Engineering Commons^™

The Ability Of Β-Hairpin Peptides To Function As Degradation-Resistant, Cell-Penetrating Peptides And Their Potential As Proteolysis Targeted Chimeras, Jeffery C. Anderson

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Open Electronics For Medical Devices: State-Of-Art And Unique Advantages, Gaurav Pandey, Ankit Vora

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

A wide range of medical devices have significant electronic components. Compared to open-source medical software, open (and open-source) electronic hardware has been less published in peer-reviewed literature. In this review, we explore the developments, significance, and advantages of using open platform electronic hardware for medical devices. Open hardware electronics platforms offer not just shorter development times, reduced costs, and customization; they also offer a key potential advantage which current commercial medical devices lack—seamless data sharing for machine learning and artificial intelligence. We explore how various electronic platforms such as microcontrollers, single board computers, field programmable gate arrays, development boards, and …

An Experimental And Theoretical Investigation Of Internal Wave Kinetic Energy Density In Variable Stratifications, Allison Marie Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Internal waves are generated in a fluid if the density increases continuously with depth. The variation in density with depth, or stratification, defines the natural frequency of the fluid N. Two common examples of stratified fluids are the ocean and atmosphere; internal waves are generated continuously in both mediums. Although there are many internal wave generation mechanisms, one common and frequently studied method is tidal flow over oceanic bathymetry. If the local natural frequency of the water near the topography is greater than the tidal frequencyω, internal waves will be generated by the tidal flow over the topography. If N=ω, …

Comparison Of Modern Controls And Reinforcement Learning For Robust Control Of Autonomously Backing Up Tractor-Trailers To Loading Docks, Journey Mcdowell

Master's Theses

Two controller performances are assessed for generalization in the path following task of autonomously backing up a tractor-trailer. Starting from random locations and orientations, paths are generated to loading docks with arbitrary pose using Dubins Curves. The combination vehicles can be varied in wheelbase, hitch length, weight distributions, and tire cornering stiffness. The closed form calculation of the gains for the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) rely heavily on having an accurate model of the plant. However, real-world applications cannot expect to have an updated model for each new trailer. Finding alternative robust controllers when the trailer model is changed was …

A Rotating Aperture Mask For Small Telescopes, Edward L. Foley

Master's Theses

Observing the dynamic interaction between stars and their close stellar neighbors is key to establishing the stars’ orbits, masses, and other properties. Our ability to visually discriminate nearby stars is limited by the power of our telescopes, posing a challenge to astronomers at small observatories that contribute to binary star surveys. Masks placed at the telescope aperture promise to augment the resolving power of telescopes of all sizes, but many of these masks must be manually and repetitively reoriented about the optical axis to achieve their full benefits. This paper introduces a design concept for a mask rotation mechanism that …

Pharmacokinetics Of 99mTc-Hmpao In Isolated Perfused Rat Lungs, Anne V. Clough, Katherine Barry, Benjamin Michael Rizzo, Elizabeth R. Jacobs, Said H. Audi

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Lung uptake of technetium-labeled hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) increases in rat models of human acute lung injury, consistent with increases in lung tissue glutathione (GSH). Since ^99mTc-HMPAO uptake is the net result of multiple cellular and vascular processes, the objective was to develop an approach to investigate the pharmacokinetics of ^99mTc-HMPAO uptake in isolated perfused rat lungs. Lungs of anesthetized rats were excised and connected to a ventilation-perfusion system. ^99mTc-HMPAO (56 MBq) was injected into the pulmonary arterial cannula, a time sequence of images was acquired, and lung time-activity curves were constructed. Imaging was repeated with a range …

The Assessment Of Walkability As A Social Aspect Of Sustainability: The Case Of Dubai Neighborhoods, Uae, Rania Elsaed Elesawi

Theses

In an attempt to reduce car dependency, the process of planning, mainly on a neighborhood level, has recently been directed to focus on the accommodation of walkability as a significant factor of planning development. This approach contributes not only to improving urban patterns but also majorly in addressing issues of sustainability. The social aspect of sustainability has not received much attention and is considered the least described pillar. The positive association between aspects of human behavior and built environment, particularly walkability, suggests that measuring social aspects of sustainability may be conceivable especially in the context of community development. Sustainable neighborhoods …

Groundwater Level Mapping Tool: Development Of A Web Application To Effectively Characterize Groundwater Resources, Steven William Evans

Theses and Dissertations

Groundwater is used worldwide as a major source for agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, mining, and drinking water. An accurate understanding of groundwater levels and trends is essential for decision makers to effectively manage groundwater resources throughout an aquifer, ensuring its sustainable development and usage. Unfortunately, groundwater is one of the most challenging and expensive water resources to characterize, quantify, and monitor on a regional basis. Data, though present, are often limited or sporadic, and are generally not used to their full potential to aid decision makers in their groundwater management.This thesis presents a solution to this under-utilization of available data …

Synchronous Machine Emulation Of Vsc For Interconnection Of Renewable Energy Sources Through Hvdc Transmission, Mohamed Asker Kanakkayil

Electrical Engineering Theses

The majority of the energy demand over the past years has been fulfilled by centralized generating stations. However, with a continuously increasing energy demand, the integration of decentralized renewable energy sources (RES) into the power system network becomes inevitable even though these sources affect the stability of the grid due to their intermittency and use of various power converters. The transmission of power over long distances from RES is usually accomplished either by AC or DC transmission. High voltage DC transmission (HVDC) is preferred over high voltage AC transmission (HVAC) due to numerous and complex reasons, such as its lower …

Active Filter Modelling To Mitigate Harmonics Generated By Electric Vehicle Chargers, Fasalu Rahman Puthiyottil

Electrical Engineering Theses

The Automotive industry is going through a rapid transformation to adopt electrified technology. A major share of the electrified vehicles is going to be in the Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug in hybrids segments that need to connect to the grid to recharge the batteries. For customer convenience, the time required for fully charging the battery need to be brought down significantly. EV charging stations are getting installed that could bring down the charging time to less than 30 minutes. However this pose a unique issue to the power quality of the utility grid. During charging, the EV charging …

Efficient Privacy-Aware Imagery Data Analysis, Yifan Tian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The widespread use of smartphones and camera-coupled Internet of Thing (IoT) devices triggers an explosive growth of imagery data. To extract and process the rich contents contained in imagery data, various image analysis techniques have been investigated and applied to a spectrum of application scenarios. In recent years, breakthroughs in deep learning have powered a new revolution for image analysis in terms of effectiveness with high resource consumption. Given the fact that most smartphones and IoT devices have limited computational capability and battery life, they are not ready for the processing of computational intensive analytics over imagery data collected by …

Review Of Naturally Occurring Ammonia In Groundwater And Its Effect On Using Chloramines For Drinking Water Disinfection In Louisiana, Athena Lindsay

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Double-Sided Corrugated Composite Tube And Axle Protective Mechanism For Railway Vehicles, Hozhabr Mozafari

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Structural elements in transportation vehicles are exposed to different types of dynamic loadings and impact scenarios. Protecting passengers against injury and providing mechanisms to avoid impact induced damages to the critical components are the two hot topics in crashworthiness engineering. The presented research work includes two parts. The first part is about designing a novel double-sided composite corrugated tube that can be implemented in front chassis rail of ground vehicles to improve their crashworthiness against collision and car accidents. To maximize the controllable energy absorption of corrugation troughs as observed in the single sided corrugated (SSC) tube, we proposed and …

Role Of The Cortex In Visuomotor Control Of Arm Stability, Dylan B. Snyder, Scott A. Beardsley, Brian D. Schmit

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Whereas numerous motor control theories describe the control of arm trajectory during reach, the control of stabilization in a constant arm position (i.e., visuomotor control of arm posture) is less clear. Three potential mechanisms have been proposed for visuomotor control of arm posture: 1) increased impedance of the arm through co-contraction of antagonistic muscles, 2) corrective muscle activity via spinal/supraspinal reflex circuits, and/or 3) intermittent voluntary corrections to errors in position. We examined the cortical mechanisms of visuomotor control of arm posture and tested the hypothesis that cortical error networks contribute to arm stabilization. We collected electroencephalography …

Extrusion Of Perovskite Oxide/ Silica Composites For Thermochemical Carbon Dioxide Conversion, Qian Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to solve the increasing greenhouse effect problem, perovskite-type oxides have been used to convert CO2 to CO in a reverse water-gas shift chemical looping (RWGS-CL) process. Currently, the process is at the micro-reactor scale and used catalyst in powder form. However, formed materials are needed if the scale is to be increased.

Our research focus is on increasing the conversion yield of perovskite oxides with SiO2 support and scaling up the powder form perovskite-type oxides to pellet by extrusion. The binder added during the extrusion process must be removed to avoid affecting the performance of the catalyst and …

Microwave Assisted Synthesis Of Binary Metallic Oxides For Catalysis Applications, Abdelrahman Mostafa Kamal, Sherif Bahgat, Mohamed Hammam, M. A. Radwan, M. A. Sadek, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Herein, versatile, and reproducible method to prepare binary metal oxides via microwave assisted synthesis. Catalysts are substances that basically speeds up chemical reactions. Ideally, bonds are formed between the catalysts and the reactants. Also, catalysts permit formation of products from the reactants. These formed products, splits off the catalyst without affecting or changing it. Catalytic kinetics studies the correlate chemical reaction rate with some properties of reactants and/or products for instance, temperature, concentration and pressure. The aim of the project is to prepare pure and bi-metal iron-based catalyst by co-precipitation method and to characterize the prepared sample using X-ray diffraction. …

Novel Adsorbent For Industrial Wastewater Treatment Applications, Ahmed Y. Zakaria, Dalia A. Ali, Islam M. Al-Akraa, Hoda A. Elsawy, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, the hydroxyapatite powder is investigated for both of methylene blue and thymol blue in aqueous solution. The physical and chemical properties of the adsorbent were evaluated systematically using the different techniques including Microsoft Excel programming, linear regression model and also the coefficient of determination. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to determine the effect of contact time, solution pH, initial dye concentrations, and also the adsorbent dosage on adsorption. The adsorption kinetic parameters confirmed the better fitting of pseudo-second order kinetic model for both of methylene blue and thymol blue. The isotherm data of methylene blue and thymol …

Decorative Articles Based On Polymeric Materials, Bassant Hussein, Yaser M. Asal, M. A. Radwan, M. A. Sadek, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The aim of the research is to create decorative articles based on polymeric materials, study the effects of fillers and the type of moulds that it can cope with the exothermic reaction nature of resin to create a scientific background on the usage of the resins in daily life products. The polymeric materials that will be concentrated on are the unsaturated polyester resins and epoxy resins. The unsaturated polyester is of many types and chemical constituents, the used experimentally is a general-purpose type and the epoxy also have different types and the used is a commercially 3D floor coating type. …

Composite Materials Based On Twaron And Nano Materials, Omnia Hamdy, Remon A. Mankarious, M. A. Radwan, M. A. Sadek, Hany A. Elazab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research aims to participate in producing body shield that can overcome pervious drawbacks using behavior of shear thickening fluid. Initially, the rheological behavior of silica-polyethylene glycol shear thickening fluid is examined at different concentrations. Then, ballistic fabric samples are impregnated into silica-polyethylene glycol shear thickening fluid at various concentrations of silica and tested using gas gun simulating real ballistic threat. After that, the impact of rubbery hot water pack filled with around 66.67 wt% starch in water is tested using gas gun. Results showed as the concentration of silica increases, the indentation depth in the impregnated fabric decreases which …

Flexibility Of Remediation Methods For Winding Open Circuit Faults In A Multiphase Pm Machine Considering Iron Losses Minimization, Fan Wu, Ayman M. El-Refaie

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The flexibility of post-fault control in multiphase machine systems stems from their multiple degrees of freedom. A post-fault loss-minimization method is proposed and investigated in this paper, in which both the machine copper and iron losses are considered during the derivation of post-fault remediation methods. Therefore, machine efficiency during post-fault operation can be further improved compared to the conventional stator-ohmic-loss-minimization approach. In addition, the combination of three key factors/constraints that can influence the post-fault control strategy of a six-phase permanent magnet (PM) machine has been investigated. By comparing four selected remediation methods based on three constraints, the pros and cons …

Thermal Energy Refurbishment Status Of The Irish Housing Stock, Ciara Ahern, Brian Norton

Articles

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are issued for buildings constructed, sold or leased across the EU. Using a generalizable methodology this work exploits Ireland's EPC national dwelling stock database to determine the thermal refurbishment status of Ireland's housing stock. It is estimated in 2014 that; i) 58% of walls were insulated at a mean overall heat loss coefficient or U-value of 0.66 W/m²K, ii) 67% of roofs were insulated at a mean U-value 0.37 W/m²K, iii) 97% of windows were double-glazed, and iv) 53% of floors were insulated to a mean U-value of 0.59 W/m²K. …

Extraction And Visualization Of Orientation Data From Virtual Geologic Surfaces With Matlab®, Avery J. Welker, John Patrick Hogan, Andreas Eckert

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High-resolution visualization of surfaces of geologic interest, at a multitude of scales, using 3D point cloud technologies provides an opportunity to analyze spatial relationships of surfaces using orientation data. We present a MATLAB® script that produces planar geologic attitude data (e.g., strike, dip, and dip-direction data) from 3D datasets (e.g., point clouds, 3D scanning). The method utilizes Cartesian coordinates of triangular planar surfaces and converts them into matrices of conventional geologic attitude data. Spatial relationships among data points can be investigated, using polar tangent diagrams, stereographic analysis, or geologic curvature analysis. We utilize this script to create "synthetic" graphical plots …

Home Energy Management System For Demand Response Purposes, Isra Adam Hussein Haroun

Theses

The growing demand for electricity has led to increasing efforts to generate and satisfy the rising demand. This led to suppliers attempting to reduce consumption with the help of the users. Requests to shift unnecessary loads off the peak hours, using other sources of generators to supply the grid while offering incentives to the users have made a significant effect. Furthermore, automated solutions were implemented with the help of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) where the user can remotely manage household loads to reduce consumption or cost. Demand Response (DR) is the process of reducing power consumption in a response …

Mechanical Properties Of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (A-Si:H) Particles, Taizhi Jiang, Fardin Khabaz, Aniket Marne, Chenglin Wu, Raluca Gearba, Revanth Bodepudi, Roger T. Bonnecaze, Kenneth M. Liechti, Brian A. Korgel

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A nanoindenter was used to compress individual particles of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) ranging in diameter from 290 nm to 780 nm. The colloidal synthesis used to produce the particles enables the hydrogen content to be manipulated over a wide range, from about 5 at. % to 50 at. %, making these a-Si:H particles promising for applications in lithium ion batteries, hydrogen storage, and optical metamaterials. Force-displacement curves generated using a tungsten probe flattened with focused ion beam exhibited elastic and then plastic deformations, followed by fracture and crushing of the particles. For particles with 5% and 50% H, Young's …

An Example Of Convergence: Guatemala Research On Wash (Grow), Daniel B. Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Contamination Of Coupling Glass And Performance Evaluation Of Protective System In Vacuum Laser Beam Welding, Yongki Lee, Jason Cheon, Byung-Kwon Min, Cheolhee Kim

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vacuum laser beam welding enables deeper penetration depth and welding stability than atmospheric pressure laser welding. However, contaminated coupling glass caused by welding fumes in the vacuum space reduces laser transmittance, leading to inconsistent penetration depth. Therefore, a well-designed protective system is indispensable. Before designing the protective system, the contamination phenomenon was quantified and represented by a contamination index, based on the coupling glass transmittance. The contamination index and penetration depth behavior were determined to be inversely proportional. A cylindrical protective system with a shielding gas supply was proposed and tested. The shielding gas jet provides pressure-driven contaminant suppression and …

Global Research Trend On Cyber Security: A Scientometric Analysis, Somesh Rai, Kunwar Singh Dr, Akhilesh Kumar Varma

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Scientometrics is a quantitative analysis of scholarly literature related to a particular subject or area (well defined by some limits, scope and coverage), which helps to understand different aspects about the scholarly literature’s growth in various dimensions of knowledge. Similarly, this study is a quantitative analysis of the Global research trends in cyber security. Some works related to scientometrics of ‘deception, counter-deception in cyberspace’ had been published in 2011, but we have focused on ‘cyber security’ as the topic of research. For analysis we have utilised the published data available in Scopus database, which is directly related to ‘cyber security’. …

Sorption Of Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene And Different Ratios Of Mixture Solvent By Plasticized Pema Films Using A Qcm Sensor, Xinpeng Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

VOCs (volatile organic compounds) can cause great harm to human health especially benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene. In this work a Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) sensor with a polymer/plasticizer film was developed to quantify the VOCs both in air and water. QCM is an acoustic wave sensor that can be used well in detecting the aromatic compounds in the film. Because more than one VOC is present in the air, this thesis focuses on finding the sorption of different ratios of VOCs (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene) using a polymer/plasticizer film in QCM. Poly (ethyl methacrylate) (PEMA) was used as the polymer because …

Development And Characterisation Of High Surface Energy Microstructured Sol-Gel Coatings For Sensing Applications, Emma Machugh

Doctoral

This study investigates the development of high surface energy photoreactive organic inorganic hybrid sol-gel coatings for the microstructuration of high-resolution microfluidic platforms and optofluidic biosensor platforms by standard photolithography processes. To achieve this, the first step of our work consisted of identifying the fundamental physico chemical processes governing the structuration and surface properties of hybrid organic inorganic sol-gel coatings. For this purpose, a reference material based on the combination of an organosilane (3-Methacryloxypropytrimethoxysilane, MAPTMS) and a transition metal (zirconium propoxide, ZPO), was firstly developed and characterised. It was highlighted that chemical, physical and combined physical and chemical processes can be …

Measurement Of Electron Density And Temperature From Laser-Induced Nitrogen Plasma At Elevated Pressure (1–6 Bar), Ashwin P. Rao, Mark Gragston, Anil K. Patnaik, Paul S. Hsu, Michael B. Shattan

Faculty Publications

Laser-induced plasmas experience Stark broadening and shifts of spectral lines carrying spectral signatures of plasma properties. In this paper, we report time-resolved Stark broadening measurements of a nitrogen triplet emission line at 1–6 bar ambient pressure in a pure nitrogen cell. Electron densities are calculated using the Stark broadening for different pressure conditions, which are shown to linearly increase with pressure. Additionally, using a Boltzmann fit for the triplet, the electron temperature is calculated and shown to decrease with increasing pressure. The rate of plasma cooling is observed to increase with pressure. The reported Stark broadening based plasma diagnostics in …