A Deep Analysis And Algorithmic Approach To Solving Complex Fitness Issues In Collegiate Student Athletes, Holly N. Puckett

Honors College Theses

Sports are not simply an entertainment source. For many, it creates a sense of community, support, and trust among both fans and athletes alike. In order to continue the sense of community sports provides, athletes must be properly cared for in order to perform at the highest level possible. Thus, their fitness and health must be monitored continuously. In a professional sense, one can expect individualized attention to athletes daily due to an abundance of funding and resources. However, when looking at college communities and student athletes within them, the number of athletes per athletic trainer increases due to both …

Encoding Time-Series Ground Motions As Images For Convolutional Neural Networks-Based Seismic Damage Evaluation, Xinzhe Yuan, Dustin Tanksley, Pu Jiao, Liujun Li, Genda Chen, Donald C. Wunsch

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Traditional methods for seismic damage evaluation require manual extractions of intensity measures (IMs) to properly represent the record-to-record variation of ground motions. Contemporary methods such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for time series classification and seismic damage evaluation face a challenge in training due to a huge task of ground-motion image encoding. Presently, no consensus has been reached on the understanding of the most suitable encoding technique and image size (width × height × channel) for CNN-based seismic damage evaluation. In this study, we propose and develop a new image encoding technique based on time-series segmentation (TS) to transform acceleration …

Challenges And Opportunities In Precision Irrigation Decision-Support Systems For Center Pivots, Jingwen Zhang, Kaiyu Guan, Bin Peng, Chongya Jiang, Wang Zhou, Yi Yang, Ming Pan, Trenton Franz, Derek M. Heeren, Daran R. Rudnick, Olufemi P. Abimbola, Hyungsuk Kimm, Kelly Caylor, Stephen Good, Madhu Khanna, John Gates, Yaping Cai

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Irrigation is critical to sustain agricultural productivity in dry or semi-dry environments, and center pivots, due to their versatility and ruggedness, are the most widely used irrigation systems. To effectively use center pivot irrigation systems, producers require tools to support their decision-making on when and how much water to irrigate. However, currently producers make these decisions primarily based on experience and/or limited information of weather. Ineffective use of irrigation systems can lead to overuse of water resources, compromise crop productivity, and directly reduce producers’ economic return as well as bring negative impacts on environmental sustainability. In this paper, we surveyed …

Biomedical Applications And Syntheses Of Selected Anthraquinone Dyes, Richard Sirard

Senior Honors Theses

Anthraquinones are aromatic organic compounds that have multiple applications in the biomedical field. Some anthraquinone-based compounds are used as fluorophores to contrast cell nuclei while others act as chemotherapeutic agents. However, there are not many fluorescent anthraquinone cell stains currently available. In this study, commercially available anthraquinone dyes, in addition to other dye families and compounds, were reviewed for their unique properties, advantages, and drawbacks. The development and characterization of three novel anthraquinone fluorophores revealed promising photophysical characteristics, like large Stokes shifts. One of the compounds, RBS3, was chosen for fixed and live cell staining and exhibited desirable biomedical properties. …

Presence Effects In Virtual Reality Based On User Characteristics: Attention, Enjoyment, And Memory, Si Jung Kim, Teemu H. Laine, Hae Jung Suk

College of Engineering Faculty Research

Presence refers to the emotional state of users where their motivation for thinking and acting arises based on the perception of the entities in a virtual world. The immersion level of users can vary when they interact with different media content, which may result in different levels of presence especially in a virtual reality (VR) environment. This study investigates how user characteristics, such as gender, immersion level, and emotional valence on VR, are related to the three elements of presence effects (attention, enjoyment, and memory). A VR story was created and used as an immersive stimulus in an experiment, which …

Recovery Of Degraded Lithium Ion Cathode Particles, James Kirtley

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

This project focuses on recovering the cathode materials of lithium ion batteries through atomic layer deposition (ALD) thin film coating. In industry, when a cathode material for a lithium ion battery are stored, it reacts with CO2 and moisture in the air creating Li2CO3 and LiOH on the particle surface. The harmful substances on the surfaces have a negative impact on battery performance and battery life. In this study, we found that when Li2Ni0.8Mn0.1Co0.1 (Ni-Rich NMC) is exposed to a high amount of moisture it degrades and the performance is reduced. For example, the discharge capacity of Degraded Ni-Rich NMC …

Co-Designing Ai Tools To Reduce Kidney Discard, Casey Hines

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

Currently, there are about 94,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list. Less than one-third will receive a new kidney this year. Unfortunately, some kidneys that could have been transplanted into a new recipient, end up being discarded. The largest group of discarded kidneys are ones that are high-risk. At present, an organ procurement organization will send out offers for an available kidney to transplant centers. These offers go out in chronological order following the kidney transplant waiting list. A single high-risk kidney could potentially go through hundreds of offers before being accepted by a transplant center. The longer the …

Credibility And Divination In The Age Of Reason, Jessi Schoolcraft

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

Credibility is vital for comprehending the world around us. This is as true today as it was in the 18th century when Diderot and d'Alembert were producing France's first Encyclopédie. Translating articles from this body of knowledge provides insight into public perceptions of credibility. Designed to collect and share knowledge, the Encyclopédie required extensive collaboration among experts and editors. Article topics ranged from philosophy to the arts to physical science. What made these articles credible? Was it the oversight of well-known editors, the use of already verified sources, or the seal of approval from the State? Or was it a …

Fear To Cooperation: A Brief History Of The Space Race, Dylan Clay

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

In 1957, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a space race that, ironically, resulted in joint United States-Soviet Union missions with the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz program. Starting in the 1950s, the Cold War between the two nations led to a feeling of unease from the world populace, especially with uncertainty surrounding the superpowers' capabilities. In the late 1950s, the United States feared that they would lose the race to space because of Sputnik's success, but American efforts led to far greater success with American Astronauts landing on the moon, effectively ending the race to space. With both nations …

Mapping Renewal: How An Unexpected Interdisciplinary Collaboration Transformed A Digital Humanities Project, Elise Tanner, Geoffrey Joseph

Digital Initiatives Symposium

Funded by a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant, the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture’s “Mapping Renewal” pilot project focused on creating access to and providing spatial context to archival materials related to racial segregation and urban renewal in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1954-1989. An unplanned interdisciplinary collaboration with the UA Little Rock Arkansas Economic Development Institute (AEDI) has proven to be an invaluable partnership. One team member from each department will demonstrate the Mapping Renewal website and discuss how the collaborative process has changed and shaped …

Effects Of Sleep Deprivation On Learning In Fruit Flies, Natalie Gardner

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

The fruit fly Drosophila Melanogaster is an optimal research specimen when observing the effects of sleep deprivation on spatial learning. A fly's sleep can be tracked using locomotion while it is undisturbed and while it undergoes sleep deprivation. To measure a fly's visuospatial awareness, a region at a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius, among the rest of the arena yielding an uncomfortable temperature ranging from 36-37 degrees Celsius, is fit with a specific visual cue that the fly is able to identify. This region, along with it's visual cue, is rotated around the arena every 3 minutes, and the amount of …

Twitter Sentiment Analysis Of Major Us Topics, Arpan Das

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

The user base for social media platforms have seen sharp increases in nearly every year since their inception, to the point where it is a part of a daily routine in today’s society. Social media provides a powerful public platform for people to express their opinions and intentions regarding almost any topic. The objective of this study was to determine how the opinions of topics related to United States politics shift over the course of the election cycle and through the inauguration of the next president. These topics included the opinions of major events such as the major presidential candidates …

A Brief Bibliometric Survey Of Explainable Ai In Medical Field, Nilkanth Mukund Deshpande, Shilpa Shailesh Gite

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

_{^{Background: This study aims to analyze the work done in the field of explainability related to artificial intelligence, especially in the medical field from 2004 onwards using the bibliometric methods.}}

_{^{Methods: different articles based on the topic leukemia detection were retrieved using one of the most popular database- Scopus. The articles are considered from 2004 onwards. Scopus analyzer is used for different types of analysis including documents by year, source, county and so on. There are other different analysis tools such as VOSviewer Version 1.6.15. This is used for the analysis of different units such as co-authorship, co-occurrences, citation analysis …}}

Compound Extremes Drive The Western Oregon Wildfires Of September 2020, John T. Abatzoglou, David E. Rupp, Larry W. O'Neill, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Several very large high‐impact fires burned nearly 4,000 km² of mesic forests in western Oregon during September 7–9, 2020. While infrequent, very large high‐severity fires have occurred historically in western Oregon, the extreme nature of this event warrants analyses of climate and meteorological drivers. A strong blocking pattern led to an intrusion of dry air and strong downslope east winds in the Oregon Cascades following a warm‐dry 60‐day period that promoted widespread fuel flammability. Viewed independently, both the downslope east winds and fuel dryness were extreme, but not unprecedented. However, the concurrence of these drivers resulted in compound extremes …

Special Issue “Cfd Modeling Of Complex Chemical Processes: Multiscale And Multiphysics Challenges”, Li Xi, De-Wei Yin, Jae Sung Park

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring Pedestrian Level Of Stress In Urban Environments: Naturalistic Walking Pilot Study, Seth Lajeunesse, Paul Ryus, Wesley Kumfer, Sirisha Kothuri, Krista Nordback

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Walking is the most basic and sustainable mode of transportation, and many jurisdictions would like to see increased walking rates as a way of reducing congestion and emission levels and improving public health. In the United States, walking trips account for 10.5% of all trips undertaken. To increase this rate, additional research on what makes people feel more comfortable while walking is needed. Research on pedestrian quality of service (QOS) has sought to quantify the performance of the pedestrian facilities from a pedestrian’s perspective. However, the impact of pedestrian safety countermeasures on pedestrian QOS for roadway crossings is largely unknown. …

Application Of Atomically Precise Metal Nanoclusters In Electrocatalysis, Zhi-Hua Zhuang, Wei Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

Metal nanoclusters (M NCs) consist of only several to a few hundred of metal atoms and possess core sizes less than 2 nm. Owing to the quantum size effect, the electronic states of M NCs evolve to discrete levels similar to the molecule energy gaps, other than a continuous density of states to produce plasmon characteristic of bulk metal nanoparticles (M NPs). In comparison with the conventional M NPs, M NCs exhibit dramatically unique electronic and optical properties, such as molecule-like energy gaps, strong photoluminescence and high catalytic properties, which make them promising for potential application in numerous fields, such …

Six Sigma Process Improvement For Ksu Mailroom, Raven Pierson, Kailyn Mcleod, Brett Teems, Gabi Tawil

Senior Design Project For Engineers

The Kennesaw State University mailroom on the Marietta Campus is utilized by faculty and students to receive letter mail alongside packages that are delivered directly to the university. The team decided to enhance the mailroom and their way of processing mail and serving their customers. For the best interest of the mailroom, the team went on to implement a Locker System, Appointment/ Card Reader System, as well as office space improvements guided by the Lean Six Sigma concept of 6s. As a result of putting forward these ideals, it was apparent that students and faculty were supportive of the Locker …

Differential White Blood Cell Counting, Gregory Austin

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis was completed with the goal of developing a model for the detection and differentiation of 8 different classes of white blood cells. Manual differential counting can be a time consuming and laborious task that would greatly be improved by an automated system. The model created in this project was to be used to automatically determine the number of each cell type in a sample, greatly reducing the need for manual counting. The model was produced using a convolutional neural network that utilized transfer learning from MobileNet_V2, an image recognition network produced by Google. After 20 epochs of training …

Electrochemiluminescence Imaging Hydrogen Evolution Reaction On Single Platinum Nanoparticles Using A Bipolar Nanoelectrode Array, Xiang Qin, Zhong-Qiu Li, Jian-Bin Pan, Jian Li, Kang Wang, Xing-Hua Xia

Journal of Electrochemistry

A high-density (5.7 × 10⁸ cm^-2) nanoelectrode array with the electrode diameter of 200 nm and the interelectrode distance of 450 nm were fabricated. The nanoelectrode array consisted of gold nanowires embedded in a porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) matrix, having regular nanoelectrode distribution and highly uniform nanoelectrode size. The gold nanoelectrode array was used as a closed bipolar nanoelectrode array combined with electrochemiluminescence (ECL) method to map the electrocatalytic activity of platinum nanoparticles toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by modifying the catalysts on single nanoelectrodes. Results show that HER on single bipolar nanoelectrodes could be imaged …

Oxygen-Exposure Induced Rapid Oxidation Of Spiro-Ometad In Cspbibr2 Perovskite Solar Cells, Wei-Guo Wang, Tian Bai, Gao-Fei Xue, Mei-Dan Ye

Journal of Electrochemistry

2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenyl-amine)-9,9′-spirobifluorene (Spiro-OMeTAD) is the most widely used hole transport material in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, its oxidation in the air takes a long time and results in the attack of perovskite by water. In this regard, we performed the oxidation process of Spiro-OMeTAD in oxygen, where perovskite can be protected from water, guaranteeing the integrity of perovskite. It was demonstrated that the champion Spiro-OMeTAD based CsPbIBr₂ PSCs after oxygen oxidation achieved a 7.19% power conversion efficiency (PCE), showing a higher PCE than 6.29% of the champion device oxidized in air. A series of electrochemical characterization methods were applied …

Theoretical Studies Of Metal-N-C For Oxygen Reduction And Hydrogen Evolution Reactions In Acid And Alkaline Solutions, Xue-Ping Qin, Shang-Qian Zhu, Lu-Lu Zhang, Shu-Hui Sun, Min-Hua Shao

Journal of Electrochemistry

Single atom catalysts (SAC) have been regarded as the promising alternatives to platinum group metals due to their low costs and potentially high catalytic activities in various electrocatalytic reactions. The atomic mechanism understanding of activity discrepancy among different metal and nitrogen co-doped carbon-based catalysts is still lacking. Here, non-precious metal and nitrogen co-doped carbons (Me-N-C, Me = Fe and Co) as the model catalysts are investigated by combining experimental and theoretical studies to explore the catalytic activities and corresponding reaction mechanisms toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at universal pHs. Atomic theoretical simulations suggest that Fe-N-C …

Electrochemical Gating Single-Molecule Circuits With Parallel Paths, Jun-Qing Su, Yi-Fan Zhou, Ling Tong, Ya-Hao Wang, Ju-Fang Zheng, Jing-Zhe Chen, Xiao-Shun Zhou

Journal of Electrochemistry

Electrochemical gating has emerged as a feasible and powerful method to tune single-molecule conductance. Herein, we demonstrate that the electron transport through single-molecule circuits with two benzene rings in parallel could be efficiently gated by electrochemistry. The molecular junctions with two parallel paths are fabricated with Au electrodes by STM break junction (STM-BJ) technique. Their conductance value exhibits a 2.82-fold enhancement by the constructive quantum interference compared to single-molecule junctions with single path for electron tunneling. Furthermore, the conductance of para-benzene based molecule could be electrochemically tuned with a modulation ratio of about 333%·V^-1. With the help of …

Lithium Storage Performance Of Hard Carbons Anode Materials Prepared By Different Precursors, Zhen-Lang Liang, Yao Yang, Hao Li, Li-Ying Liu, Zhi-Cong Shi

Journal of Electrochemistry

Hard carbon is one of the most promising anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) owing to its high stability, widespread availability, low-cost, and excellent performance. The electrochemical properties of hard carbon materials depend strongly on the type of precursors. It is, therefore, very important to choose an excellent hard carbon precursor. Polyacrylonitrile, petroleum pitch and peanut shells were used as raw materials to prepare different hard carbon anode materials for LIBs. These hard carbon anode materials were successfully synthesized in two steps. The selected precursor was firstly carbonized at 600℃ for 1 h in argon atmosphere using heating rate …

Pd-Based Electrocatalysts For Oxygen Reduction And Ethanol Oxidation Reactions: Some Recent Insights Into Structures And Mechanisms, Zhi-Peng Wu, Chuan-Jian Zhong

Journal of Electrochemistry

The development of efficient electrocatalysts for applications in fuel cells, including proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC), has attracted extensive research attention in recent years. Oxygen reduction reaction and ethanol oxidation reaction are two of the key reactions where the design of active, stable and low-cost electrocatalysts is critical for the mass commercializations of PEMFCs and DEFCs. This challenge stems largely from the limited understanding of the catalyst structures and reaction mechanisms. Progress has been made in investigations of electrocatalysts derived from Pd-based alloy nanomaterials both experimentally and computationally. We highlight herein some of the …

Six Sigma Process Improvement For Ksu Mailroom, Raven Pierson, Kailyn Mcleod, Brett Teems, Gabi Tawil

Senior Design Project For Engineers

The Kennesaw State University mailroom on the Marietta Campus is utilized by faculty and students to receive letter mail alongside packages that are delivered directly to the university. The team decided to enhance the mailroom and their way of processing mail and serving their customers. For the best interest of the mailroom, the team went on to implement a Locker System, Appointment/ Card Reader System, as well as office space improvements guided by the Lean Six Sigma concept of 6s. As a result of putting forward these ideals, it was apparent that students and faculty were supportive of the Locker …

Delivery Route Optimization, Adam Esasky, Mark Iltsenko, Sean Jones, Matthew Tharakan

Senior Design Project For Engineers

“The Carrier Company” is a service that delivers motorcycle parts all over South East, US. They have over 38 routes that each have a driver designated to deliver products to their clients twice a day. The majority of the company’s time and expenses are focused on the delivery of the products to their respected clients. Recently, due to COVID-19, the Carrier Company has had a number of issues with new drivers not knowing the routes and in turn taking too long to deliver the products. The Carrier Company has asked Team Dive Fast to work on developing a program that …

Preparation And Characterization Of "Water-In-Salt" Polymer Electrolyte For Lithium-Ion Batteries, Xu Hou, Xin He, Jie Li

Journal of Electrochemistry

Since the development of wearable and flexible electronic products, the demand of flexible energy storage devices such as batteries and super capacitors is in urgent. To enhance the safety and cycling stability for flexible lithium-ion batteries, “water-in-salt” polymer electrolyte was prepared by introducing 21 mol·kg^-1 LiTFSI electrolyte into cross-linked polyacrylamide (PAM) after freeze-drying. A great amount of holes with the size range of 10 ~ 20 μm can be found on the surface and in the bulk of polyacrylamide, which is benefited from the freeze-drying process and acts as a great support for the electrolyte uptake. The “water-in-salt” polymer …

Electrochemical Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopic Studies On Nickel Ultramicroelectrode, Li-Wen Wu, Wei Wang, Yi-Fan Huang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Nickel (Ni) electrodes are widely used in electrochemical researches. Understanding electrochemical processes on Ni electrodes through in-situ characterization of adsorbed species on their surfaces is helpful for rational optimization and application of Ni electrochemistry. Microelectrochemical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (μEC-SERS) combines the mass transfer feature of ultramicroelectrode with high-sensitivity characterizations of molecular structures, which is a powerful method for studying Ni electrochemistry on polarization and non-equilibrium conditions. The key point of performing μEC-SERS is to make a SERS-active Ni ultramicroelectrode.
Here, we demonstrate a method of preparing a SERS-active Ni ultramicroelectrode through electrochemical deposition of several atomic layers of …

A Numerical Circuit Simulation Study Of High Voltage, Multi-Pulse Transmission Lines And Spark Gap Switches, Joe Ming Ju Chen

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The design and development of high voltage, multi-pulse transmission line generators is of high interest for linear accelerator and other pulse power applications. Los Alamos National Laboratory and L3 Applied Technologies are in development and testing of a multi-pulse series pulse forming water transmission line system dubbed the Series Pulse-Line Integrated Test Stand (SPLITS). The system consists of up to four water lines in series charged by a Marx bank of total capacitance and voltage of 39nF and -600kV, respectively, to produce multiple 120ns, -300kV pulses on a matched resistive load of 5.5 . There is a need for a …