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2008

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Articles 3541 - 3570 of 4190

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

The Effectiveness Of The Introduction And Amendment Of Traffic Laws On Louisiana Road Crashes, Vamshi Krishna Mudumba Jan 2008

The Effectiveness Of The Introduction And Amendment Of Traffic Laws On Louisiana Road Crashes, Vamshi Krishna Mudumba

LSU Master's Theses

Evaluating the safety benefit of a treatment provides information to the future safety projects of our transportation system. Various transportation laws have been amended in the state of Louisiana, aiming to reduce the roadway crash rates. The major traffic laws introduced or amended in the state in the past decade were the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) Program in 1998, repealing the mandatory motorcycle helmet law in 1999 and reenacting it in 2004, introducing the open alcohol container laws in 2000, and lowering the per se Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) from 0.10 to 0.08 percent in 2003. A before-and-after analysis was …

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Nanoclay Reinforced Polymer Composite And Its Application To Hybrid Composite Structures, Gefu Ji Jan 2008

Nanoclay Reinforced Polymer Composite And Its Application To Hybrid Composite Structures, Gefu Ji

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to find the optimum mixing technique that leads to maximum gain in mechanical, thermal, and fire-retardant properties of vinyl ester based nanocomposites. Specifically, five combinations of incremental mixing intensity were applied to five groups of samples that were made of vinyl ester resin reinforced by 1 wt. % of montmorillonite (MMT). Changes in mechanical properties associated with each mixing combination were examined through a variety of tests, which were low velocity impact test, bending test, compression test, and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Additionally, changes in thermal properties (e.g., thermal diffusivity, glass transition temperature) and …

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The Design And Fabrication Of Pentacene Acoustic Charge Transfer Devices, Hua Shao Jan 2008

The Design And Fabrication Of Pentacene Acoustic Charge Transfer Devices, Hua Shao

LSU Master's Theses

Acoustic charge transport (ACT) devices are used to transfer electrical signals by surface acoustic waves (SAW), which are generated by interdigital transducers (IDT) on piezoelectric crystal substrates. In order to reduce fabrication cost, pentacene ACT is desired to transfer charge packages because of its reduced cost in. As some researchers reported, pentacene is a p type organic semiconductor, and can get high carrier mobility by growing in very pure crystalline structure under some specified growing conditions. In this project, charge transfer channel was made of crystal pentacene to form and carry the charge packages following SAW propagation. The pentacene ACT …

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Design And Testing Of An Infrared Temperature System To Test The Effects Of Chemical Stimulation On Heat Production In Cell Cultures, Nicholas Gerbo Jan 2008

Design And Testing Of An Infrared Temperature System To Test The Effects Of Chemical Stimulation On Heat Production In Cell Cultures, Nicholas Gerbo

LSU Master's Theses

Temperature is an important physiological parameter of cell biology. The thermal energy output of cells in vitro can offer insight into cellular processes. Standard methodology of measuring cellular thermal output has been through microcalorimetry. In this work, infrared thermography is presented as an alternative to microcalorimetry and other measurement techniques. An enclosure that controls the temperature of cells and allows for injection of temperature control of chemical agents and subsequent measurement of cell temperature using an infrared camera has been designed and tested. The enclosure was tested with 3T3-L1 adipocytes treated with the β3 adrenergic agonist CL 316-243 for up …

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Design And Realization Of An Electrophoretron Cycler, Celine Raymonde Ramet Jan 2008

Design And Realization Of An Electrophoretron Cycler, Celine Raymonde Ramet

LSU Master's Theses

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a powerful enzymatic reaction commonly used to amplify specific sequences of Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA). Since the introduction of the lab on a chip concept, numerous Continuous Flow PCR cyclers were realized with success at the micro scale. As reducing the reactor size and improving thermal management led to reduced sample volumes, results could be achieved much faster with these CF-PCR cyclers than with common commercial cycler. Furthermore, most of these demonstrated CF-PCRs are nowadays evolving towards high-throughput systems. However, most CF-PCR cyclers require complex manipulations and are not flexible (e.g. fixed number of cycles, …

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Physical Modeling Of Flow And Sediment Transport Using Distorted Scale Modeling, Ryan L. Waldron Jan 2008

Physical Modeling Of Flow And Sediment Transport Using Distorted Scale Modeling, Ryan L. Waldron

LSU Master's Theses

As coastal Louisiana's land loss problem continues to grow unabated, many different solutions have been proposed. One such solution is the concept of diverting fresh water and sediment from the river into the coastal wetlands. Louisiana State University has a Small Scale Physical Model (SSPM) for the study of the potential of such diversions; it is deisgned to study the bulk movement of sediment in the river and diversions. The model is a distorted scale model with a horizontal scale of 1:12,000 and a vertical scale of 1:500; this extreme distortion has brought into question the applicability of the model. …

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Airlift Assisted Wastewater Treatment, Brian Sidney Johnson Jan 2008

Airlift Assisted Wastewater Treatment, Brian Sidney Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Static low density media (SLDM) filtration has been received with great admiration in the aquaculture industry and consequently spawned into the domestic wastewater setting on the pilot scale. This method of granular filtration uses plastic beads to facilitate the roles of both clarification and biofiltration into one compact unit. The fundamental operating principles utilized in this form of treatment can be greatly enhanced when they are coupled with self contained recirculation from airlift pumps. Recirculation of this type in a SLDM unit has the ability to provide multiple passes of the substrate in the wastewater through the bead bed to …

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High Strain Rate Characteristics Of Rubber Modified Syntactic Foams, Paul Wehmer Jan 2008

High Strain Rate Characteristics Of Rubber Modified Syntactic Foams, Paul Wehmer

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis deals with the characterization of hybrid syntactic foams under high strain rates (HSR) ranging from 450/s to 1000/s. The foams studied are comprised of epoxy resin matrix filled with 63% volume fraction glass microspheres and 2% volume fraction of ground rubber fragments. The focus of this study is to compare the strength, ultimate strain, and modulus of these composite materials at high strain rates and quasi-static conditions and to find out the effects of HSR on the failure mode and fracture behavior of these materials. Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus is used for the HSR testing. Foams …

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Pilot-Scale Study On Anaerobic Digestion Applied To A Saline Industrial Waste Activated Sludge, Changjiang Shen Jan 2008

Pilot-Scale Study On Anaerobic Digestion Applied To A Saline Industrial Waste Activated Sludge, Changjiang Shen

LSU Master's Theses

In the field of municipal wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion is a well-established, effective process for stabilization of organic sludge with the attractive features of low operating costs and production of methane as a useful by-product. Application of anaerobic digestion for the treatment of saline industrial wastewater sludge, however, has not been well established. The studies described in this thesis were conducted with the overall goal of assessing the feasibility of mesophilic anaerobic digestion processes for treatment of waste activated sludge (WAS) containing moderate salinity (approximately 3% m/v). Experiments employed two 30-gallon conical-bottom HDPE reactors. In the first phase of testing, …

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Experimental And Numerical Investigation Of Fluid Flow And Heat Transfer In Microchannels, Wynn Allen Phillips Jan 2008

Experimental And Numerical Investigation Of Fluid Flow And Heat Transfer In Microchannels, Wynn Allen Phillips

LSU Master's Theses

Microchannels are of current interest for use in heat exchangers where very high heat transfer performance is desired. Microchannels provide very high heat transfer coefficients because of their small hydraulic diameters. In this study, an investigation of fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels is conducted. A review of the literature published regarding fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels is provided in this study. A thorough background on the theory of internal convective heat transfer is provided as well. A critical analysis of some of the published heat transfer experiments on microchannels is also given. It was found that …

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Three-Echelon Supply Chain Delivery Policy With Trade Credit Consideration, Farhana Rahman Jan 2008

Three-Echelon Supply Chain Delivery Policy With Trade Credit Consideration, Farhana Rahman

LSU Master's Theses

In recent years, collaboration in supply chain approach widely discussed in the literature; but most have dealt with the two-echelon systems. This study focuses on the just-in-time delivery policy of three-echelon supply chain by collaborative approach, where any of the information from the supply chain is available to all the subsystems involved; manufacturer, distribution center and retailer. In the first part of the study a simple model has been developed for a three-echelon supply system that consists of a single manufacturer, a single distribution center and a single retailer. The other part of the study extends this model by considering …

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Adjustable Speed Drives Laboratory Based On Dspace Controller, Kiran Kumar Gunda Jan 2008

Adjustable Speed Drives Laboratory Based On Dspace Controller, Kiran Kumar Gunda

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis refers to the EE 4490 Adjustable Speed Drives course, which is taught at Louisiana State University (LSU). The part of this course is variable speed AC and DC drives laboratory. The objective of this thesis is to modify the existing DSP Based Electric Drives Lab Manual developed by Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota in order to adjust it to the EE 4490 course syllabus and to verify the experiments by carrying out the tests on the lab equipment available at the Elec. & Comp. Eng. Dept at LSU. There are four major components, of …

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In-Situ And Nondestructive Test Methods Applied To The Design And Construction Of Pile Foundation Projects In Coastal Louisiana, Jesse Gerard Rauser Jan 2008

In-Situ And Nondestructive Test Methods Applied To The Design And Construction Of Pile Foundation Projects In Coastal Louisiana, Jesse Gerard Rauser

LSU Master's Theses

Construction projects in coastal Louisiana often require pile foundations as a result of the soft soils present, which complicate cast‐in‐place foundation construction and provide minimal support to shallow foundations. During a driven pile project, the engineering phase will require soil characterization and pile capacity determination, while construction will require quality assurance. These three elements, soil characterization, capacity determination, and quality assurance, are commonly accomplished using in‐situ and nondestructive testing. In this thesis, the application of some of these in‐situ and nondestructive methodologies to a project in Coastal Louisiana are examined. The Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC) has released computer software …

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Impact Damage Between The Collision Of A Vessel And Protective Fender Systems, Paul Joseph Kocke Jan 2008

Impact Damage Between The Collision Of A Vessel And Protective Fender Systems, Paul Joseph Kocke

LSU Master's Theses

Vessel collision with bridge pilings can cause a catastrophic event and are occurring at an alarming rate. Such events can lead to the collapse of a bridge, causing deaths, shutting down a primary route of transportation and costing millions of dollars in repairs. Today, the AASHTO Bridge Code gives designers a methodology toward designing bridge pilings to withstand the impact of an errant vessel. However, bridges designed before this code was written require a protective system that is capable of redirecting a colliding vessel without causing severe damage to the pilings or the vessel. This research will look into three …

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Modeling The Relationship Among Occupational Stress, Psychological/Physical Symptoms And Injuries In The Construction Industry, Omosefe Osarieme Abbe Jan 2008

Modeling The Relationship Among Occupational Stress, Psychological/Physical Symptoms And Injuries In The Construction Industry, Omosefe Osarieme Abbe

LSU Master's Theses

The construction industry has one of the highest incidents of fatal and non-fatal accidents/injuries every year. As a high risk industry, there is a need to investigate factors that affect the occurrence of these accidents to be able to protect workers. Traditional approaches to workers’ safety in the construction industry have focused on the physical and biomechanical aspects of work by improving tools, equipment and task completion methods. However, the impact of psychosocial factors, specifically stress as experienced by construction workers is an area of growing research. Research in the area of occupational stress in the Construction Industry is yielding …

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Nanoclay Syntactic Foam Composites, Sameer Leo Peter Jan 2008

Nanoclay Syntactic Foam Composites, Sameer Leo Peter

LSU Master's Theses

Syntactic foams are composite materials in which the matrix phase is reinforced with hollow particles called microballoons. They possess low moisture absorption, low thermal conductivity and high damage tolerance because of their compositions. Traditionally, syntactic foams are used in many high strength applications such as in aerospace and marine industries, thus there is a need to achieve both high compressive strength and high fracture strain with minimal increase in density. This research studies the effect of nanoclay on the high strain rate mechanical properties of syntactic foams. Nanoclay reinforced syntactic foams are fabricated by adding 1, 2 and 5% volume …

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Design, Fabrication, And Testing Of A Micro Fuel Injection Swirler For Lean Premixed Combustion In Gas Turbine Engines, Anthony Louis Giglio Jan 2008

Design, Fabrication, And Testing Of A Micro Fuel Injection Swirler For Lean Premixed Combustion In Gas Turbine Engines, Anthony Louis Giglio

LSU Master's Theses

Due to growing energy demands and the need for increased fuel consumption efficiency, environmental protection agencies are imposing more stringent emissions regulations on gas turbine combustion systems with emphasis on NOx emissions reduction. Emerging technological combustion schemes to reduce NOx commonly employ lean premixed combustion. Decreases in NOx are globally obtained by flame temperature decrease and locally improved by homogeneity of the reacting mixture. A new micro fuel injection swirler, capable of providing efficient and rapid mixing over a short distance, is presented in this thesis. The conception of the Micro Fuel Injection Swirler (MFIS) was motivated by the need …

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Freezing Processes In Cell Suspensions Evaluated Using Cryomicroscopy, Tathagata Acharya Jan 2008

Freezing Processes In Cell Suspensions Evaluated Using Cryomicroscopy, Tathagata Acharya

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis aims at evaluating the freezing response of three different cell types, Pacific Oyster embryos, Jurkats and Helas, using the technique of cryomicroscopy. The choice of cells was primarily based on supporting ongoing research work at the Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. On a secondary basis, the cells were chosen based on their contrasting nature. While Pacific Oyster being a favorite food in USA calls for successful techniques of cryopreservation of their embryos in order to keep up with the growing demand, Jurkat and HeLa are undesired malignant human cells that …

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Model-Based Framework For Alloy Electrodeposition Processes, Miguel Eduardo Estrada Jan 2008

Model-Based Framework For Alloy Electrodeposition Processes, Miguel Eduardo Estrada

LSU Master's Theses

The electrodeposition of iron-group alloys has been widely studied due to their interest as materials used for their magnetic and thermo-physical properties. Models such as ternary NiCoFe and quaternary NiCoFeCu multilayer alloys have been previously developed to simulate mass transfer and reaction kinetics. The reactions involved in the models contain kinetic parameters such as rate constants and inverse Tafel slopes which are estimated using trial and error techniques. The previous models are limited to a set of kinetic parameters for each change in concentrations of the electrolyte. Although deposition behaviors such as anomalous codeposition are captured, functionalities to use the …

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Evaluation Of Sweep Efficiency Of A Mature Co2 Flood In Little Creek Field, Mississippi, Didem Senocak Jan 2008

Evaluation Of Sweep Efficiency Of A Mature Co2 Flood In Little Creek Field, Mississippi, Didem Senocak

LSU Master's Theses

CO2 displacement is the most widely used EOR process, but poor sweep efficiency and large CO2 utilization rates are limitations to the economic and technical success of CO2 floods. Developing a methodology to maximize the sweep efficiency and minimize the CO2 utilization rate would greatly improve the economics of these fields. This thesis evaluates the sweep efficiency of a successful, late-in-life, continuous injection CO2 flood at the Little Creek Field, Mississippi. In this work, we evaluate several heterogeneity measures in terms of recovery efficiency and utilization rate. Core studies available from 41% of the wells in the field were used …

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Experimental Study Of A Foam Flow In Horizontal Pipes: Two Flow Regimes And Its Implications, Miodrag Bogdanovic Jan 2008

Experimental Study Of A Foam Flow In Horizontal Pipes: Two Flow Regimes And Its Implications, Miodrag Bogdanovic

LSU Master's Theses

Although foam has been widely used in many scientific and engineering applications, the current understanding of foam rheology in pipes is still very limited because of its complex nature. This experimental study, for the first time, investigates the flow rheology of foams in pipes by placing a special emphasis on two distinct foam flow regimes. A wide range of experimental conditions are examined in this study, which include five different surfactant formulations (Cedepal FA-406, Petrostep CG-50, Stepanform 1050, Aquet TD-600, and Ultra-Palmolive), three different surfactant concentrations (0.1, 1, and 5 wt %), two different pipe diameters (0.5 and 1 inch …

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Characterization And Development Of Axle Load Spectra To Enhance Pavement Design And Performance On The Basis Of New Mechanistic-Empirical Design Guide In Louisiana, Bharath Kumar Sridhar Jan 2008

Characterization And Development Of Axle Load Spectra To Enhance Pavement Design And Performance On The Basis Of New Mechanistic-Empirical Design Guide In Louisiana, Bharath Kumar Sridhar

LSU Master's Theses

For pavement design practices, several factors must be considered to ensure good performance of the pavement over the anticipated life cycle. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the type of paving materials, traffic loading characteristics, prevailing environmental conditions, and others. Traditional pavement design practices have followed the standards set by the American Society of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) which require the use of an equivalent single axle load (ESAL - 18 kip single axle load) for design traffic input. Recently, a new mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG) was developed to improve pavement design practices. The guide …

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Sulphur Removal Using Regenerable Sorbents Of Rare Earth/Transition Metal Oxides, Vikram Reddy Kalakota Jan 2008

Sulphur Removal Using Regenerable Sorbents Of Rare Earth/Transition Metal Oxides, Vikram Reddy Kalakota

LSU Master's Theses

Hot gas desulfurization of gases from primary gasifier can be accomplished using sorbents composed Zn, calcium and transition metal oxide sorbents. The problem with metal oxide sorbents alone is that they are easily reduced at high temperature above 873 K to metallic state under reducing atmosphere decreasing their desulfurization capacity. Sorbents studied for hot gas desulfurization were based on Ce/La/M (M = transition metal) oxides and Ce/La/RE (RE = a rare earth) oxide. Sorbents were prepared using sol-gel method and the rare earth oxides were doped with transition metals using incipient wetness impregnation. Sulfidation experiments were carried out at 873 …

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Quasi-Static And Impact Characterization Of Sandwich Structures With An Iso-Grid Stiffened Syntactic Foam Core, Venkata Sandeep Chakka Jan 2008

Quasi-Static And Impact Characterization Of Sandwich Structures With An Iso-Grid Stiffened Syntactic Foam Core, Venkata Sandeep Chakka

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, a novel hybrid sandwich structure with an integrated, iso-grid stiffened syntactic foam core was fabricated and evaluated by impact test and static test. Sandwich beams with different grid cell areas were prepared using a pin-guided dry weaving process. Low velocity impact test on different locations (rib, node, and bay) was conducted with varying hammer weight and impact velocities by an instrumented impact testing machine. Ultrasonic C-scan was utilized before and after impact to identify the damage induced by impact. Scanning Electron Microscopy observation was also implemented to visualize the impact damage at micro- length scale. Compressions after …

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Fog-Smog Reactor And Photooxidation Of Naphthalene Within The Fog Condensate In A Uv Light Setup, Neha Shrikant Damle Jan 2008

Fog-Smog Reactor And Photooxidation Of Naphthalene Within The Fog Condensate In A Uv Light Setup, Neha Shrikant Damle

LSU Master's Theses

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) form a major class of air pollutants. Naphthalene is a commonly found PAH in the atmosphere. Atmospheric fog water contains naphthalene absorbed from surrounding air. The partition coefficient of naphthalene is defined as the ratio of total naphthalene concentration in fog water to total naphthalene concentration in air. The purpose of this research was to determine the partition coefficients of naphthalene for varying reactor temperature. Fog was artificially formed in a predesigned reactor. NaCl aerosols were used as condensation nuclei for fog formation. Fog droplets were exposed to naphthalene vapors in the reactor. The reactor provided …

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Modeling Of Solute Transport And Retention In Upper Amite River, Hoonshin Jung Jan 2008

Modeling Of Solute Transport And Retention In Upper Amite River, Hoonshin Jung

LSU Master's Theses

Streams play an important role in a solute transport through a stream network. Transient storage is one of the important processes that control mass exchange between a main stream and transient storage zones because of increase in the residence time of solute. In order to take account of the effect of transient storage on solute transport in streams, a variable residence time (VART) model was developed. The model is characterized by several features: (1) actual varying residence time was used, (2) no-user specified residence time distributions (RTD) were required, (3) less calibration parameters were involved as compared to existing models, …

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Building Organisationally Sensitive Technological Solutions For Knowledge Management In It Support Services, David Tonade Jan 2008

Building Organisationally Sensitive Technological Solutions For Knowledge Management In It Support Services, David Tonade

Dissertations

With the advent of the internet, information and communications technology has changed the way organisations operate and do business. There now exist an extremely dynamic and competitive business landscape, where information and knowledge are continuously created, used and distributed across business units. People have become more involved with the use of technology to aid them in their business tasks. In the course of generating and transmitting information comes the realization that knowledge is a vital asset of the company. Thus, most firms embark on various initiatives to enable Knowledge Management (KM). This study revolves around the IT tools involved in …

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Development Of A Framework To Leverage Knowledge Management Systems To Improve Security Awareness., Dennis Lupiana Jan 2008

Development Of A Framework To Leverage Knowledge Management Systems To Improve Security Awareness., Dennis Lupiana

Dissertations

Security awareness is very essential in securing intellectual property, in particular internal corporate information assets and its “Knowledge”. The dynamic nature of security attacks and the need to comply with government policies in protecting organisation’s data has a major influence on seeing organisations focus on strengthening against threats from the human element. This is a difficult challenge. Organisations must have a degree of trust their employees. They must trust their employees to interact responsibly as end-users with their information systems. They must trust their employees who work as developers to work responsibly and be motivated to develop systems with the …

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Mechanism Of Nanoparticle And Nanotube-Induced Cell Death, Syed Khaja Sohaebuddin Jan 2008

Mechanism Of Nanoparticle And Nanotube-Induced Cell Death, Syed Khaja Sohaebuddin

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Recent advances in nanotechnology have lead to synthesis of high-quality nanoparticles which exhibit unique physical and chemical properties. The novel properties of these nanoparticles are widely being applied for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and enable new means of biosensing and targeted drug delivery. However, increasing evidence has suggested that some nanoparticles may cause detrimental effects on cells and tissues. Using titanium oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (5-10 nm diameter), silicon oxide (SiO2) nanoparticles (30 nm diameter), and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) of different diameters (<8 nm, 20-30 nm, >50 nm), 0.5-2 µm in length as test subjects, we evaluated the in vitro interaction of these …

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Integration Of Hyperspectral Imaging System For Optimized Data Acquisition And Control To Revolutionized Pathology Applications, Dipen Rana Jan 2008

Integration Of Hyperspectral Imaging System For Optimized Data Acquisition And Control To Revolutionized Pathology Applications, Dipen Rana

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Detecting and measuring the interactions and expression levels of tumor markers in a cancerous cell are quintessential in prognosis and management of cancer. These have propagated the need to develop better microscopic imaging techniques to understand the cellular structure and its functional behavior. Pathologist use techniques such immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization to measure and detect these tumor marker expression levels. Fluorophores are used in these techniques as fluorescent tags to identify the tumor markers. These fluorophores have unique absorption and emission spectrum, making them useful to not only identify but also quantify the concentration levels of these markers. This …

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