Engineering Commons^™

Patient-Specific Musculoskeletal Modeling Of Total Shoulder Arthroplasty, Brendan M. Curran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) is often considered a surgery of last resort for patients with debilitating pathologies of the glenohumeral joint such as osteoarthritis, humeral head fracture, and advancing rotator cuff tears. TSA replaces the articulation between the humeral head and the glenoid fossa, with the goals of relieving pain and restoring function. Two types of total shoulder implants are available: Anatomic Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (aTSA) and Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (rTSA). TSA survivorship is lower than that of the survivorship seen in total knee and hip replacements [1]. Shoulder muscle moment arms and lines of action have been measured …

Atom Probe Tomography Of Segregation At Grain Boundaries And Gas Bubbles In Neutron Irradiated U-10 Wt% Mo Fuel, Maalavan Arivu, Andrew Hoffman, Mukesh Bachhav, Assel Aitkaliyeva, Yaqiao Wu, Brandon Miller, Dennis Keiser, Jian Gan, Haiming Wen

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

During Neutron Irradiation to Fission Densities > 5.2 X 1021 Fiss/cm3, Xe Agglomerates Forming Gas Bubbles of Varying Size within the U-Mo Fuel Matrix. Herein, Segregation of Fission Products to Xe Bubbles and Grain Boundaries (GB) Were Studied using Atom Probe Tomography (APT). Segregation Behavior Was Found to Vary among GBs, Small Bubbles (<10 >Nm), and Larger Bubbles (>10 Nm). Solid Fission Products Were Enriched at GBs and Larger Bubbles, But Not at Small Bubbles. a Denuded Zone Was Identified Adjacent to a > 10 Nm Xe Gas Bubble and a GB.

Activity Descriptors As Tools For Designing Highly Efficient Electrocatalysts For Water Splitting, Aya Gomaa

Theses and Dissertations

There is an uprising urge to design efficient, active, and durable catalysts to achieve sustainable hydrogen production. The unambiguity of which material should be used pushed the scientific community to devote enormous efforts in exploring different elements with different ratios on trial and error bases. However, the bridge between the theoretical calculation and the experiments introduced a new realm of designing efficient catalysts by introducing the concept of activity descriptors. In the first part of the thesis, the ability to convert waste stainless steel (SS) 316L meshes into highly efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts is demonstrated. The …

Fast And Accurate Automatic Design Of Spiral Inductors From High-Level Specification, Heba Ismail

Theses and Dissertations

Integrated on-chip planar spiral inductors are widely employed in communication circuit blocks and other various electronic devices, thus becoming an essential passive component of RF integrated circuits (RFICs). A common vital spiral inductor design problem is determining the optimum layout parameters of spiral inductors that yield the desired inductance value and achieve highest quality factor at the intended operating frequency. Various approaches tackle this difficulty, but the most prevalent approaches for designing inductors are using an electromagnetic simulator or a library of pre-designed inductors. The latter approach requires an extensive amount of time and computational resources, whereas the former restricts …

Shape Memory Alloy Capsule Micropump For Drug Delivery Applications, Youssef Mohamed Kotb

Theses and Dissertations

Implantable drug delivery devices have many benefits over traditional drug administration techniques and have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. By delivering the medication directly to the tissue, they enable the use of larger localized concentrations, enhancing the efficacy of the treatment. Passive-release drug delivery systems, one of the various ways to provide medication, are great inventions. However, they cannot dispense the medication on demand since they are nonprogrammable. Therefore, active actuators are more advantageous in delivery applications. Smart material actuators, however, have greatly increased in popularity for manufacturing wearable and implantable micropumps due to their high energy …

Academic Success In First-Year Engineering Students At Private Higher Education Institutions In Egypt: Key Factors, Wassim Alexan

Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to identify the key factors contributing to the success of first-year engineering students at private higher education institutions (HEIs) in Egypt. It specifically examined how various independent variables influence the success of these students, measured as the dependent variable. By analyzing these relationships, the study seeks to pinpoint key success factors (KSFs) for first year engineering students in this specific educational context. The research work employed a mixed methods approach, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative analysis involved collecting data through a survey administered to a sample of first year engineering students at private …

Navigating The Rules: Integrating Td3 And Sensor Fusion For Traffic-Aware Autonomous Vehicle Path Planning, Mahmoud Ayman Mohamed Elsayed

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a novel algorithm for local path planning for autonomous vehicles (AVs) which prioritizes both safety and adherence to traffic regulations, addressing critical functions for AV navigation, such as navigating complex environments, avoiding obstacles, and ensuring passenger and road users safety. The algorithm integrates the Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) with sensor fusion based on Nvidia Convolutional Neural Network (NCNN). The study utilizes the CARLA simulator, and real-world datasets, including KITTI and WAYMO, to train and evaluate the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm leverages the complementary strengths of Imitation Learning (IL) and Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) …

Incremental Quantities Based Permissive Overreaching Transfer Trip Scheme For Protecting Inverter-Based Renewable Resources, Osama Zangoti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The power generation landscape evolves, with the increase of inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines, providing sustainable and clean energy sources. The shift towards IBRs mitigates climate change, creating considerable challenges to traditional power system protection due to their low fault current. Conventional protection schemes are designed around the internal dynamic of synchronous generators where they can supply an elevated fault current. This thesis explores a protection scheme designed to enhance the security of IBRs. The incremental characteristics of voltage and current coupled with the Permissive Overreaching Transfer Trip scheme (POTT) provide a remarkable ability to …

Statistical Modeling Of Knee Morphology And Material Properties Considering Diverse Populations, Gabrielle Jeannine Kindy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is a widely performed surgical procedure aimed at alleviating pain and restoring function in patients with severe knee osteoarthritis. Despite its general success, disparities in postoperative outcomes have been observed across different racial and ethnic groups, with minority populations often experiencing less favorable results. One potential avenue for improving the generalizability of orthopaedic implants is using Statistical Shape and Intensity Models (SSIMs), which can be used to incorporate patient variability directly into the orthopaedic medical device development workflow through population-based finite element analysis.

This work aimed to construct an SSIM from a diverse subject set, incorporating …

Virtual Museum Tours Of The De Saisset Museum, Justin Enciso-Anaya, Karthik Tamil, Quoc Truong

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Our project transforms the California Stories exhibit at the de Saisset Museum into an immersive virtual tour, integrating Matterport technology and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) principles. Matterport’s high resolution 360 degree camera allows us to capture a physical space in high definition into a 3D virtual space while Matterport’s software helps to facilitate the creation and editing for our physical space in a virtual environment. HCI principles focus on how systems should work when direct interaction with users is a key component. We apply the principles of HCI to create a virtual museum tour that offers visitors a culturally enriching, interactive experience, …

Monterecycle: An Application For Streamlining Tracking Of Recyclables In Uruguay, Aayooshi Dharmadhakari, Danny Walsh, Eason Ke, Kamya Krishnan

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Recycling is a crucial process that has a positive impact on nature, cleans the environment, and saves time and money. Classifying recyclables by material and recycling these items accordingly helps make our world more environmentally-friendly and a better place to live.

In the recycling system in Montevideo, Uruguay, third-party contractors hired by San Vicente transport clients’ recyclables to a central recycling center or to a person that does recycling. In the past, San Vicente has transported recyclables though horse and buggy transportation. However, there has been a push from the city to replace the horses with motorcycles to reduce animal …

Differentiating Dynamic System Outcomes In Cam Photosynthesis Through Sonification, Duncan Turley

Civil and Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Sonification is a powerful tool that is harnessed by modern engineers to represent information through audio, and is beginning to be used to interpret more complex data sets. Sonification can be used to facilitate the listeners' ability to grasp microscopic or complex changes in the state of a system. This study uses the assigning of sound patterns to model outputs that indicate chaotic or non-chaotic systems in Crassulacean acid metabolism photosynthesis. Using sound allows the interpretation of chaotic data without the more time intensive processes typically used, such as of Fast Fourier Transformations. Based on past research, it is known …

Iotsolate: Network Microsegmentation For Managing And Securing Iot Devices, Chloé Morali, Anagha Nair

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Developing solutions to secure IoT devices is a pressing issue facing us today. Although IoT devices improve everyday life in various ways, they are susceptible to security threats, impacting users in all environments. As the number of IoT devices increases, the attack surface expands exponentially. However, securing these devices proves to be a challenge because they are made with limited processing capabilities, which means they lack necessary security features. They also come in a wide range of variations in terms of operating systems, physical design, and network connectivity which complicates the establishment of standardized security options. Additionally, they tend to …

Performance Evaluation Of Databases For Packet Capture And Analysis, James Vong, Daniel Kareti

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Today, the presence of smart devices is constantly on the rise, especially for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, their utility-based design means that these devices are limited in computing power. Due to this limited computing power, the devices are more prone to cyber-security threats, and it is vital to construct a method to aid in network traffic analysis, bolstering defense mechanisms to thwart any malicious attacks. To analyze their network data efficiently and externally, we constructed a test-bed infrastructure to measure and evaluate the performance of databases. In this thesis, we have chosen to compare two databases which are …

Scdi: Privacy-Preserving Device Identification, Ethan Shenassa, Michael Castillo

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

As internet security concerns grow due to the increasing complexity of cyberattacks, heterogeneity of network-connected devices, and popularity of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices, network administrators require more intelligent ways of managing and securing their networks. One crucial step in this regard is the ability to identify and classify devices from the edge of networks. However, many recent advances in network security come at the cost of user privacy, as device classification algorithms often require packet payload data, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, or other sensitive information. This paper proposes the Shenassa-Castillo Device Identifier (SCDI): a software network device identifier …

Optimization Using Central Composite Design For Continuous Absorption Of Co2 Gas With Green Sodium Silicate In A Packed Bed Column, Dalia A. Ali Eng, Mohamed Essam Ibrahim Eng.

Chemical Engineering

If absolutely nothing is taken to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will rise to 550 parts per million by 2050, which will have disastrous effects on the world's climate and food production. An apparatus has been designed and setup to convert CO2 into a useful and vital product which was silica. The effect of different experimental factors on the compositions by weight percent of SiO2 and Na2CO3 were studied including the CO2 gas flow rate (1.037, 1.648 and 2.26 L/min), initial concentration of sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) solution (5, 7.5 and 10 %wt) and the packing …

Department Chairs As Change Agents: A Virtual Cross-Institutional Professional Development Model For Chairs, Cinzia Cervato, Stephanie Peterson, Carrie Ann Johnson, Canan Bilen-Green, Carla Koretsky, Adrienne Minerick, Gul Okudan Kremer

Michigan Tech Publications

Department chairs are crucial in impacting departmental climate, conveying expectations, and providing merit assessments. Therefore, they have the most influence in retaining highly qualified faculty. Most department chairs come from the faculty ranks and lack formal training in key management, communication, and administrative skills, including performance reviews, resource allocation and budgeting, legal and compliance issues, promotion and tenure determinations, conflict resolution, and the inclusive management of people with diverse identities. Recognizing the critical role of department chairs and the evident gap in their training, we developed a series of chair workshops to provide ongoing professional development for department chairs across …

Mitigating Uncertainty: Analyzing The Role Of Risk Management In The Construction Industry, Mike Nwafor

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

The construction industry, inherently dynamic and complex, faces a myriad of uncertainties that can significantly impact project outcomes. In this context, effective risk management emerges as a critical component in ensuring project success and sustainability. This abstract explores the role of risk management in the construction industry, highlighting its multifaceted impact on project timelines, costs, and overall quality. Risk management in construction includes detecting, assessing, and managing possible hazards and opportunities throughout the project's life cycle. It includes a proactive approach to anticipating, analyzing, and responding to uncertainties driven by factors such as design modifications, material shortages, labor concerns, weather …

Technologies For Wearable Seizure Detection: A Systematic Review, Rhema Losli

University Honors Theses

Knowing when a seizure occurred is helpful because this information can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of seizure interventions and possibly alert caregivers to emergency situations. The current practice for recording seizures outside of a hospital and without sensors is through keeping a self-reported seizure diary. This practice may be unreliable if the diary is not updated or the person having the seizure does not realize it is happening. Wearable seizure detectors aim to solve this problem by reliably recording when a seizure happened and either sending out an alert or storing the data for later analysis. In this …

Preservation Of Biomass In Underground Capsules Using An Open-Source Wireless Water Activity Sensor System: Capstone Review, Joshua Varughese

University Honors Theses

This paper highlights the progression of a two-term senior capstone project in the ECE department at Portland State University. Sponsored by Dr. David Burnett from PSU's WEST Lab, the project aims to produce an affordable wireless monitoring system for water activity. The example scenario focuses on carbon sequestration where wood biomass is buried underground in enclosed capsules. For optimal sequestration, microorganisms capable of decaying the wood and releasing carbon back into the environment must be eliminated. Water activity, a key metric for measuring microbial activity, must be below 0.61 to prevent microbial survival. The system this project was designed for …

Feature Extraction From Vibration Signature Required From Railroad Bearing Onboard Condition Monitoring Sensor Modules, Kevin Quaye, Ping Xu, Dimah Dera, Heinrich D. Foltz, Constantine Tarawneh, Alberto Diaz

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

From 2013 to 2022, 1671 derailments have been reported by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), 8.2% of which were due to journal bearing defects. The University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) designed an onboard monitoring system that tracks vibration waveforms over time to assess bearing health through three analysis levels. However, the speed of the bearing, a fundamental parameter for these analyses, is often acquired from Global Positioning System (GPS) data, which is typically not available at the sensor location. To solve this issue, this paper proposes to employ Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to extract the speed and other …

Experimental Investigation Of Lateral Load Effects On Railway Tapered Roller Bearing Performance, Abel David Sanchez Trinidad, Constantine Tarawneh, Diego Aguila, Arturo A. Fuentes, Santanna Guiterrez, Curtis Pena, Daniel Reyna

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

In the quest to maintain the reliability and safety of railway systems, vibration signatures emerge as a crucial diagnostic tool for identifying and tracking the progression of railway bearing health. It is important to note that, in the case of spall deterioration, temperature variations may only become noticeable once spalling has spread extensively across the raceway. Hence, a comprehensive understanding of the effects of lateral loading under various train speeds at empty and full railcar loads is important. Surprisingly, limited research has been carried out or made publicly available on the effects of lateral loading on the performance of railroad …

Ai-Enabled Vibration Sensing System For Early Detection Of Trains At Active Highway-Rail Grade Crossings, Mohsen Amjadian, Md. Masnun Rahman, Constantine Tarawneh, Valik Villarreal, Dylan Rocha

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Highway-rail grade crossings (HRGCs) play an essential role in ensuring the secure traversal of road users across railway tracks. However, despite their significance, they present safety challenges, particularly when trains go undetected, heightening the risk of potential collisions between the road user and train. This paper aims to explore the viability of employing vibration sensors for detection and characterization of an approaching train’s speed at HRGCs. The methodology involves analyzing rail vibrations and developing a time series predictive machine learning (ML) model. To accomplish this, a Finite Element (FE) model of a ballasted track railway is created in SAP2000, consisting …

Evaluation Of Insurance Policies In The Saudi Arabian Construction Contracts, Ahmed Gouda Mohamed

Civil Engineering

The construction sector is more complicated and prone to risk than many other industries due to the size of the projects and the financial capital involved. Arranging insurance is the prudent course of action for risk management in the construction sector. There is a lack of clarity in insurance policies for public construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which poses additional risks to all involved contracting parties. The aim of this research is to evaluate insurance policies in the KSA's public construction projects to identify the key deficiencies and obstacles and provide a road map for improvement …

Evaluation Of Reduced Graphene Oxide For Advanced Thermal Management In Microwave Electronics Packaging, Utkarsh Misra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The continuous push towards making electronic devices smaller and denser, largely driven by the demand for higher power capabilities, has led to a critical need for innovative and comprehensive methods for managing the heat these devices generate. Traditional cooling solutions for electronics often rely on methods such as copper-based layers or channels to distribute and dispel heat. However, these conventional methods and materials are becoming increasingly insufficient, especially for Radio Frequency (RF) and millimeter-wave electronics. These components are becoming ever more compact while requiring more power, thus presenting unique challenges for thermal management in their packaging.

In this thesis we …

Sensitization Of Europium Oxide Nanoparticles Enhances Signal-To- Noise Over Autofluorescence With Time-Gated Luminescence Detection, Hunter Miller, Jessica Q. Wallace, Hui Li, Xing-Zhong Li, Ana De Bettencourt-Dias, Forrest Kievit

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Clinical translation of nanoparticle-based therapeutics has been limited, and a lack of preclinical delivery characterization is partly to blame, limiting our understanding of the mechanisms of failure. The improvement of the preclinical delivery assessment requires nanoparticles with higher detectability. This work focused on the exploration of several aromatic carboxylic ligands (terephthalic acid, quinaldic acid, and kynurenic acid) for the sensitization of europium oxide nanoparticles with a long emission lifetime to overcome cellular autofluorescence, a key confounder of detection in luminescence-based bioimaging. A facile one-pot synthesis and ligand exchange process generated and sensitized ultrasmall Eu₂O₃ cores. As reflected …

Kernel Ridge Regression In Predicting Railway Crossing Accidents, Ethan Villalobos, Constantine Tarawneh, Jia Chen, Evangelos E. Papalexakis, Ping Xu

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Expanding on the insights from our initial investigation into railway accident patterns, this paper delves deeper into the predictive capabilities of machine learning to forecast potential accident trends in railway crossings. Focusing on critical factors such as “Highway User Position” and “Equipment Involved,” we integrate Kernel Ridge Regression (KRR) models tailored to distinct clusters, as well as a global model for the entire dataset. These models, trained on historical data, discern patterns and correlations that might elude traditional statistical methods. Our findings are compelling: certain clusters, despite limited data points, showcase remarkably Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) values between predictions …

Spectral Clustering In Railway Crossing Accidents Analysis, Ethan Villalobos, Hector Lugo Iii, Biqian Cheng, Miguel Gutierrez, Constantine Tarawneh, Ping Xu, Jia Chen, Evangelos E. Papalexakis

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

This study employs graph mining and spectral clustering to analyze patterns in railway crossing accidents, utilizing a comprehensive dataset from the US Department of Transportation. By constructing a graph of implicit relationships between railway companies based on shared accident localities, we apply spectral clustering to identify distinct clusters of companies with similar accident patterns. This offers nuanced insight into the underlying structure of these incidents. Our results indicate that “Highway User Position” and “Equipment Involved” play pivotal roles in accident clustering, while temporal elements like “Date” and “Time” exert a diminished impact. This research not only sheds light on potential …

Development Of Rail Anchor Testing Through Literature Review Of Cwr Buckling Resistance Evaluation, Juan Rodriguez, Siang Zhou, Constantine Tarawneh, Alberto Sanchez, Teresa Salazar-Flores, S. Mustapha Rahmaninezhad, Hameem Gorabi

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Continuously welded rail (CWR) is among the most used railroad systems worldwide with great improvements compared to jointed tracks, including refined ride quality, increased fatigue life of track and rolling stock, and reduced maintenance costs. Rail buckling is one of the key remaining issues for CWRs to further reduce safety hazards and infrastructure deterioration, and save required track retrofit material and efforts. CWR buckling is induced by combined longitudinal, lateral, and torsional forces on the track that are caused by the synergy of rail components, the loading from moving trains, the interaction between track and substructure, and the effect of …

Use Of Nanoparticle Additives To Achieve Desirable Properties In Fluorine-Free Firefighting Foams, Annelise Kathleen Curtin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Class B Firefighting foams play a crucial role in protecting equipment and people fromliquid fuel fires but concerns regarding the impacts of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have resulted in bans on the use of aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). Fluorine-free replacements are yet to achieve the same level of performance. Nanoparticles including silica and clay have been used to improve foam stability, especially in environments where hydrocarbon fuels are present. These materials have also been used in solid composites to improve fire resistance. The stability of aqueous foams containing silica and Laponite RD nanoparticles along with surfactants of different …