Engineering Commons^™

Multidataset Independent Subspace Analysis: A Framework For Analysis Of Multimodal, Multi-Subject Brain Imaging Data, Rogers F. Silva

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Mental illnesses are serious disorders of the brain that have devastating effects on individuals and society. In addition to their disabling and impairing effects, mental illnesses have deep social and economical implications, accounting for an estimated loss of 12 billion working days and a care cost surge to $6 trillion a year by 2030. For diseases such as depression and anxiety, enhancing preventive programs and treatment accessibility, in combination with accurate early diagnosis and personalized treatments, are projected to result in a four-fold return on every dollar invested, a strategy that can drastically help curtail those losses. Notably, within the …

An Experimental And Numerical Study Of Nanomechanical Behavior Of Hard/Soft Multilayered Coatings, Benigno Sandoval

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Multilayer thin film composites, sometimes referred to as nanolaminates, have emerged as an important subset of materials with novel, and often tunable, properties such as high strength, high toughness, and resistance to wear or corrosion. Often fabricated using alternating layers of two or more materials, these multilayer thin film coatings are typically expensive and time intensive to fabricate and characterize and exhibit novel responses to nanomechanical testing such as plasticity during unloading. This thesis explores the nanoindentation response of hard/soft multilayer coatings through examination of the optical coating Al/SiC and similar coating Al/SiO2. Instrumented indentation was used to study single …

Simulation And Analysis Of The Band-Agile Coaxial Backward-Wave Oscillator, Phillip H. Fansler

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Simulation of a Band-Agile Coaxial Backward-Wave Oscillator (BACoRBWO) pro- duced a device that is tunable to operate in two distinct bands: L-band (1.4GHz) at 1.9GW with an efficiency of 26%, and C-band (4.2GHz) at 1.1GW with an efficiency of 15%. The device does not perform as expected based on existing literature; how- ever the end result is not necessarily undesirable. The need for further exploration of the discrepancies between contemporary literature and our findings notwithstanding, this device operates well enough of its own accord to merit additional study.

Thermoreflectance Technique For Thermal Properties Measurement Of Micro/Nanoscale Cantilever Beams, Mirza M. Elahi

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Thermal property analysis of thin film materials on a semi-infinite substrate is a very important area of research in last few decades due to the deviation of their properties from its bulk values and measurement technique plays very important role to be free from the effect of interface conductance, surface impurities, convective and radiative losses and fabrication tolerances. Non-contact optical measurement technique drew attention to be applicable to measure thermal properties using pump-probe thermoreflectance where short pulse Laser beam applied to the film to avoid heat loss with the inclusion of the interfacial conductance and extract thermal diffusivity which is …

Insulin, Glucose, And Β-Cell Diffusion Analysis, Matthew Usevitch, Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project is to further understand the function of extruded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) membranes in the pursuit of creating an implantable, removable pancreas device. This device would be filled with pancreas cells and automatically regulate blood sugar for patients with diabetes. Dr. Alonzo Cook’s lab is currently pursuing understanding the process of taking a patient’s own cells, reprogramming them into stem cells, and then differentiating them into pancreas cells. The device that is the end goal of this project is the main foreseen use of these differentiated pancreas cells. This project focuses on studying how essential nutrients diffuse …

Network Congestion Effect Of E-Hailing Transportation Services, Xuegang Ban

PSU Transportation Seminars

E-hailing plays a key role in emerging transportation services such as ridesourcing, ridesharing and taxis, among others. This seminar will present a general economic model to analyze the congestion effect of e-hailing services in a transportation network.

The model can help analyze customers’ choices of different modes, based on their value of time and the charging schemes of different services, as well as the overall impact of the services to network level congestion.

The Replacement Of Network Switches, Sean Fenton

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Networking equipment often has to be replaced every few years in order to keep up with network speed demands and bandwidth, as well as the expiration of equipment. Gallaudet’s network switches were approaching their End of Life (EoL) and the Gallaudet networking team decided to replace the networking equipment to improve the network efficiency at Gallaudet. After much research and debate, the decision was made to replace current Cisco networking equipment with Juniper in order to optimize the network speed for Internet traffic. Cisco and Juniper are competing brands for a wide range of networking equipment. The capstone project is …

Pavement Surface Distress Detection, Assessment, And Modeling Using Geospatial Techniques, Su Zhang

Civil Engineering ETDs

Roadway pavement surface distress information is essential for effective pavement asset management, and subsequently, transportation agencies at all levels dedicate a large amount of time and money to routinely collect data on pavement surface distress conditions as the core of their asset management programs. These data are used by these agencies to make maintenance and repair decisions. Current methods for pavement surface distress evaluation are time-consuming and expensive. Geospatial technologies provide new methods for evaluating pavement surface distress condition that can supplement or substitute for currently-adopted evaluation methods. However, few previous studies have explored the utility of geospatial technologies for …

Impacts Of Professional Development In Integrated Stem Education On Teacher Self-Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, And Stem Career Awareness, John Geoffrey Knowles

Purdue Polytechnic Doctoral Dissertations

This research analyzed the effects of teacher professional development and lesson implementation in integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) on: 1.) Teacher self-efficacy and their confidence to teach specific STEM subjects; 2.) Teaching outcome expectancy beliefs concerning the impact of actions by teachers on student learning; and 3.) Teacher awareness of STEM careers. High school science and technology education teachers participating in the Teachers and Researchers Advancing Integrated Lessons in STEM (TRAILS) project experimental group attended a ten-day summer professional development institute designed to educate teachers in using an integrated STEM education model to implement integrated STEM lessons. The …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Molybdenum Sulfide And For Hydrogen Evolution Reaction And Supercapacitor Applications, Zhuo Wang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

To meet the constantly rising requirement of energy other than traditional fossil fuel and environment protection, it is a perfect time to development low cost, and efficient materials for clean energy production. Hydrogen generation by water splitting is one of the cleanest ways to produce cheaper energy. Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is one of the key steps in water splitting process. Ideally, the thermodynamic potential for HER should be at 0 V (vs. SHE). However, without an efficient catalyst, this reaction occurred at higher potential, called overpotential. A good HER catalyst is needed to lower the overpotential and hence to …

Real-Time Atomistic Observation Of Structural Phase Transformations In Individual Hafnia Nanorods, Bethany M. Hudak, Sean W. Depner, Gregory R. Waetzig, Anjana Talapatra, Raymundo Arroyave, Sarbajit Banerjee, Beth S. Guiton

Chemistry Faculty Publications

High-temperature phases of hafnium dioxide have exceptionally high dielectric constants and large bandgaps, but quenching them to room temperature remains a challenge. Scaling the bulk form to nanocrystals, while successful in stabilizing the tetragonal phase of isomorphous ZrO₂, has produced nanorods with a twinned version of the room temperature monoclinic phase in HfO₂. Here we use in situ heating in a scanning transmission electron microscope to observe the transformation of an HfO₂ nanorod from monoclinic to tetragonal, with a transformation temperature suppressed by over 1000°C from bulk. When the nanorod is annealed, we observe with …

Autonomous Identification And Classification Of Targets Using An Unmanned Aerial System, Taylor Mcdonnell, Tim Mclain

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Commercial applications of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are expected to grow significantly in the coming years [1]. Applications of unmanned aerial vehicles in the commercial market include agricultural and infrastructure monitoring, aerial photography, package delivery, fire monitoring, wildlife tracking, and search and rescue operations. One of the purposes of the AUVSI-SUAS competition is to train undergraduates for the growing UAS industry. In this competition a team’s UAS must autonomously identify and locate several targets, which are geometric shapes with a given shape, shape color, letter, letter color, geolocation, and orientation. The focus of this project is to develop the image …

Differentiation Of Ipscs Into Cardiomyocytes Utilizing Extracellular Matrix, Arthur Castleton, Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

According to the American Heart Association, Ischemic heart disease is the principal cause of death. Many potential therapies are being simultaneously explored and among the most promising is tissue engineering of cardiac scaffolds. In vitro culturing of mature cardiomyocytes has the potential to lay the foundation for products such as cardiac patches for treatment of early stages of Ischemic heart disease or atrial septal defects, and developing entire replacement hearts. However, cardiomyocyte cell culture and experimentation has encountered various difficulties; the inability to proliferate, incomplete maturation, and having a small window of functional contraction. Conversely, iPSCs can partially differentiate into …

Large Body Influence In Internal Wave Generation, Austin Maxwell, Julie Crockett

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Internal waves are three dimensional waves that propagate within a stratified fluid. They are able to propagate in all directions within our atmosphere and the oceans which are both stratified fluids of continuously changing densities. Internal waves are much larger than surface waves, having wavelengths of hundreds of kilometers and amplitudes more than a kilometer in height. Due to their large size they can be difficult to study in nature, and there is still much to be learned about these waves and their impact on the environment. My research has focused on the generation of internal waves by the motion …

Pluripotent Stem Cell (Ipsc) Differentiation To Kidney Phenotype With Conditioned Media Of Rctes, Angela Nakalembe, Dr. Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

According to the latest U.S. Renal Data System Annual Data Report, more than 660,000 Americans are currently being treated for kidney failure, also called end stage renal disease (ESRD). The current treatment options, dialysis and kidney transplants, work well in some instances but have disadvantages, such as the inability to perform hormone regulation and potential organ rejection respectively.

The overall aim of our work is to create bioengineered kidneys that will provide alternative solutions to the current treatment methods without any of the drawbacks. New breakthroughs in the biomedical world support the theory that organs can be grown from cultured …

Biosensor System For The Detection Of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Conner Earl, Bradley Bundy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) present problems worldwide and have been linked to cancer, developmental disorders, and other epigenetic complications. Many of these complications could be mitigated if not eradicated if these chemicals were better characterized and detectable, however an inexpensive, reliable and field deployable sensor for EDCs has yet to be developed. The purpose of this project was to explore the idea of an engineered Cell Free biosensor system that is an economic, viable method for the rapid detection of EDCs.

Portable Food & Water Sanitation By Means Of Energetic Photons, Jordan Argyle, Matthew Memmott

Journal of Undergraduate Research

At least 1 in 10 people across the globe do not have access to clean water.¹ The World Health Organization considers food and drink contamination to be “the most widespread health problem in the contemporary world.”² An estimated 600 million people fall ill from eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water every year, of which nearly half a million die. Most of those illnesses are caused by pathogens rather than chemical contamination.³

Analysis Of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Of Peripheral Nerve Regeneration, Jaron Lundwall, Alonzo Cook

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Due to accident-related neural damage, many people’s lives are impaired or limited in what they can do. Current medical practices are limited at helping distal and proximal nerve stubs regenerate. Many recent research studies have focused on trying to improve this problem by understanding how cut or crushed nerves heal. This study focused on helping these efforts by improving non-invasive analysis techniques of nerve growth. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one possible solution to creating a reliable analysis technique that in the future could be used on humans. We have shown that Magnetic Resonance Imaging can be used without invasive …

Characterization Of Polyester Polymer Concrete Material Properties, Robert Stevens, Dr. W. Spencer Guthrie

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to investigate selected material properties of polyester polymer concrete (PPC) using laboratory testing. PPC is a synthetic concrete that combines sand and coarse aggregate with a polyester resin binder that takes the place of conventional portland cement. PPC is commonly used as an overlay material on bridge decks. There is some ambiguity about several important mechanical properties of PPC, including coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), degree of hardening, and modulus of elasticity. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of temperature on these properties. The results of this research will help …

Time-Difference Amplifier For Time-To-Digital Converters, Matthew Padilla, Dr. Shiuh-Hua Wood Chiang

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Currently most digital converters convert from an analog voltage signal to a digital signal. In recent years some progress has been made in converting from an analog time signal to a digital signal. The purpose of this project is to improve upon current designs of time-to-digital converters by making a time-difference amplifier that is more power efficient and less sensitive to variation.

Currently time-to-digital converters are commonly implemented similarly to analog voltage-to-digital converters, using a two-step architecture [1]. In a voltage-to-digital converter, the first stage is a coarse quantizer, and the difference between the voltage signal and the quantization is …

The Effect Of Soaking Time On The Accuracy Of A Vertical Impedance Spectroscopy Probe, Jared Baxter, Brian Mazzeo

Journal of Undergraduate Research

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, nearly 10% of the nation’s 611,845 brides are structurally deficient. (https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/defbr15.cfm) This means that nearly 60,000 active bridges are unsafe. This is a major problem, and one that is not easily solved. Many of these bridges are of significant importance to the nation’s highways and cannot be retired without inconveniencing millions of people. Furthermore, to repair or rebuild all of these bridges would take billions of dollars, a cost that far exceeds Federal Highway Administrations (FHWA) funding.

Crispr-Cas9 Directed Pdgf-Β Transcriptional Activation In Fibroblast Cell, Lia Gale, Brian Jensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Chronic wounds, particularly in the lower limb, represent a huge physical, financial, and social burden to 50 million people worldwide. In 2014, Americans paid an estimated $25 billion for simple wound care for patients. Despite these efforts, traditional methods of trying to heal wounds from the outside via surgical debridement, anti-inflammatory medications, moisture correction, etc. often fail to close wounds (Demidova-Rice et al., 2012). If wound closure does not occur, infection will cause localized tissue death and can lead to sepsis and death. Unfortunately, this leaves amputation as the only resort when wounds don’t close. If primary amputation occurs, …

Congratulations 2017 Graduates | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The College of Engineering at Utah State University congratulates all students who graduated May 5-6.

Adaptive Region-Based Approaches For Cellular Segmentation Of Bright-Field Microscopy Images, Hady Ahmady Phoulady

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microscopy image processing is an emerging and quickly growing field in medical imaging research area. Recent advancements in technology including higher computation power, larger and cheaper storage modules, and more efficient and faster data acquisition devices such as whole-slide imaging scanners contributed to the recent microscopy image processing research advancement. Most of the methods in this research area either focus on automatically process images and make it easier for pathologists to direct their focus on the important regions in the image, or they aim to automate the whole job of experts including processing and classifying images or tissues that leads …

Supraspinatus Tendon Micromorphology In Individuals With Subacromial Pain Syndrome, Federico Pozzi, Amee L. Seitz, Hillary A. Plummer, Kira Chow, Gregory R. Bashford, Lori A. Michener

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Study Design: Cross-sectional cohort. Introduction: Tendon collagen organization can be estimated by peak spatial frequency radius (PSFR) on ultrasound images. Characterizing PSFR can define the contribution of collagen disruption to shoulder symptoms.

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this was to characterize the (1) supraspinatus tendon PSFR in participants with sub acromial pain syndrome (SPS) and healthy controls; (2) PSFR between participants grouped on a tendon visual quality score; and (3) relationship between PSFR with patient-reported pain, function, and shoulder strength.

Methods: Participants with SPS (n ¼ 20) and age, sex, and arm-dominance matched healthy controls (n ¼ 20) …

Inferring Motion Direction Using Commodity Wi-Fi For Interactive Exergames, Kun Qian, Chenshu Wu, Zimu Zhou, Yue Zheng, Yang Zheng, Yunhao Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In-air interaction acts as a key enabler for ambient intelligence and augmented reality. As an increasing popular example, exergames, and the alike gesture recognition applications, have attracted extensive research in designing accurate, pervasive and low-cost user interfaces. Recent advances in wireless sensing show promise for a ubiquitous gesture-based interaction interface with Wi-Fi. In this work, we extract complete information of motion-induced Doppler shifts with only commodity Wi-Fi. The key insight is to harness antenna diversity to carefully eliminate random phase shifts while retaining relevant Doppler shifts. We further correlate Doppler shifts with motion directions, and propose a light-weight pipeline to …

Spatio-Temporally Resolved Optical Laser-Induced Damage To Study Defect Limited Performance Of Optical Films, Yejia Xu

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

Laser-induced damage (LID) limits the performance of optical films and surfaces. Despite intensive study for decades following the invention of laser, the study of LID remains timely and attractive, because for nanosecond laser pulses the LID process is controlled by randomly distributed defects of unknown origin.

Traditional damage tests yield little information about the defects present in optical films and surfaces. These methods record a "yes" or "no" damage result after each test and cannot distinguish the different defects present.

This dissertation focuses on the development of a new kind of laser-induced damage test that measures the actual fluence (intensity) …

Electric Vehicle Energy Impacts, Florida Solar Energy Center, Katherine Mckenzie

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The objective of this research project was to evaluate the impacts of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation on reducing petroleum imports and greenhouse gas emissions to Hawaii. In 2015, the state of Hawaii mandated fossil fuel electric power displacement by imposing Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) that will reach 100% renewable electricity generation by 2045. With small, remote and isolated island electricity grids, utilities in Hawaii face unprecedented technical and economic challenges to meet these goals with exceedingly high levels of intermittent wind and PV power generation. To meet these RPS goals, EVs become …

Two-Step Sequential Pretreatment For The Enhanced Enzymatic Hydrolysis Of Coffee Spent Waste, Rajeev Ravindran, Swarna Jaiswal, Nissreen Abu-Ghannam, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

In the present study, eight different pretreatments of varying nature (physical, chemical and physico-chemical) followed by a sequential, combinatorial pretreatment strategy was applied to spent coffee waste to attain maximum sugar yield. Pretreated samples were analysed for total reducing sugar, individual sugars and generation of inhibitory compounds such as furfural and hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) which can hinder microbial growth and enzyme activity. Native spent coffee waste was high in hemicellulose content. Galactose was found to be the predominant sugar in spent coffee waste. Results showed that sequential pretreatment yielded 350.12mg of reducing sugar/g of substrate, which was 1.7-fold higher than …

Microstructure Correlation With Formability For Biaxial Stretching Of Magnesium Alloy Az31b At Mildly Elevated Temperatures, David T. Fullwood, Isaac Chelladurai, Michael P. Miles, John E. Carsley, Raj K. Mishra, Irene J. Beyerlein, Marko Knezevic

Faculty Publications

Magnesium AZ31B sheets of 2 mm thickness were stretch formed using a 101.6 mm diameter punch at temperatures from 25°C - 150°C, in 25°C increments. Surface strains were measured using a digital image correlation (DIC) method. The punch height vs load curve was found to be the same for temperatures of 25°C and for 50°C, while at 75°C and above the load for a given punch height started to decrease, indicating a potential change in deformation mechanism. Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) was used to quantify features of the microstructure in the tested specimens. In particular, the gradual decrease in twinning …