Engineering Commons^™

Effect Of Mineral And Chemical Admixtures On Durability Of Cementitious Systems, Victor Tran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mineral and chemical admixtures are used today in almost all concrete mixtures to improve concrete fresh and hardened properties, and to enhance concrete durability. In this study, four mineral and four chemical admixtures were investigated: namely, metakaolin (MK), silica fume (SF), Class F fly ash (FA), blast-furnace slag (BFS), two high-range water reducers (SP), water reducer/retarder (WRD), and air-entrainer (AEA). The objective of this study is to assess the effects of commonly used mineral and chemical admixtures on the durability of the cementitious system. Two durability issues were addressed in this study: the potential of the cementitious system to generate …

The Development Of A Fluorescence-Based Reverse Flow Injection Analysis (Rfia) Method For Quantifying Ammonium At Nanomolar Concentrations In Oligotrophic Seawater, William Abbott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis was to adopt a reverse flow injection analysis (rFIA) technique to the fluorometric analysis of the reaction o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA) with ammonium, allowing accurate measurements of ammonium concentrations lower than the detection limit of the widely used indophenol blue (IPB) colorimetric method while accounting for the background fluorescence of seawater. Ammonium is considered an essential nutrient for primary productivity, especially in the nutrient depleted surface ocean where as the most reduced form of dissolved inorganic nitrogen, it is readily assimilated via metabolic pathways. Challenges in the quantification of ammonium require more sensitive analytical techniques for …

Synthesis, Characterization And Ferroelectric Properties Of Ln-Type Znsno3 Nanostructures, Corisa Kons

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With increasing focus on the ill health and environmental effects of lead there is a greater push to develop Pb-free devices and materials. To this extent, ecofriendly and earth abundant LiNbO₃-type ZnSnO₃, a derivative of the ABO₃ perovskite structure, has a high theoretically predicted polarization making it an excellent choice as a suitable alternative to lead based material such as PZT. In this work we present a novel synthesis procedure for the growth of various ZnSnO₃ nanostructures by combined physical/chemical processes. Various ZnSnO₃ nanostructures of different dimensions were grown from a ZnO:Al template …

Design, Fabrication And Analysis Of A Paver Machine Push Bar Mechanism, Mahendra Palnati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Now-a-days, the major challenge that’s being faced by the concrete industry is the cleaning of concrete handling equipment. Concrete consists of aggregates, which harden with time, and the transportation of concrete mixture within the plant is a significant problem. This will not only increase the overall maintenance cost, but will lead to loss of raw materials, affect the rate of production, and reduce the lifetime of concrete handling equipment.

The present study focuses on the design and implementation of an adaptive cleaning mechanism in the concrete industry and its importance in achieving efficient cleaning, which is tested to verify its …

Leveraging Large Data Sets In Continuous Chromatography Applications: Monitoring Critical Process Parameters Using Mvda, Engin Ayturk

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous multicolumn chromatography is gaining momentum in the industry as an enabling technology to establish continuous biomanufacturing platforms for monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins. Some companies are exploring continuous multicolumn chromatography processes as a stand-alone unit operation to improve specific productivity and/or reduce buffer consumption, while other companies are considering an integrated continuous downstream process based on continuous multicolumn chromatography.

One of the key features of continuous multicolumn chromatography is the amount of data generated during a single manufacturing batch or campaign. Traditional chromatography processes typically yield one (or a few) elution peaks per batch. Continuous chromatography processes, on the …

Cder's Emerging Technology Team, Kurt Brorson, Sau Lee

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The newly formed Emerging Technology Team (ETT) draws membership from all CDER quality review, research and inspection functions, including Office of Biotechnology Products. The goal of the ETT is provide a primary point of contact for external inquiries regarding emerging technology in pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturing and quality control. The ETT will partner with review offices in a cross-functional manner and identify regulatory strategy and resolve roadblocks to new technologies relating to existing guidance, policy or practices related to review or inspection. The ETT’s initial focus will be innovation on novel products, manufacturing processes, or testing technologies or processes to …

Monitoring And Control Of Reproducibility In Quasi-Continuous Integrated Production Processes Of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Reiner Luttman, Sven Oliver Borchert, Jan Patrick Voss, Gesine Cornelissen

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The development of integrated production processes include the combination and transformation of current batch oriented unit operations into linked sequential/parallel production strategies.

The presented process starts with a two-stage upstream consisting of cell cultivation and subsequent protein production, which in turn results in a five step downstream process, consisting of cell clarification via a separator, retention of cellular debris using microfiltration, concentration of the secreted product by ultrafiltration with subsequent buffer exchange through diafiltration, followed by a final purification using column chromatography.

The three main operations cell breeding, protein production and the complete downstream line are running in series, but …

Exploring Continuous And Integrated Strategies For The Up- And Downstream Processing Of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Barbara Cunha, Tiago Aguiar, Ricardo Silva, Cristina Peixoto, Manuel Carrondo, Margarida Serra, Paula Alves

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The integration of up- and downstream unit operations can result in the elimination of hold steps, thus decreasing the footprint, and ultimately can create robust closed system operations. This type of design is desirable for the bioprocess of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC), where high numbers of pure cells, at low volumes, need to be delivered for therapy applications. The aim of this work is to perform a proof of concept of the integration of a continuous perfusion culture in bioreactors with a tangential flow filtration (TFF) system for the concentration and washing of hMSC. In particular, we have evaluated …

Pat Concepts For Chromatography: Real-Time Monitoring, Real-Time Control, And Cause Of Error Diagnostics, Nina Brestrich, Tobias Hahn, Adrian Sanden, Till Briskot, Jurgen Hubbuch

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

In the recent years, the growing competition in the biopharmaceutical industry due to biosimilars combined with market fluctuations and increasing product pipelines have given rise to the evaluation of continuous processing. Advantages include smaller equipment that may be disposable, an overall process intensification as well as steady-state operation. As variability should be managed by the continuous process itself to insure a consistent product quality, the development of advanced Process Analytical Technology (PAT) concepts is one crucial aspect for the implementation of continuous processing.

In chromatographic protein purification, process variability can lead to variations in retention volumes or peak shapes of …

Quality Systems For Continuous Manufacturing, Ron Branning

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous manufacturing is a familiar concept in large volume commercial commodity operations such as glass and plastic production. In the wake of the Tylenol cyanide poison scare in the 1970’s, pharmaceutical production at the J&J subsidiary McNeil converted to virtually closed, continuous manufacturing. Several Biotech firms tried to develop fermentation unit operations in the 1990’s that were based on the continuous manufacturing concept. Today there are a number of initiatives to update and realize the concept from bench top, such as MIT and Novartis’ sponsorship of start up firm Continuus’ production of solid dosage forms in Boston, to biodefense tractor-trailer …

Dynamic Oncolytic Measles Virus Production, Tanja Grein, Denise Salzig, Michael Muehlebach, Peter Czermak

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Oncolytic viruses can be effective weapons against cancer with few treatment options. For example the tissue culture–adapted Edmonston strains of measles virus (MV) have altered its receptor specificity and became selectively oncolytic with attenuated pathogenicity. Russel et al. showed in 2014 full remission in an advanced stage multiple myeloma patient after systemic application of genetically modified MV. In this clinical trial, the patient was treated by intravenous infusion of 10¹¹ TCID₅₀ (50% tissue culture infectious dose) - of an engineered MV encoding human sodium iodide symporter. Appropriate medical treatment with oncolytic viruses calls for high concentrations and absolute …

Transforming The Present Into The Future With Uncertainty And Imprecision, Chales Cooney

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

No abstract provided.

How Continuous-Like Processes Improve Affordability For Viral Vaccines - Example Of Laiv, Jose Castillo

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Designing a continuous process for a life viral vaccine could be seen useless, and challenging, as the virus infection will kill the cell substrate after 2-5 days of infection.

From the technical perspective, chaining the operations of cell culture under perfusion and viral production, clarification and capture / concentration is an efficient option to setup a small scale continuous automated process to manufacture massive amounts of viral vaccines.

We will show how beneficial it can be in terms of process development, manufacturing simplicity, capital expenditure and cost of production. Also, we will show how this approach can help producers of …

Advanced Computational Tools To Enhance Continuous Monoclonal Antibody Production, Maria M. Papathanasiou, Ana Quiroga, Athanasios Mantalaris, Efstratios Pistikopoulos

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Leading pharmaceutical companies invest high percentage of their revenue in the improvement of existing technologies used for the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Recently, there has been a paradigm shift towards the development of continuous/quasi-continuous purification operations, aiming to reduce capital and operational costs [1]. At the moment, however, there are no standardized methods and/or tools that can be used for global control and monitoring of integrated processes.

Mathematical models and advanced computational tools can be the key for the development of robust, integrated processes, as they can provide valuable insight in the process dynamics and ensure optimal operation [2]. …

Protein Refinery Operations Lab (Pro Lab): A Sandbox For Continuous Protein Production & Advanced Process Control, Mark Brower, David Pollard, Finn Hung

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Significant strides towards implementation of continuous bioprocessing are being made at an ever increasing rate. Advances in technology for traditional unit operations such as cell-retention devices in perfusion cell culture, continuous multi-column chromatography (CMCC) and single-pass tangential flow filtration have led to demonstrations of both semi-continuous and fully-continuous protein production processes operating at periodic steady states at the pilot-scale. Previous proof of concept work at Merck & Co., Inc. has shown an automated (DeltaV) and single-use monoclonal antibody (mAb) purification scheme through Protein A CMCC and pH viral inactivation with minimal human interaction for 30 days fed from a perfusion …

A Regulatory Perspective On Continuous Perfusion Production Of Rfviii, Robert Kozak

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Continuous perfusion production has enabled flexible manufacturing of rFVIII, a large complex Biotech Product, for over two decades. Continuous improvement has driven frequent process, equipment and facility changes successfully performed utilizing comparability exercises.

Challenges in evaluating changes made to a continuous perfusion process includes assessment of impact to quality product attributes throughout the entire fermentation campaign which can be months in duration. Examples of process changes requiring more studies, those successfully supported by small scale development runs and API commercial characterization and an example resulting in non-implementation will be reviewed. Impact of changing Regulatory Environment on submission package requests will …

Small-Scale Platform For Rapid On-Demand Manufacturing Of Recombinant Proteins, J. Christopher Love

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The current timeline for manufacturing high-quality recombinant proteins used for therapeutics and vaccines, and delivering them to patients, typically requires many months. There are many circumstances, however, where the rapid production, release, and delivery of these biologics could address unmet medical needs, including shortages, emergency situations, and pandemics. This talk will present a new platform developed to produce biologic medicines on demand called Integrated and Scalable Cyto-Technology (InSCyT). This platform comprises an integrated, subliter-scale portable system for the (semi)continuous operation of fermentation, filtration of cell debris from secreted product, innovative affinity-based purification, polishing, and finishing. This program also emphasizes integrated …

Regulatory Challenges Of Continuous Biomanufacturing, Andy Papas

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

The interaction with regulatory agencies on the biomanufacturing of therapeutic proteins, mAbs, or other large molecules occurs throughout the drug development of the biologic; it begins with the original IND, accelerates at the licensing phase and continues throughout the product’s life cycle. There are many regulatory challenges along this journey.

Because of uniqueness of continuous biomanufacturing, one challenge that occurs throughout the product’s lifecycle is the inevitable change in Agency product reviewers who many times need to be educated on the nuances of your process or have a different opinion or expectation on how things should be done. As such, …

Fizzy: Feature Subset Selection For Metagenomics., Gregory Ditzler, J Calvin Morrison, Yemin Lan, Gail L Rosen

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

BACKGROUND: Some of the current software tools for comparative metagenomics provide ecologists with the ability to investigate and explore bacterial communities using α- & β-diversity. Feature subset selection--a sub-field of machine learning--can also provide a unique insight into the differences between metagenomic or 16S phenotypes. In particular, feature subset selection methods can obtain the operational taxonomic units (OTUs), or functional features, that have a high-level of influence on the condition being studied. For example, in a previous study we have used information-theoretic feature selection to understand the differences between protein family abundances that best discriminate between age groups in the …

Engineering Student Featured In Magazine: Internship Lands Student In Engineering Publication, Danni Francis

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

Andrews University electrical engineering student, Philip Taylor Coleman, participated in a prestigious internship with The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and was featured in their magazine.

Ehawk: Uav - Remote Launch Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Kite Based System, Matthew R. Rossett

Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones, are becoming favorable assets in multiple fields. Along with this new technology comes new improvements, including the EHAWK: UAV system, a proposed system to increase the range of UAVs by providing an alternate method for launching. The EHAWK: UAV is a kite based system for launching UAVs. The system uses a kite which acts as a sky anchor or fixed point in the sky. A tether is attached from the kite to the ground. A shuttle device then attached to the tether line. That shuttle carries the UAV up the line …

Operation And Monitoring Of Parabolic Trough Concentrated Solar Power Plant, Harsha Vardhan Amba

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The majority of the power generated today is produced using fossil fuels,emitting carbon dioxide and other pollutants every second. Also, fossil fuels will eventually run out. For the increasing worldwide energy demand, the use f reliable and environmentally beneficial natural energy sources is one of the biggest challenges. Alongside wind and water, the solar energy which is clean, CO2-neutral and limitless, is our most valuable resource.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) is becoming one of the excellent alternative sources for the power industry. The successful implementation of this technology requires the efficient design of tracking and operation system of the CSP …

2d Cine Dense With Low Encoding Frequencies Accurately Quantifies Cardiac Mechanics With Improved Image Characteristics, Gregory J. Wehner, Jonathan D. Grabau, Jonathan D. Suever, Christopher M. Haggerty, Linyuan Jing, David Powell, Sean M. Hamlet, Moriel H. Vandsburger, Xiaodong Zhong, Brandon K. Fornwalt

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Displacement Encoding with Stimulated Echoes (DENSE) encodes displacement into the phase of the magnetic resonance signal. The encoding frequency (k_e) maps the measured phase to tissue displacement while the strength of the encoding gradients affects image quality. 2D cine DENSE studies have used a k_e of 0.10 cycles/mm, which is high enough to remove an artifact-generating echo from k-space, provide high sensitivity to tissue displacements, and dephase the blood pool. However, through-plane dephasing can remove the unwanted echo and dephase the blood pool without relying on high k_e. Additionally, the high sensitivity comes …

Overview Of Estimation Methods For Industrial Dynamic Systems, John Hedengren, Ammon Eaton

Faculty Publications

Measurement technology is advancing in the oil and gas industry. Factors such as wireless transmitters, reduced cost of measurement technology, and increased regulations that require active monitoring tend to increase the number of available measurements. There is a clear opportunity to distill the recent flood of measurements into relevant and actionable information. Common methods to do this include a filtered bias update, implicit dynamic feedback, Kalman filtering, and moving horizon estimation. The purpose of these techniques is to validate measurements and align imperfect mathematical models to the actual process. Additionally, they can determine a best-estimate of the current state of …

Evaluating Corrosion Resistance Of Reinforcing Steel In A Novel Green Concrete, Andrea Carolina Ramirez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reinforced concrete structures are expected to have a long service life with minimal maintenance. Corrosion of reinforcing steel is a major factor in reducing concrete structure lifespan, as corrosion products occupy a larger volume than that of the consumed steel and generate tensile stresses that crack the concrete cover. Procedures to control corrosion in traditional concrete, which is made with Portland-cement (PC), have been well established. However, in recent years novel concrete materials based on alternatives to normally cured PC have been developed in response to global needs to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. In particular, a promising new cement has …

Evaluation Of Low-Cost Low Impact Development Practices In Southwest Florida For The Control Of Urban Runoff, Laura Kathren Rankin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater management is required due to development and alteration of the natural environment. It is heavily regulated in Florida and at the national level. Over the last two decades, Low Impact Development (LID) has been promoted as a sustainable and environmentally friendly method of controlling urban runoff. Case studies, provided in Chapter 2, show that LIDs can restore watershed hydrology by balancing the water budget. The difference in runoff between pre-development and post-development appears to increase with soil perviousness. However, the potential for mitigating the impacts of urbanization through runoff reduction is also greater for pervious, sandy soils that dominate …

Shopminer: Mining Customer Shopping Behavior In Physical Clothing Stores With Passive Rfids, Longfei Shangguan, Zimu Zhou, Xiaolong Zheng, Lei Yang, Yunhao Liu, Jinsong Han

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Shopping behavior data are of great importance to understand the effectiveness of marketing and merchandising efforts. Online clothing stores are capable capturing customer shopping behavior by analyzing the click stream and customer shopping carts. Retailers with physical clothing stores, however, still lack effective methods to identify comprehensive shopping behaviors. In this paper, we show that backscatter signals of passive RFID tags can be exploited to detect and record how customers browse stores, which items of clothes they pay attention to, and which items of clothes they usually match with. The intuition is that the phase readings of tags attached on …

Integrated Voltage—Current Monitoring And Control Of Gas Metal Arc Weld Magnetic Ball-Jointed Open Source 3-D Printer, Yuenyong Nilsiam, Amberlee S. Haselhuhn, Bas Wijnen, Paul G. Sanders, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

To provide process optimization of metal fabricating self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printers requires a low-cost sensor and data logger system to measure current (I) and voltage (V) of the gas metal arc welders (GMAW). This paper builds on previous open-source hardware development to provide a real-time measurement of welder I-V where the measuring circuit is connected to two analog inputs of the Arduino that is used to control the 3-D printer itself. Franklin firmware accessed through a web interface that is used to control the printer allows storing the measured values and downloading those stored readings to the user’s …

Chemical Processing Cell With Nanostructured Membranes, Dibakar Bhattacharyya, Scott R. Lewis, Saurav Datta

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Patents

A chemical processing cell includes an upstream membrane and a downstream membrane. The upstream membrane generates a first reaction product. The downstream membrane converts the first reaction product to a second reaction product.

Design And Control Of Chromatography Step In An Integrated Column Sequence, Bernt Nilsson, Niklas Andersson, Anders Holmqvist, Anton Sellberg, Peter Tiainen, Arne Staby

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing II

Integration of the purification steps in downstream processing is one way to minimize the number of storage tanks and reduce hold-up time. The result is an integrated column sequence that performs straight through processing of the target protein, with minimal time from expression to formulation. This paper discusses the overall integration design and its expected performance, together with a more detailed analysis of the step behavior based on column simulations. The optimal design of the individual steps in the sequence is presented, both with robustness margins and local control system, as well as with and without local recycle.

An optimization …