensors, lasers, catalysis, computer chips, and many others. This wide variety of applications is not the result of a single fantastic property of perovskite materials but rather stems from the perovskite structure’s ability to display a host of functional properties. One area where there is room for significant improvement is in the rate of perovskite discovery. The high stability of the perovskite structure is responsible for …

Kinetic Growth Rate Analysis Of Coelastrella Sp. In Aquaculture Wastewater., Rob Skarvan

Master of Engineering Theses

The demand for sustainable food and energy production continues to rapidly rise. Utilizing aquaculture wastewater as microalgae growth medium is a potential opportunity for nutrient recycling and industrial symbiosis, but more research is required to understand how best to design and scale-up a dual-purpose facility. This study investigates the growth of Coelastrella sp. in aquaculture wastewater compared to industry-standard growth medium BG-11 and modified tap water as controls. Though cell size and pigment density varied throughout media, aquaculture wastewater performed very comparably to BG-11 as a microalgae culture broth.

The Monod equation can model Coelastrella sp. growth based …

Minimizing Secondary Spinal Cord Injuries With Hypertonic Saline., Francisco A. Cortez-Thomas

Master of Engineering Theses

Spinal cord injury (SCI) disrupts white matter, causing periaxonal swelling, axonal degeneration, and impaired function. To examine vascular edema’s role, we developed a 3Dprinted dual-compartment imaging chamber to mimic and manipulate interstitial and vascular fluid dynamics in real time. We hypothesized that hypertonic saline (HTS) in the "vascular" chamber would osmotically shift fluid from the periaxonal space and preserve myelinated fibers after SCI. Using two-photon excitation microscopy, we imaged myelin and axons ex vivo in Thy1^YFP+ transgenic mice following C5 contusive SCI and assessed three clinically relevant HTS concentrations versus normal saline for their effectiveness in mitigating periaxonal swelling …