Engineering Commons^™

13. Mathematics, Northeastern State University

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

18. Statistics, Northeastern State University

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Time And Temperature Dependent Surface Tension Measurements Of Responsive Protein-Based Polymer Surfactant Solutions, Hakan Celik

ETD Archive

A three-armed star elastin-like polypeptide (ELP-foldon) has thermoreversible character which exhibits phase separation above a transition temperature (Tt) in physiologic salt concentrations. At lower salt concentration, the ELP-foldon behaves like a thermoresponsive surfactant, exhibiting micelle formation above its Tt. The purpose of this study is characterize the surfactant behavior of the ELP-foldon at air-liquid interface by measuring the surface tension. The surface tension is measured as a function of time for different ELP concentrations from 10 nM to 50 ℗æM and over range of temperatures from 25 to 35 ℗¿ using the axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA). The ADSA is …

Solute Partitioning In Elastin-Like Polypeptides: A Foundation For Drug Delivery Applications, Eric Helm

ETD Archive

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Highly Concentrated Elastin-Like Polypeptide Solutions: Rheometric Properties And Phase Separation Analysis, Kevin Michael Otto

ETD Archive

Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are environmentally responsive biopolymers. These protein based polymers are specific in that they exhibit phase separation in response to a number of stimuli. Some of these stimuli include temperature, light, and pH. There are a large number of factors to consider when designing ELP constructs that allow for control of the transitioning behavior, some of which include amino acid sequences, protein concentration, salt concentration, and the polymer chain length. Elastin-like polypeptides are soluble in water at low temperatures, however, upon an increase in temperature, the proteins become insoluble in water and phase separate. This point of temperature …

A Generalized Control Method For Constant Switching Frequency Three Phase Pwm Boost Rectifier Under Extreme Unbalanced Operation Condition, Abhishek Kumar Upadhyay

ETD Archive

This thesis presents a generalized control method for constant switching frequency PWM Boost Type Rectifier under extremely unbalanced operating conditions in the power system. The proposed analytical method is verified by using MATLAB/ Simulink model developed under severe unbalanced conditions of input source voltages and input impedances. The closed loop control method for controlling the output DC voltage is also presented and verified by using MATLAB/Simulink model. An experimental model is built to prove the feasibility of the proposed constant switching frequency operation of the PWM Boost Type Rectifier under extreme unbalanced operation conditions by using DSPACE RT1104 digital control …

Dismira: Prioritization Of Disease Candidates In Mirna-Disease Associations Based On Maximum Weighted Matching Inference Model And Motif-Based Analysis, Joseph J. Nalluri, Bhanu K. Kamapantula, Debmalya Barh, Neha Jain, Antaripa Bhattacharya, Sintia Silva De Almeida, Rommel Thiago Juca Ramos, Artur Silva, Vasco Azevedo, Preetam Ghosh

Computer Science Publications

Background

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have increasingly been found to regulate diseases at a significant level. The interaction of miRNA and diseases is a complex web of multilevel interactions, given the fact that a miRNA regulates upto 50 or more diseases and miRNAs/diseases work in clusters. The clear patterns of miRNA regulations in a disease are still elusive.

Methods

In this work, we approach the miRNA-disease interactions from a network scientific perspective and devise two approaches - maximum weighted matching model (a graph theoretical algorithm which provides the result by solving an optimization equation of selecting the most prominent set of diseases) …

Use Of A Green Familiar Faces Paradigm Improves P300-Speller Brain-Computer Interface Performance, Qi Li, Shuai Lu, Jian Li, Ou Bai

Computer Science Publications

Background

A recent study showed improved performance of the P300-speller when the flashing row or column was overlaid with translucent pictures of familiar faces (FF spelling paradigm). However, the performance of the P300-speller is not yet satisfactory due to its low classification accuracy and information transfer rate.

Objective

To investigate whether P300-speller performance is further improved when the chromatic property and the FF spelling paradigm are combined.

Methods

We proposed a new spelling paradigm in which the flashing row or column is overlaid with translucent green pictures of familiar faces (GFF spelling paradigm). We analyzed the ERP waveforms elicited by …

Transcriptional Network Growing Models Using Motif-Based Preferential Attachment, Ahmed F. Abdelzaher, Ahmad F. Al-Musawi, Preetam Ghosh, Michael L. Mayo, Edward J. Perkins

Computer Science Publications

Understanding relationships between architectural properties of gene-regulatory networks (GRNs) has been one of the major goals in systems biology and bioinformatics, as it can provide insights into, e.g., disease dynamics and drug development. Such GRNs are characterized by their scale-free degree distributions and existence of network motifs – i.e., small-node subgraphs that occur more abundantly in GRNs than expected from chance alone. Because these transcriptional modules represent “building blocks” of complex networks and exhibit a wide range of functional and dynamical properties, they may contribute to the remarkable robustness and dynamical stability associated with the whole of GRNs. Here, we …

Miregulome: A Knowledge-Base Of Mirna Regulomics And Analysis, Debmalya Barh, Bhanu Kamapantula, Neha Jain, Joseph Nalluri, Antaripa Bhattacharya, Lucky Juneja, Neha Barve, Sandeep Tiwari, Anderson Miyoshi, Vasco Azevedo, Kenneth Blum, Anil Kumar, Artur Silva, Preetam Ghosh

Computer Science Publications

miRNAs regulate post transcriptional gene expression by targeting multiple mRNAs and hence can modulate multiple signalling pathways, biological processes, and patho-physiologies. Therefore, understanding of miRNA regulatory networks is essential in order to modulate the functions of a miRNA. The focus of several existing databases is to provide information on specific aspects of miRNA regulation. However, an integrated resource on the miRNA regulome is currently not available to facilitate the exploration and understanding of miRNA regulomics. miRegulome attempts to bridge this gap. The current version of miRegulome v1.0 provides details on the entire regulatory modules of miRNAs altered in response to …

Maprepeat: An Approach For Effective Assembly Of Repetitive Regions In Prokaryotic Genomes, Diego Cb Mariano, Felipe L. Pereira, Preetam Ghosh, Debmalya Barh, Henrique Cp Figueiredo, Artur Silva, Rommel Tj Ramos, Vasco Ac Azevedo

Computer Science Publications

The newest technologies for DNA sequencing have led to the determination of the primary structure of the genomes of organisms, mainly prokaryotes, with high efficiency and at lower costs. However, the presence of regions with repetitive sequences, in addition to the short reads produced by the Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms, created a lot of difficulty in reconstructing the original genome in silico. Thus, even today, genome assembly continues to be one of the major challenges in bioinformatics specifically when repetitive sequences are considered. In this paper, we present an approach to assemble repetitive regions in prokaryotic genomes. Our methodology …

Self-Organizing Feature Maps Identify Proteins Critical To Learning In A Mouse Model Of Down Syndrome, Clara Higuera, Katheleen J. Gardiner, Krzysztof J. Cios

Computer Science Publications

Down syndrome (DS) is a chromosomal abnormality (trisomy of human chromosome 21) associated with intellectual disability and affecting approximately one in 1000 live births worldwide. The overexpression of genes encoded by the extra copy of a normal chromosome in DS is believed to be sufficient to perturb normal pathways and normal responses to stimulation, causing learning and memory deficits. In this work, we have designed a strategy based on the unsupervised clustering method, Self Organizing Maps (SOM), to identify biologically important differences in protein levels in mice exposed to context fear conditioning (CFC). We analyzed expression levels of 77 proteins …

Self-Organizing Feature Maps Identify Proteins Critical To Learning In A Mouse Model Of Down Syndrome, Clara Higuera, Katheleen J. Gardiner, Kryzysztof Cios

Computer Science Publications

Down syndrome (DS) is a chromosomal abnormality (trisomy of human chromosome 21) associated with intellectual disability and affecting approximately one in 1000 live births worldwide. The overexpression of genes encoded by the extra copy of a normal chromosome in DS is believed to be sufficient to perturb normal pathways and normal responses to stimulation, causing learning and memory deficits. In this work, we have designed a strategy based on the unsupervised clustering method, Self Organizing Maps (SOM), to identify biologically important differences in protein levels in mice exposed to context fear conditioning (CFC). We analyzed expression levels of 77 proteins …

Enabling Smartphone-Based Hd Video Chats By Cooperative Transmissions In Crns, Tao Jing, Xuewei Cui, Wei Cheng, Shixiang Zhu, Yan Huo, Xiuzhen Cheng

Computer Science Publications

Smartphones have been equipped with the cameras that can shoot HD videos, and the video chat apps such as Skype are becoming popular. We can, therefore, intuitively predict the trend that users are expecting to enjoy HD video chats via utilizing their smartphones. Most of the current Internet services, however, cannot support the live HD video transmissions because of their low uplink rate. In order to overcome this limit, we propose to offload the uplink transmissions to cooperative users via cognitive radio networks. Specifically, we first divide the video stream into several substreams according to the H.264/SVC standard and the …

Self-Organizing Feature Maps Identify Proteins Critical To Learning In A Mouse Model Of Down Syndrome, Clara Higuera, Kathleen J. Gardiner, Kryzysztof Cios

Computer Science Publications

Down syndrome (DS) is a chromosomal abnormality (trisomy of human chromosome 21) associated with intellectual disability and affecting approximately one in 1000 live births worldwide. The overexpression of genes encoded by the extra copy of a normal chromosome in DS is believed to be sufficient to perturb normal pathways and normal responses to stimulation, causing learning and memory deficits. In this work, we have designed a strategy based on the unsupervised clustering method, Self Organizing Maps (SOM), to identify biologically important differences in protein levels in mice exposed to context fear conditioning (CFC). We analyzed expression levels of 77 proteins …

Identifying Influential Nodes In A Wound Healing-Related Network Of Biological Processes Using Mean First-Passage Time, Tomasz Jakub Arodz, Danail Bonchev

Computer Science Publications

In this study we offer an approach to network physiology, which proceeds from transcriptomic data and uses gene ontology analysis to identify the biological processes most enriched in several critical time points of wound healing process (days 0, 3 and 7). The top-ranking differentially expressed genes for each process were used to build two networks: one with all proteins regulating the transcription of selected genes, and a second one involving the proteins from the signaling pathways that activate the transcription factors. The information from these networks is used to build a network of the most enriched processes with undirected links …

Flow-Cytometry Machine For The Developing World, Paul Howell, Jewel Nkwocha, Jaynie Laverty

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Flow cytometry provides critical diagnostic, measurement, and research applications across many healthcare and biological disciplines. Its use in the detection of blood-cancers, HIV/AIDS, cell differentiation, and viral detection is unique and unparalleled. Despite flow cytometry’s vast array of applications, its use is limited by expense. Rather than individual labs being able to afford a dedicated machine, core facilities are developed and the research is exported. In addition, flow cytometry’s high costs create a barrier to its implementation in developing nations.

There were 35 million people living with HIV in 2013, nearly 1% of the world’s population. There are more than …

Carbon Adsorber Fouling: Removal Of Ammonium Bisulfate, Ahmed Ahmed Elmak, R. Luke Bolten, Christopher Holland

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Infilco Degremont’s efficient sludge treatment process using a High Temperature Fluidized Bed (HTFB) incinerator is used by several waste processing plants in the United States and Canada. In a few instances, a buildup of ammonium bisulfate within the activated carbon bed absorbers has become an issue. The carbon bed absorbers are used for the removal of mercury from the incinerator flue gas. Buildup of this compound on the carbon surface results in increases in the pressure drop across the adsorber, as well as decreases in the efficiency of the unit. This eventually leads to the need to shutdown the afflicted …

Independent Exercise Assistive Device For Individuals With Visual Impairments, Ashley Duke, Megan Goldberg, Lindsay Schnur

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Physical exercise is challenging for individuals who are blind because they lack the spatial awareness necessary to imitate described motions for exercises, and additionally require physical guidance. The current solutions involve tactile equipment to assist in body placement, but a person with low vision cannot compare their own position to the correct position and adjust properly. The proposed solution is an instructional yoga program that will give feedback to the user based on her exercise performance, allowing people who are blind to be able to perform these exercises independently at home. The design will incorporate the Skeletal Tracking program of …

Vcu Cctr Mobile App: Android & Ios, Vattana Vichith, Stephen Wu, Bowen Zhang

Capstone Design Expo Posters

In today’s day and age, data should be accessible at all times. The biggest break-through for data accessibility is mobile technologies such as phones and tablets. The CCTR provides a continuum of informatics research and services to support translational and clinical research. Clinical Trials represent one of the central themes for the Center for Clinical and Translational Research, but they do not have a mobile app for the VCU community to access CCTR’s informatics resources.

This project aims to promote the expanded informatics research and services available to VCU students, faculty and staff as well as patients interested in discovering …

Mobile Crm Integration Using Amc Technology Apis, Matthew Bates, Allen Calderwood, Matthew Jenkins

Capstone Design Expo Posters

The problem our project solves is the feasibility of use of Salesforce, MSCRM and many other CRM technologies outside of the desk environment. When a user is away from their desk, they are unable to easily use these CRM technologies and our project solves that problem through the use of a Mobile Application that communicates with a desired CRM technology and deliver the desired information to an Android Smart-Watch. Regardless of what a company may do, efficiency is important. Through the use of our Mobile Application, companies that use CRM technologies such as Salesforce are able to further enhance their …

Non-Causal Autonomous Parking System For Driverless Vehicles, Ngoc Hue Vo, Swarna Chowdhuri, Ivo Yotov

Capstone Design Expo Posters

According to an Audi Urban Future Initiative study, the average person spends 106 days over their life-time searching for parking spaces. Whether it is on the side of a busy city street or a shopping center car park, the issue of parking private vehicles poses a substantial logistical challenge that scales in complexity along with population density. As modern populations trend towards urbanization it becomes imperative to develop more efficient parking structures. With the inevitable shift towards driverless vehicles, there exists a need to establish a control system to mitigate these complications. One embodiment of such a solution is a …

Radio Controlled Aircraft, Michael Johnson, Dakota Macgill, Robert Peake, Ryan Wydler

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Building an R/C aircraft isn’t exactly a project intent on breaking ground in the field of aerospace engineering, rather it is an opportunity to apply fluid dynamics in a practical manner to gain experience in aeronautical engineering. An aerospace engineer is one who designs and builds aircraft and spacecraft and are often tasked with deeming an aircraft flight worthy or not. We will attempt to predict the feasibility of our custom plane designs using aircraft engineering techniques found through research and through texts provided by our advisor, Dr. Jayasimha. The goal of this design is to design and fabricate a …

Automotive Object Detection Simulator, Ishoc Salaam, Stephen Holder, Taylor Fines

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Can you imagine starting your car, pushing a button, and it drives you to work? This technology is not as far in the future as you may think. Cars such as Mercedes Benz’s S-class and Audi’s A7 prototype have a traffic jam assist feature which at speeds under 40 mph, a button can be pressed and the car will drive itself on the highway. The system uses an array of cameras, sensors, and radars to follow the car in front at a safe distance while staying within its lane. If another car cuts in front of it with the feature …

Industrial Brush Coiler Attachment, Amber Clark, Tim Paredes, Andy Richardson, Kayleigh Rogers, Branden Yam

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Problem Statement: Company initially desired a new machine that would be able to produce external coiled brushes that would help in increasing revenue and project opportunities. The design has shifted to making an attachment to the existing equipment that would help in this effort instead of developing a completely new unit.

Rationale: Sealeze sees this as an opportunity of increasing revenue and also taking on the effort of making externally coiled brushes more efficiently. If successful, more clients can be taken in and it would make Sealeze a more versatile company.

Approach: The main approach revolved around weekly meetings with …

Generation Of Multicellular Tumor Spheroids With Microwell-Based Agarose Scaffolds For Drug Testing, Xue Gong, Chao Lin, Jian Cheng, Jiansheng Su, Hang Zhao, Tianlin Liu, Xuejun Wen, Peng Zhao

Chemical and Life Science Engineering Publications

Three dimensional multicellular aggregate, also referred to as cell spheroid or microtissue, is an indispensable tool for in vitro evaluating antitumor activity and drug efficacy. Compared with classical cellular monolayer, multicellular tumor spheroid (MCTS) offers a more rational platform to predict in vivo drug efficacy and toxicity. Nevertheless, traditional processing methods such as plastic dish culture with nonadhesive surfaces are regularly time-consuming, laborious and difficult to provide uniform-sized spheroids, thus causing poor reproducibility of experimental data and impeding high-throughput drug screening. In order to provide a robust and effective platform for in vitro drug evaluation, we present an agarose scaffold …

Effect Of Four Approaches To Oral Feeding Progression On Clinical Outcomes In Preterm Infants, Rita H. Pickler, Barbara A. Reyna, Paul A. Wetzel, Mary Lewis

Biomedical Engineering Publications

Background. The purpose of this study of preterm infants was to test the effect of four approaches to the time of transition from gavage to full oral feedings, time to discharge, and weight gain during the transition.Methods. A randomized experimental design was used with four intervention groups: early start (32 weeks' postmenstrual age)/slow progressing experience (gradually increasing oral feedings offered per day); early start/maximum experience (oral feedings offered at every feeding opportunity); late start (34 weeks' postmenstrual age)/slow progressing experience; and late start/maximum experience. Results. The analysis included 86 preterm infants. Once oral feedings were initiated, …

Regulation Of Osteoblast Differentiation By Acid-Etched And/Or Grit-Blasted Titanium Substrate Topography Is Enhanced By 1,25(Oh)2d3 In A Sex-Dependent Manner, Rene Olivares-Navarrete, Sharon L. Hyzy, Barbara D. Boyan, Zvi Schwartz

Biomedical Engineering Publications

This study assessed contributions of micron-scale topography on clinically relevant titanium (Ti) to differentiation of osteoprogenitor cells and osteoblasts; the interaction of this effect with 1𝛼,25-dihydroxyvitamin D₃ (1𝛼,25(OH)₂D₃); and if the effects are sex-dependent. Male and female rat bone marrow cells (BMCs) were cultured on acid-etched (A, 𝑅_𝑎 = 0.87 𝜇m), grit-blasted (GB, 𝑅_𝑎 = 3.90 𝜇m), or grit-blasted/acid-etched (SLA, 𝑅_𝑎 = 3.22 𝜇m) Ti. BMCs were sensitive to surface topography and underwent osteoblast differentiation. This was greatest on SLA; acid etching and grit blasting contributed additively. Primary osteoblasts were also sensitive …

Frontal Cryosectioning: An Improved Protocol For Sectioning Large Areas Of Fibrous Scaffolds, Casey Grey, David G. Simpson

Biomedical Engineering Publications

Fibrous tissue engineering scaffolds, such as those produced by electrospinning, cannot achieve their clinical potential until deep cell-scaffold interactions are understood. Even the most advanced imaging techniques are limited to capturing data at depths of 100 µm due to light scatter associated with the fibers that compose these scaffolds. Conventional cross-sectional analysis provides information on relatively small volumes of space and frontal sections are difficult to generate. Current understanding of cellular penetration into fibrous scaffolds is limited predominantly to the scaffold surface. Although some information is available from cross-sections, sections vary in quality, can distort spatial scaffold properties, and offer …

Osteogenic Embryoid Body-Derived Material Induces Bone Formation In Vivo, Ken Sutha, Zvi Schwartz, Yun Wang, Sharon Hyzy, Barbara D. Boyan, Todd C. Mcdevitt

Biomedical Engineering Publications

The progressive loss of endogenous regenerative capacity that accompanies mammalian aging has been attributed at least in part to alterations in the extracellular matrix (ECM) composition of adult tissues. Thus, creation of a more regenerative microenvironment, analogous to embryonic morphogenesis, may be achieved via pluripotent embryonic stem cell (ESC) differentiation and derivation of devitalized materials as an alternative to decellularized adult tissues, such as demineralized bone matrix (DBM). Transplantation of devitalized ESC materials represents a novel approach to promote functional tissue regeneration and reduce the inherent batch-to-batch variability of allograft-derived materials. In this study, the osteoinductivity of embryoid body-derived material …