Engineering Commons^™

Deep Learning Approach To Improved Image Quality For Medical Diagnostics, Olivia Loesch, Katie Leyba, Halyley Chan, Craig Goergen

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

The United Nation’s health-related Sustainable Development Goals are difficult to achieve in low- and middle-income countries due to workforce shortages and inadequate health surveillance systems. However, with the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer algorithms, it is possible to apply AI to healthcare technologies to improve progress towards these UN standards. This project aims at using and improving computer algorithms and deep learning to aid in the extraction of important structural and functional information from murine carotid artery ultrasound and photoacoustic images. First, we created a large database of simulated photoacoustic images to optimize the algorithms. These images were …

Traffic Crash Prediction Using Machine Learning Models, Yifeng Chen

Dissertations and Theses

Traffic crashes account for most of casualties and injuries worldwide, and there has been growing concerns and studies regarding the contributing factors of traffic crashes. There are many factors causing or related to an occurrence of traffic crash, e.g., land use, traffic flow conditions, driver behavior and weather condition. This paper studied the spatial and temporal distribution of crashes on highway and developed real-time prediction models for crash occurrence. Traffic flow data, weather data, and crash data from multiple data sources were collected and processed to develop the model. Multiple machine learning models, such as SVM model and Decision Tree …

Plasmonically-Enhanced Dna-Rna Hybrid-Based Bioassay For Amplification-Free Quantification Of Sars-Cov-2, Yuxiong Liu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COIVD-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a highly infectious respiratory illness. Within just a few months, it spread around the whole world and became a global pandemic. Real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) works as a gold standard method diagnosing COVID-19 with high sensitivity and specificity. But due to the programs of RT-PCR, it usually takes more than 24 hours to get the results while specialized devices are also required. False-negative results can happen as well using RT-PCR which increase the risk of spreading coronavirus. To promote quicker detection of COVID-19, …

Numerical Investigations Of Logic Gates And Transistors In Quantum And Classical Information Processing, Anthony Corbin

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The development of numerical analysis techniques for electromagnetics and quantum mechanics problems has dramatically increased the rate of new discoveries. Propelled by the exponential growth of computers over the past decades, numerical software has brought the ability to reliably experiment with new ideas and predict new phenomena, even before the physical realizations of these ideas in the labs. This work will demonstrate the application of this capability by applying numerical analysis techniques to design and analyze new devices. First, a system of optical logic gates using a nonlinear metallodielectric grating is completely designed and simulated using numerical analysis. Second, the …

Quantifying Components Of Protein Translation And Metabolite Heterogeneity In Isogenic Microbial Populations, Alexander Schmitz

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cell-to-cell variation in gene expression and metabolite levels have a significant impact on ensemble productivity of microbial bioproduction. New metabolic engineering tools and approaches are needed that consider cell cultures as an amalgam of uniquely behaving individuals to improve the slow commercialization of metabolically engineered systems. Stochastic cellular process including gene expression, metabolism, and growth lead to phenotypic variation between genetically identical cells. Understanding and the ability to control microbial phenotypic variation is key to improving microbial bioproduction metrics. During protein translation, codon usage strongly influences ensemble gene expression but the effect on the variation of gene expression was not …

Zebrafish Models Of Katp Channelopathies, Soma S. Singareddy

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Much work has been carried out to understand the composition, structure, and function of ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channels in mammalian tissues, as well as the molecular basis of the channelopathies that result from loss-of-function or gain-of-function mutations in these channels. These studies have also highlighted that the available pharmacology to treat such diseases is limited. To overcome such limitations, a better understanding of the tissue specificity of expression, the exact mechanisms linking the molecular dysfunction to the development of complex pathophysiology, the potential for reducing cross-reactivity of drugs, and ultimately more specific therapies are needed. The work described in this …

Short-Term Memory And Olfactory Signal Processing, Lijun Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Modern neural recording methodologies, including multi-electrode and optical recordings, allow us to monitor the large population of neurons with high temporal resolution. Such recordings provide rich datasets that are expected to understand better how information about the external world is internally represented and how these representations are altered over time. Achieving this goal requires the development of novel pattern recognition methods and/or the application of existing statistical methods in novel ways to gain insights into basic neural computational principles. In this dissertation, I will take this data-driven approach to dissect the role of short-term memory in olfactory signal processing in …

Addressing Pragmatic Challenges In Utilizing Ai For Security Of Industrial Iot, Maede Zolanvari

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Industrial control systems (ICSs) are an essential part of every nation's critical infrastructure and have been utilized for a long time to supervise industrial machines and processes. Today’s ICSs are substantially different from the information technology (IT) devices a decade ago. The integration of internet of things (IoT) technology has made them more efficient and optimized, improved automation, and increased quality and compliance. Now, they are a sub (and arguably the most critical) part of IoT's domain, called industrial IoT (IIoT).

In the past, to secure ICSs from malicious outside attack, these systems were isolated from the outside world. However, …

Inductor Free Methods For Breaking Dc Currents, Sudipta Sen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The current interruption in dc circuits is more difficult to achieve compared to the ac circuits because, unlike ac systems, dc circuits do not have the natural current zero-crossing. Presently there are three categories of basic dc breaker models namely mechanical, static, and hybrid dc breakers. As current power systems is moving more towards microgrids, DERs, Electric Vehicles (EVs), and with recent advancements in dc circuits, wide verities of dc power sources, and loads, dc breakers are very important in future system protection.

New alternate methods to break dc currents for low-voltage applications are proposed in this work. The proposed …

Ultrafast Spectroscopy Of Air Lasing In Filaments, Brian Robert Kamer

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

Filamentation in air is a phenomenon that has been extensively investigated for the last two decades. At sufficiently high intensity, even air is a nonlinear medium. These intensities are reached with ultrashort pulses (50 to 100 fs) of more than 1 J energy, which self-focus in air, reach ionizing intensities of oxygen and nitrogen, creating a plasma that defocuses the beam. The air filament is a self-induced waveguide resulting from a balance of focusing and defocusing. In this work new techniques were developed to visualize and analyze this phenomenon through its emission, in particu- lar the UV emission of the …

Development And Application Of A Novel Acoustic Microfluidic Technology For Single Cell Per Well Trapping And High-Resolution Analysis Of Cilia Motion In Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, Mingyang Cui

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Acoustic manipulation of cells and microorganisms is a label-free and contact-free technique with promise for biological and biomedical applications. When exposed to an ultrasonic standing wave field, particles suspended in microfluidic channels will be moved to pressure minima (nodes) or maxima (antinodes) due to the acoustic impedance mismatch between particles and the suspension medium. Cilia motion is fundamental to understanding biological and biomedical problems related to dysfunctional human cilia, including primary ciliary dyskinesia, blindness, and male infertility. However, in vivo and ex vivo mammalian ciliated cell research is laborious and time-consuming due to difficulty in growing, maintaining, and imaging these …

Photoacoustic Imaging Of Colorectal Cancer And Ovarian Cancer, Xiandong Leng

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging hybrid imaging technology that uses a short-pulsed laser to excite tissue. The resulting photoacoustic waves are used to image the optical absorption distribution of the tissue, which is directly related to micro-vessel networks and thus to tumor angiogenesis, a key process in tumor growth and metastasis. In this thesis, the acoustic-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (AR-PAM) was first investigated on its role in human colorectal tissue imaging, and the optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) was investigated on its role in human ovarian tissue imaging.Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. …

Acoustic Radiation Force And Its Application For Cell Manipulation And Ion Channels Activation, Xiangjun Peng

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Sound is a stress wave that carries energy and momentum flux. Scattered sound waves can generate acoustic radiation force that can be used to manipulate particles or cells. This dissertation demonstrates the physics behind cell manipulation by ultrasound. The work begins with a detailed analysis of the mechanics of using standing surface acoustic waves to fabricate acoustic tweezers for contactless particle manipulation using acoustic radiation force. Models to design and analyze acoustic radiation force have traditionally relied on plane wave theories that cannot predict how standing surface acoustic waves can levitate cells in the direction perpendicular to the substrate. We …

Anion Exchange Membranes In Electrochemical Energy Systems, Yunzhu Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Non-CO2-emitting sources of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, have become quite popular in recent years, and their electricity generation cost at scale has become comparable with that of gas- and coal-fired power plants. However, their intermittent output makes the resultant electricity hard to dispatch in a reliable manner in the absence of grid-scale electrical energy storage (EES) technologies. Redox-flow batteries (RFBs) are promising devices for medium- to large-scale electric energy storage. They are safe, reliable, and portable, and are designed with decoupled power and energy modules, which makes it easy and cost-effective to scale their output to meet …

Graph Based Management Of Temporal Data, Alex Fotso

Master of Science in Computer Science Theses

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the use of smart devices and sensors that led to high-volume temporal data generation. Temporal modeling and querying of this huge data have been essential for effective querying and retrieval. However, custom temporal models have the problem of generalizability, whereas the extended temporal models require users to adapt to new querying languages. In this thesis, we propose a method to improve the modeling and retrieval of temporal data using an existing graph database system (i.e., Neo4j) without extending with additional operators. Our work focuses on temporal data represented as intervals …

Low-Level Groundwater Atrazine In High Atrazine Usage Nebraska Counties: Likely Effects Of Excessive Groundwater Abstraction, Moses New-Aaron, Olufemi P. Abimbola, Raheleh Mohammadi, Oluwaseun Famojuro, Zaeema Naveed, Azar M Abadi, Jesse E. Bell, Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, Eleanor G. Rogan

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Recent studies observed a correlation between estrogen-related cancers and groundwater atrazine in eastern Nebraska counties. However, the mechanisms of human exposure to atrazine are unclear because low groundwater atrazine concentration was observed in counties with high cancer incidence despite having the highest atrazine usage. We studied groundwater atrazine fate in high atrazine usage Nebraska counties. Data were collected from Quality Assessed Agrichemical Contaminant Nebraska Groundwater, Parameter–Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), and water use databases. Descriptive statistics and cluster analysis were performed. Domestic wells (59%) were the predominant well type. Groundwater atrazine was affected by well depth. Clusters consisting …

A Case Study On Hls Portability From Intel To Xilinx Fpgas, Zhili Xiao

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a hardware accelerator option that is growing in popularity. However, FPGAs are notoriously hard to program. To this end, high-level synthesis (HLS) tools have been developed to allow programmers to design hardware accelerators with FPGAs using familiar software languages. The two largest FPGA vendors, Intel and Xilinx, support both C/C++ and OpenCL C to construct kernels. However, little is known about the portability of designs between these two platforms. In this work, we evaluate the portability and performance of Intel and Xilinx kernels. We conduct a case study, porting the Needleman-Wunsch application from the Rodinia …

Deep Learning For Automatic Microscopy Image Analysis, Shenghua He

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Microscopy imaging techniques allow for the creation of detailed images of cells (or nuclei) and have been widely employed for cell studies in biological research and disease diagnosis in clinic practices.Microscopy image analysis (MIA), with tasks of cell detection, cell classification, and cell counting, etc., can assist with the quantitative analysis of cells and provide useful information for a cellular-level understanding of biological activities and pathology. Manual MIA is tedious, time-consuming, prone to subject errors, and are not feasible for the high-throughput cell analysis process. Thus, automatic MIA methods can facilitate all kinds of biological studies and clinical tasks. Conventional …

Improving Resource Efficiency In Cloud Computing, Jiayi Song

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Customers inside the cloud computing market are heterogeneous in several aspects, e.g., willingness to pay and performance requirement. By taking advantage of trade-offs created by these heterogeneities, the service provider can realize a more efficient system. This thesis is concerned with methods to improve the utilization of cloud infrastructure resources, and with the role of pricing in realizing those improvements and leveraging heterogeneity. Towards improving utilization, we explore methods to optimize network usage through traffic engineering. Particularly, we introduce a novel optimization framework to decrease the bandwidth required by inter-data center networks through traffic scheduling and shaping, and then propose …

Defining The Role Of Elastic Fibers In Tendon Mechanics, Jeremy D. Eekhoff

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Tendons serve as a linking component of the musculoskeletal system by transferring forces between muscle and bone. As such, the structural proteins of the tendon extracellular matrix are of vital importance for the tissue to function properly and maintain its mechanical integrity. Collagen is the principal constituent of tendon and makes up its aligned hierarchical organization. Other structural proteins, such as elastin, are in comparison understudied and not well understood in relation to tendon function. Elastin, the main component of elastic fibers, has unique mechanical properties including high extensibility, fatigue resistance, and elasticity; these properties are important for elastin-rich tissues …

Predicting Patient Outcomes With Machine Learning For Diverse Health Data, Dingwen Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

As digitized clinical and health data become ubiquitous, machine learning techniques have shown promise in predicting various clinical outcomes. In this thesis research, we exploit three types of data including (1) data collected through wearables outside hospitals, (2) electronic health records (EHR) data of inpatient in general hospital wards, (3) intraoperative data collected during surgery. This thesis work investigates machine learning approaches for the diverse clinical and health data with distinctive characteristics and challenges in the context of real-world clinical applications. Specifically, this thesis makes the following contributions to the state of the art of clinical machine learning.

Extracting informative …

Electroshock Treatment Dependent Microstructural Evolution And Mechanical Properties Of Near-Β Titanium Alloy Manufactured By Directed Energy Deposition, Haojie Guo, Pu Liu, Xunpeng Qin, Yanli Song, Dongsheng Qian, Lechun Xie, Liqiang Wang, Lai-Chang Zhang, Lin Hua

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Effects of electroshock treatment (EST) on the microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of near-β titanium alloy (Ti-55531) formed by directed energy deposition (DED) was studied in this work. With the increase in EST time, the average hardness of specimen decreased from 426 HV to 316 HV, and the fracture strain increased significantly, which was attributed to the uniform dispersion of α phase along grain boundaries and inside the β grains. After EST, the texture intensity decreased in terms of the orientation distribution function (ODF), which was ascribed to the redistribution of α phase. Moreover, more atomic vacancies and lattice distortion …

Hyperspectral Imaging And Data Analytics For Civil Infrastructure Inspection, Genda Chen

INSPIRE Archived Webinars

In this 50-minute lecture, the fundamental concept of hyperspectral imaging is reviewed. Each hyperspectral image represents a narrow, contiguous wavelength range of an electromagnetic spectrum, which could be indicative of a chemical substance. All the images in the spectral range of a hyperspectral camera are combined to form a three-dimensional hyperspectral data cube with two spatial dimensions and one spectral dimension. A hyperspectral cube can be sampled in four ways: spatial scanning, spectral scanning, snapshot imaging, and spatio-spectral scanning. This presentation will be focused on spatial scanning from a line-scan camera. The feasibility of horizontal imaging from a synchronized hyperspectral …

Partnerships And Collaboration: Working Together To Build And Achieve Disaster Recovery, Joseph Richmond, Cheryl Knight

Journal of Global Awareness

On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, leaving behind 161 fatalities and $2.8 billion in economic impacts. This case study research design used in-depth semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and a qualitative design and analysis to examine the economic recovery following the disaster. It also formed the foundation for future research on the impact of interdisciplinary teams, specifically disaster emergency management and social work in disaster recovery.

Lessons Learned From Bp: Deepwater Horizon And The Transition To Renewables, Daniel Valle

Journal of Global Awareness

This paper analyzes the gradual transition of British Petroleum (BP), one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, into a renewable energy company focused on sustainability and the reduction of carbon emissions. BP's leadership and ethical practices are compared before and after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The purpose of the comparison and the broader analysis of the transition is to identify how effective leadership can be used to transform a company with a suspect social responsibility record into a leader among its peers. Lessons learned from the disaster, and the subsequent transition conclude the research.

Stakeholder Involvement In Upscaling Of Soil Fertility Research Output In Tharaka-Nithi County, Kenya, Serah W. Kimaru-Muchai

Journal of Global Awareness

Food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa has prompted a lot of research in the development of soil fertility technologies; however, few of the recommendations from soil fertility management research have been put into use by the target end-users. The objective of the study was to investigate information exchange pathways used by researchers in upscaling of soil fertility in Maara and Mbeere South Sub-counties in Kenya. Structured questionnaires were used to collect information from 22 researchers and 240 farmers. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics like frequency, mean, and percentages, while Chi-square, Kendal's correlation coefficient was used to test the magnitude of …

Letter From The Editor, Jay Nathan

Journal of Global Awareness

No abstract provided.

Indicator Of Accident And Analysis Of Existing Problems Of Ensuring Traffic Safety In Major Cities Of Uzbekistan, Jamshid Abdunazarov

Scientific-technical journal

This article is devoted to the analysis of accidents and road safety in large cities of the Republic of Uzbekistan such as Bukhara, Fergana and Samarkand. And also, statistical data of road traffic accidents are processed throughout the republic. Such factors as transport risk, social risk and severity of the consequences of a road traffic accident have been identified. In conclusion, the author's opinion on the factors affecting road safety in the republic is presented.

Development Of A Model For Control Of A Flexible Production Sewage System, Shalala Jafarova

Scientific-technical journal

This article discusses the development of a production module management model for one area of the technological process. New modeling methods are used for this purpose. Mathematical modeling and research is one of the key issues in the early stages of designing automated and automated systems operating in uncertain or fuzzy environments. Efficient modeling devices are used to solve these problems, taking into account the specific features of the process. The article builds the management model of the production module and obtains the results.

Replication Data For: Experimental And Numerical Study Of Evaporation From Wavy Surfaces By Coupling Free Flow And Porous Media Flow, Bo Gao, Kathleen Smits

Earth & Environmental Sciences Datasets - Archive

The macroscale roughness of the soil surface has significant influences on the mass/energy interactions between the subsurface and the atmosphere during evaporation. However, most previous works only consider evaporation behavior from flat surfaces. Based on experimental and numerical approaches, the goal of this work is to provide a framework for the understanding of the mechanisms of evaporation from irregular soil surfaces at representative elementary volume scale. A coupling free flow-porous media flow model was developed to describe evaporation under nonisothermal conditions. For simplicity, sinusoidal-type wavy surfaces were considered. To validate this modeling approach, an experiment using an open-ended wind tunnel …