Engineering Commons^™

The Temporal Expression Of Adipokines During Spinal Fusion, Sohrab Virk, Alicia L. Bertone, Hayam Hamaz Hussein, Jeffrey M. Toth, Mari Kaido, Safdar Khan

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Background Context

Adipokines are secreted by white adipose tissue and have been associated with fracture healing. Our goal was to report the temporal expression of adipokines during spinal fusion in an established rabbit model.

Purpose

Our goal was to report the temporal expression of adipokines during spinal fusion in an established rabbit model.

Study Design

The study design included a laboratory animal model.

Methods

New Zealand white rabbits were assigned to either sham surgery (n=2), unilateral posterior spinal fusion (n=14), or bilateral posterior spinal fusion (n=14). Rabbits were euthanized 1–6 and 10 weeks out from surgery. Fusion was evaluated by …

An Analysis Of Scattering From Snow With Relaxed Hierachical Equivalent Source Algorithm, Chan Fai Lum, Hong Tat Ewe, Fu Xin, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Hean Teik Chuah

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Traditionally, Radiative Transfer (RT) formulation has been used to simulate scattering from snow layer with the incorporation of phase matrix of scatterers in the formulation. Typically, spherical scatterers were assumed to represent the ice particles embedded inside the air medium and Mie phase matrix was applied. However, the real scatterers in the actual snow are generally more irregular than the assumed spherical shape. In this paper, a numerical solution based on the Hierarchical Equivalent Source Algorithm (HESA) has been developed to calculate the phase matrix of scatterers of other shapes to be incorporated in the existing RT formulation. Results from …

4h-Sic Electrostatic Microactuator With Optically Controlled Actuation, Feng Zhao, Marcus Daniel Trimble

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents that actuation of a 4H-SiC electrostatic micro actuator was controlled by an optical signal. The micro actuator was monolithically integrated with a transistor switch on the 4H-SiC substrate. DC voltage bias on the transistor produced an electrostatic force on the micro actuator, which bended down the cantilever beam and caused a shift in the resonant frequency to a lower value. The transistor switched on when activated by UV illumination, and photogenerated current in the transistor reduced bias voltage on the micro actuator, which relaxed the electrostatic force and consequently increased the resonant frequency.

A Comparison Of Mean Age Theory And Residence Time Distributions In Mixed Systems., Nolan Theaker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A comparison between mean age theory and conventional residence time distributions over a range of quantified mixing levels was conducted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The system was a stirred tubular reactor. The model was validated by comparing computationally derived RTD curves with experimentally obtained RTD curves, with quantified differences less than 3%. Mixing was quantified using the Tanks-in-Series model. Mixing levels were set by varying flow rate and impeller rpm. Mean age distributions at the outlet, where experimental RTD’s were measured, were very narrow for all levels of mixing studied. RTD’s showed expected characteristics; a wider distribution and long …

Design, Development, And Characterization Of Breathforce : A Respiratory Training System For Patients With Spinal Cord Injuries., Kevin L Tran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pulmonary and cardiovascular dysfunction are consistently reported as the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among the 1,275,000 people who are living with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) in the United States. Respiratory-cardiovascular complications from neurological disorders (primarily COPD and sleep apnea) are currently the number one cause of death and disability in the US.

The main goal of this project is to develop an inspiratory-expiratory training device for use in the rehabilitation of patients with respiratory motor and cardiovascular deficits that incorporates existing technologies and promotes successful training methodologies performed at the clinic and at home.

An embedded microprocessor …

Experimental Study Of Global Luminescent Oil-Film (Glof) Skin-Friction Meter On Delta Wings, Patrick Nicholas Wewengkang

Masters Theses

This thesis describes how the Global Luminescent Oil-Film (GLOF) Skin-Friction Meter can be applied experimentally to extract skin-friction from a set of images. In this study, the effect of oil viscosity, experimental sample size, and step size were considered to see how they would affect the extracted skin-friction using the GLOF method. These results were then compared to published literature on skin-friction diagnostics of delta wings, based on observations of critical characteristics such as reattachment and separation lines. Delta wings of 50°, 55°, 60°, 65°, and 70° sweep angles were built and placed in the Small Wind Tunnel (SWT) at …

Papermaking Factors Affecting Lateral Web Position During Commercial Heat Set Web Offset Printing, George W. Shields

Masters Theses

The interaction of water with paper plays a role in web handling characteristics during commercial heat set web offset printing. Water absorption leads to lower web tension for a given strain.

This research investigates paper properties and their role in preventing lateral web movement from cross machine air flows in the drying section during normal printing operations. Tensile properties of sheets are measured at various moisture contents and then used to determine the equilibrium stress-strain relationship for papers at moisture contents typical of heat set web offset printing. Permeability, fiber orientation and tensile stiffness are evaluated against lateral web movement …

Towards Green Building: Energy Efficient Roof System For Buildings, Dhruv Sangal

Theses and Dissertations

The present work focusses on investigating the thermal performance of different energy efficient roof systems for buildings for different climates. Buildings constitutes about 40 percent of total energy consumed by United States, and previous research shows that 20 percent of the building cooling load comes through ceiling of a building. Thus, it is important to analyze different energy efficient roof systems which can help in reducing building cooling and heating load. The present study focusses on three technologies – green roof, radiant barriers and photovoltaics. To analyze the performance of these systems, a detailed energy based mathematical model were developed …

Growth And Characterization Of Gallium Oxide Thin Films And Devices, Jorge Castillo

Theses and Dissertations

Gallium oxide has promising physical and electrical properties for power applications and optoelectronics. thermally grown oxide developed from sputtered GaN layers and gallium oxide substrates will be characterized. The study will evaluate a variety of temperatures in order to investigate the advantages and disadvantages on each of the synthetization techniques.

Design Of Metal Oxides/Metal Sulfides For The Improvement Of Sodium Ion Batteries, David E. Flores

Theses and Dissertations

Herein, the improvement in performance for sodium ion batteries (NIBs) is discussed from available literature and work conducted in the laboratory setting to demonstrate the ability of sodium to perform in the world of energy storage. The reason that sodium is being explored as an alternative to Lithium in energy storage devices is because of the potential depletion of the lithium in the world causing lithium prices to surge. Researchers show that many Sn, Sb, Ge, and other composites perform well as anode materials within NIBs. The research conducted in the dissertation applies the Forcespinning method to produce fibers for …

Study Of Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage Systems For Concentrated Solar Power Plants, Hermes Chirino

Theses and Dissertations

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) using phase change material (PCM) as the storage medium in the Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system is a promising technology for large scale utilization of solar thermal energy because heat latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) systems can store more energy as the latent heat during the melting process.

This study analyzes the different dimensionless parameters from the 1-D transient enthalpy-based mathematical model used to simulate the heat transfer and flow within the LHTES system. These dimensionless parameters are varied and analyzed with the main objective of increasing thermal energy storage efficiency and exergy efficiency of …

Effect Of Processing Parameters On The Electrochemical Performance Of Forcespun Metal Oxide/Carbon Composite Fibers For Li-Ion Batteries, Howard A. Campos

Theses and Dissertations

Metal oxides have been gaining interest as electrode materials for rechargeable Li-ion batteries due to various properties including low cost, low toxicity, and high theoretical capacity. In this research work the effect of two different metal oxide/carbon fiber composites, Fe3O4/C and ZnO/C, on the electrochemical performance for Li-ion batteries will be explored. This is also the first time that results are reported, to the best of our knowledge, of these fiber composites through the Forcespinning ® method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), and electrochemical analysis were used to investigate …

Security Evaluation Of Virtualized Computing Platforms, Ganesh Reddy Gunnam

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, security experiments were conducted to evaluate embedded security protocol performance of two leading server operating systems, Apple’s MAC OS server LION Vs. Microsoft’s Windows server 2012 R2 OS under different types of security attack. Furthermore, experiments were conducted to understand and evaluate the effect of virtualization using Hyper-V with Windows 2012 R2 OS on MAC hardware platform. For these experiments, connection rate, connection latency, non-paged pool allocations and processor core utilization for different OS, virtual machines, and under different traffic types were measured.

Free-Space Measurements Of Dielectrics And Three-Dimensional Periodic Metamaterials, Clifford E. Kintner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the free-space measurements of a periodic metamaterial structure. The metamaterial unit cell consists of two dielectric sheets intersecting at 90 degrees. The dielectric is a polyetherimide-based material 0.001” thick. Each sheet has a copper capacitively-loaded loop (CLL) structure on the front and a cut-wire structure on the back. Foam material is used to support the unit cells. The unit cell repeats 40 times in the x-direction, 58 times in the y-direction and 5 times in the z-direction. The sample measures 12” × 12” × 1” in total. We use a free-space broadband system comprised of a pair …

Asynchronous 3d (Async3d): Design Methodology And Analysis Of 3d Asynchronous Circuits, Francis Corpuz Sabado

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the application of 3D integrated circuit (IC) technology on asynchronous logic paradigms, mainly NULL Convention Logic (NCL) and Multi-Threshold NCL (MTNCL). It presents the Async3D tool flow and library for NCL and MTNCL 3D ICs. It also analyzes NCL and MTNCL circuits in 3D IC. Several FIR filter designs were implement in NCL, MTNCL, and synchronous architecture to compare synchronous and asynchronous circuits in 2D and 3D ICs. The designs were normalized based on performance and several metrics were measured for comparison. Area, interconnect length, power consumption, and power density were compared among NCL, MTNCL, and …

A Globally Stable Attractor That Is Locally Unstable Everywhere, Phanindra Tallapragada, Senbagaraman Sudarsanam

Publications

We construct two examples of invariant manifolds that despite being locally unstable at every point in the transverse direction are globally stable. Using numerical simulations we show that these invariant manifolds temporarily repel nearby trajectories but act as global attractors. We formulate an explanation for such global stability in terms of the ‘rate of rotation’ of the stable and unstable eigenvectors spanning the normal subspace associated with each point of the invariant manifold. We discuss the role of this rate of rotation on the transitions between the stable and unstable regimes.

Anodic Catalysts For Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells, Aaron Joseph Roy

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

With a limited availability of energy resources from petroleum and other fossil fuels, as well as growing concerns relating to the environmental implications of fossil fuel emissions, non-carbon fuels which can be utilized in proton and anion exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC’s/AEMFC’s), such as hydrogen and hydrazine hydrate (HH), are becoming more attractive as alternative fuels. Historically, platinum and platinum group metal catalysts (PGM) have been used as cathode and anode catalyst materials for both PEMFC’s and AEMFC’s. Although these catalysts are the highest performing catalysts available for the conversion of hydrogen energy in fuel cells, the limited availability and …

Education Leadership Perspectives: Positve Ways, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Are outdated traditional education, information technological infrastructure, problematic issues in providing quality leadership education in many of our instittutions today? With this into considerations, are these issues vital in order to stabilize the political and economic embroidery of our institutions or organizations, and its psychological and sociological awareness? What are really to be taught in our institutions to educate the present and the future leaders in the society? It is found that education may be the training of the mind to perform desire functions or to perpetuate the modality of obtaining an end or result. Actually, the accessibility of leadership …

Setback Distance Requirements For Removal Of Swine Slurry Constituents In Runoff, John E. Gilley, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, Kent M. Eskridge, Xu Li, Amy M. Schmidt, Daniel D. Snow

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The use of setback distances for manure application on cropland areas adjacent to surface water bodies could serve a function similar to vegetative filter strips. However, little information currently exists to identify the setback distances necessary to effectively reduce the transport of contaminants in runoff. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of setback distance and runoff rate on concentrations of selected constituents in runoff following land application of swine slurry to a no-till cropland area in southeast Nebraska. The study site had a residue cover of 7.73 Mg ha-1 and a slope gradient of 4.9%. The …

Privacy Risks And Security Threats In Mhealth Apps, Brinda Hansraj Sampat, Bala Prabhakar

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

mHealth (Mobile Health) applications (apps) have transformed the doctor-patient relationship. They help users with varied functionalities such as monitoring their health, understanding specific health conditions, consulting doctors online and achieving fitness goals. Whilst these apps provide an option of equitable and convenient access to healthcare, a lot of personal and sensitive data about users is collected, stored and shared to achieve these functionalities. Little is known about the privacy and security concerns these apps address. Based on literature review, this paper identifies the privacy risks and security features for evaluating thirty apps in the Medical category across two app distribution …

Table Of Contents Jitim Vol 26 Issue 4, 2017

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Table of Contents

Proactive Sequential Resource (Re)Distribution For Improving Efficiency In Urban Environments, Supriyo Ghosh

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Due to the increasing population and lack of coordination, there is a mismatch in supply and demand of common resources (e.g., shared bikes, ambulances, taxis) in urban environments, which has deteriorated a wide variety of quality of life metrics such as success rate in issuing shared bikes, response times for emergency needs, waiting times in queues etc. Thus, in my thesis, I propose efficient algorithms that optimise the quality of life metrics by proactively redistributing the resources using intelligent operational (day-to-day) and strategic (long-term) decisions in the context of urban transportation and health & safety. For urban transportation, Bike Sharing …

Identifying Restaurants Proposing Novel Kinds Of Cuisines: Using Yelp Reviews, Haritha Akella

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

These days with TV-shows and starred chefs, new kinds of cuisines appear in the market. The main cuisines like French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Indian are always appreciated but they are no longer the most popular. The new trend is the fusion cuisine, which is obtained by combining different main cuisines. The opening of a new restaurant proposing new kinds of cuisine produces a lot of excitement in people. They feel the need to try it and be part of this new culture. Yelp is a platform which publishes crowd sourced reviews about different businesses, in particular, restaurants. For some …

Development Of In-Vitro And In-Vivo Devices To Study The Mechanobiology Of Ligament Healing, John Bayard Everingham

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Ligament injuries are the most common sports injury in the United States. The current clinical practice for treating ligament injuries leaves many patients with significant pain and joint laxity for years following the initial injury. Controlled mechanical stimulation of the tissue after injury is necessary for robust healing, but the optimal mechanical environment for ligament healing is not fully understood. Alternative therapies, such as instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM), offer a form of mechanical stimulation that is non-invasive and has shown promising clinical outcomes but the optimal dosage for IASTM treatments is unknown. The objective of this study was …

Effects Of The Internal Magnetic Field On The Magneto-Mechanical Properties Of Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys, Anthony Hobza

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Shape memory alloys are a class of functional material which recover from large strains without permanent deformation. The strain is accommodated by the displacement of twin boundaries in the martensite phase. The shape memory alloy Ni-Mn-Ga is also ferromagnetic. Ni-Mn-Ga preferentially magnetizes along a certain crystallographic axis. This direction of easy magnetization changes across twin boundaries, such that the directions in neighboring twin domains are nearly perpendicular.

The interaction of magnetic moments and interfaces including the crystal surface and twin boundary interfaces has a large role in the magnetization process of the material. The goal of this study is to …

2017 Summer-Fall Graduate Recognition Program, Propulsion Research Center, Robert Frederick

PRC Graduate Recognition

This program includes the graduate recognition program for summer and fall 2017. Includes photographs, upcoming events, recent publications, and student profiles.

Combining Non-Destructive Tests To Improve The Reliability Of Evaluating Concrete Quality, Afra Al Asri Mohammed Obaid Al Dhaheri

Civil and Environmental Theses

Non-destructive tests (NDT) are commonly used in construction to evaluate concrete quality for both existing structures and during construction. The reliability of these tests have been questioned. This thesis is concerned with evaluating concrete strength and durability using different non-destructive tests (NDT). Also, it focuses on applying different combination of NDT to predict the concrete strength and durability using regression models. The main objective of the study was to investigate how to improve the reliability of nondestructive tests NDT to evaluate the concrete quality by combining more than one NDT test for concrete mixtures commonly used in Al Ain city, …

Commentary: Wanted - A New Generation Of Accountants, Poh Sun Seow, Gary Pan, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Facing a new wave of automation, young accountants must redefine their role and their value-add to their company, say three Singapore Management University observers.

Understanding The Long-Term Changes In Hydrologic Processes On A Watershed Scale Due To Climate Variability And Change, Chao Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the past century, the population explosion and economic development have resulted in global warming, which has raised a series of concerns, such as sea-level rise, food security, and water resources management. The water flow patterns and features experience both short-term and long-term changes in responses to the changes in the hydrologic processes and meteorologic conditions. On a watershed scale, it is crucial to understand, quantify, and attribute the influences of climate change on the local water resources system. Such understanding can be of great help to undertake local water management tasks, such as flood control, reservoir operation, ecosystem services, …

Controlled Electrochemical Reduction Of Gold And Palladium Metal Precursors In Polyaniline, Nicole Goodwin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Polyaniline (PANI) has been extensively studied due to its unique electrochemical properties. The conjugated polymer is conductive with high chemical stability below 100°C, mechanical strength, and large surface area. The applications of PANI have included chemical sensing, corrosion inhibition coatings, light emitting diode and as a substrate for metal composite catalysts. Both chemical and electrochemical methods have been developed and utilized in the synthesis of PANI/metal composites. The simultaneous reduction of aniline and metal precursor produces a composite of PANI encapsulated metal, reducing the active surface area available for catalysis. Alternatively, chemical reduction of the metal precursor into preformed PANI …