Engineering Commons^™

Plasmonic Properties Of Nanoparticle And Two Dimensional Material Integrated Structure, Desalegn Tadesse Debu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, various groups have demonstrated nano-scale engineering of nanostructures for optical to infrared wavelength plasmonic applications. Most fabrication technique processes, especially those using noble metals, requires an adhesion layer. Previously proposed theoretical work to support experimental measurement often neglect the effect of the adhesion layers. The first finding of this work focuses on the impact of the adhesion layer on nanoparticle plasmonic properties. Gold nanodisks with a titanium adhesion layer are investigated by calculating the scattering, absorption, and extinction cross-section with numerical simulations using a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. I demonstrate that a gold nanodisk with an adhesive …

Characterization Of Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy Grown Gan Substrates For Future Iii-Nitride Growth, Alaa Ahmad Kawagy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this research is to investigate and characterize the quality of commercially obtained gallium nitride (GaN) on sapphire substrates that have been grown using hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). GaN substrates are the best choice for optoelectronic applications because of their physical and electrical properties. Even though HVPE GaN substrates are available at low-cost and create the opportunities for growth and production, these substrates suffer from large macro-scale defects on the surface of the substrate.

In this research, four GaN on sapphire substrates were investigated in order to characterize the surface defects and, subsequently, understand their influence on …

Cell Imaging And Data Analysis For Biomaterial-Mammalian Co-Cultures, Jefferson Pontsler

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Microscopic bioimaging is a useful approach to study cell-biomaterial interactions which are vital to the biomedical application of biomaterials. Through microscopic imaging, numerous cellular responses, such as proliferation, uptake, and death, can be recorded, characterized and analyzed.

In this thesis, I first provided basic introductions to the imaging techniques and analysis tools, especially those that are highly relevant to the studies of biomaterials and cell interactions. I also detailed the adaptation of these techniques and tools in the application of two specific research projects in biomaterials, with special focuses on the imaging and analysis.

The first project assessed the subtle …

Comparison Of Induced And Parasitic Drag On Wings With Minimum Induced Drag, Sarah A. Abdel-Motaleb

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Minimizing the induced drag for steady level flight is a variational problem that requires solving for the optimum lift distribution given a set of design constraints. From lifting-line theory, minimizing the induced drag is, in part, achieved by varying the Fourier coefficients used to describe the section lift. The elliptic lift distribution minimizes the induced drag for a wing with fixed weight and wingspan by setting all but the first coefficient to zero. If wingspan is allowed to vary, a negative third Fourier coefficient is utilized to reach an optimum lift distribution that further reduces the induced drag for stress-limited …

A Swimming Open-Water Navigation Assistive Headset And Receiver, Zakk B. Rhodes

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Open water swimming is a common activity dating back to ancient times. One challenge with open water swimming is navigation because while maintaining proper swimming technique suggests the head be in the water, it is difficult to see where one is going. Thus swimmers must bring their head out of the water periodically to sight landmarks. This work describes a solution to this problem by a design for a GPS device to assist swimmers with navigation. The swimmer can plan their own route, send it to the device, and then be guided by the device. They then will not have …

Reconstruction Of Attenuated Hybrid Rocket Motor Chamber Pressure Signals Using Maximum Likelihood Estimation And Optimal Deconvolution, Evan M. Zelesnik

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Chamber pressure, as it develops during rocket combustion, strongly correlates with many of the internal motor ballistics, including combustion stability, fuel regression rate, and mass flow. Chamber pressure is also an essential measurement for calculating achieved thrust coefficient and characteristic velocity. Due to the combustion environment hostility, sensing chamber pressure with high-fidelity presents a difficult measurement problem, especially for solid and hybrid rocket systems where combustion by-products contain high amounts of carbon and other sooty materials. These contaminants tend to deposit within the pneumatic tubing used to transmit pressure oscillations from the thrust chamber to the sensing transducer. Partially clogged …

Multimodal Emotion Classification, Anurag Illendula, Amit Sheth

Publications

Most NLP and Computer Vision tasks are limited to scarcity of labelled data. In social media emotion classification and other related tasks, hashtags have been used as indicators to label data. With the rapid increase in emoji usage of social media, emojis are used as an additional feature for major social NLP tasks. However, this is less explored in case of multimedia posts on social media where posts are composed of both image and text. At the same time, w.e have seen a surge in the interest to incorporate domain knowledge to improve machine understanding of text. In this paper, …

Knowledge-Aware Assessment Of Severity Of Suicide Risk For Early Intervention, Manas Gaur, Amanuel Alambo, Joy Prakash Sain, Ugur Kursuncu, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Ramakanth Kavuluru, Amit Sheth, Randon S. Welton, Jyotishman Pathak

Publications

Mental health illness such as depression is a significant risk factor for suicide ideation, behaviors, and attempts. A report by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that 80% of the patients suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have suicidal behavior, 5-10% of whom commit suicide. While multiple initiatives have been developed and implemented for suicide prevention, a key challenge has been the social stigma associated with mental disorders, which deters patients from seeking help or sharing their experiences directly with others including clinicians. This is particularly true for teenagers and younger adults where suicide is the second …

Investigation Of Thermoplastic Polymers And Their Blends For Use In Hybrid Rocket Combustion, Spencer D. Mathias

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis set out to find a blend of thermoplastics that had better combustion properties than the current ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic or “Lego ^TM plastic” used by Utah State University. The current work is in an effort to eliminate toxic propellants from small space applications. High and low density polyethylene plastics were used because they are common plastic waste items. In this way rocket fuel can be made from these items to reduce the waste found in landfills. Three plastics were considered for replacement and as mixture components with the ABS plastic, namely low and high density polyethylene, …

Hydrodeoxygenation Of Pinyon-Juniper Catalytic Pyrolysis Oil, Hossein Jahromi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO), is an effective process to convert oxygenated compounds to hydrocarbons. This process is widely used for improving the negative properties of biomass-derived pyrolysis oils (bio-oils) such as high acidity, poor stability, and low heating value. During this process oxygen is removed from the bio-oil in the form of water, thus the liquid product of HDO process consists of aqueous phase and hydrocarbon phase that can be easily separated. Synthesis of efficient HDO catalyst has been a major challenge in the field of bio-oil upgrading. Red mud, which is an alkaline waste from alumina industry was used to …

Pressure Loss Coefficients For Large Mitered Elbows With Diameters Ranging From 36-Inches To 144-Inches, Hayden J. Coombs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

When designing a pipeline system, it is important to understand the pressure losses that will occur within the system. One common source of pressure loss is from elbow pipe fittings. There is extensive research available for pressure loss coefficients of elbow pipe fittings, but the research is derived from elbows with relatively smaller pipe diameters. The purpose of this research is to investigate pressure losses associated with larger diameter mitered elbows (36-inches to 144-inches). The dimensions for all mitered elbows considered in this research follow ANSI/AWWA C208-17 recommendations (AWWA 2017).

Due to the large size of the mitered elbows of …

Development And Testing Of Additively Manufactured Aerospike Nozzles For Small Satellite Propulsion, Isaac W. Armstrong

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Automatic altitude compensation has been a holy grail of rocket propulsion for decades. Current state-of-the-art bell nozzles see large performance decreases at low altitudes, limiting rocket designs, shrinking payloads, and overall increasing costs. Aerospike nozzles are an old idea from the 1960’s that provide superior altitude-compensating performance and enhanced performance in vacuum, but have survivability issues that have stopped their application in satellite propulsion systems. A growing need for CubeSat propulsion systems provides the impetus to study aerospike nozzles in this application. This study built two aerospike nozzles using modern 3D metal printing techniques to test aerospikes at a size …

In Vitro Simulation Of Microgravity Induced Muscle Loss Successfully Increases Expression Of Key In Vivo Atrophy Markers, Charles P. Harding

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Muscle loss from lack of activity is a serious issue for immobilized patients on Earth and in human spaceflight, where the low gravity environment prevents normal muscle activity. Simulating muscle loss in cultured cells is an important step in understanding how this condition occurs. This work evaluates different means of simulating muscle loss and selects the one that most closely mimics the cellular responses seen in animals and humans.

To simulate the microgravity environment of spaceflight, mouse skeletal muscle cells were grown in a rotary cell culture system (RCCS). Growing the cells within a natural gelled substrate was compared against …

Security Of Vehicular Platooning, Soodeh Dadras

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Platooning concept involves a group of vehicles acting as a single unit through coordination of movements. While Platooning as an evolving trend in mobility and transportation diminishes the individual and manual driving concerns, it creates new risks. New technologies and passenger’s safety and security further complicate matters and make platooning attractive target for the malicious minds. To improve the security of the vehicular platooning, threats and their potential impacts on vehicular platooning should be identified to protect the system against security risks. Furthermore, algorithms should be proposed to detect intrusions and mitigate the effects in case of attack. This dissertation …

Understanding Security Threats Of Emerging Computing Architectures And Mitigating Performance Bottlenecks Of On-Chip Interconnects In Manycore Ntc System, Chidhambaranathan Rajamanikkam

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Emerging computing architectures such as, neuromorphic computing and third party intellectual property (3PIP) cores, have attracted significant attention in the recent past. Neuromorphic Computing introduces an unorthodox non-von neumann architecture that mimics the abstract behavior of neuron activity of the human brain. They can execute more complex applications, such as image processing, object recognition, more efficiently in terms of performance and energy than the traditional microprocessors. However, focus on the hardware security aspects of the neuromorphic computing at its nascent stage. 3PIP core, on the other hand, have covertly inserted malicious functional behavior that can inflict range of harms at …

Revamping Timing Error Resilience To Tackle Choke Points At Ntc, Aatreyi Bal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The growing market of portable devices and smart wearables has contributed to innovation and development of systems with longer battery-life. While Near Threshold Computing (NTC) systems address the need for longer battery-life, they have certain limitations. NTC systems are prone to be significantly affected by variations in the fabrication process, commonly called process variation (PV). This dissertation explores an intriguing effect of PV, called choke points. Choke points are especially important due to their multifarious influence on the functional correctness of an NTC system. This work shows why novel research is required in this direction and proposes two techniques to …

Estimating Suspended Solids And Phosphorus Loading In Urban Stormwater Systems Using High-Frequency, Continuous Data, Anthony A. Melcher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The introduction of pavement, buildings, and other impervious surfaces to urban landscapes greatly influences the quantity and quality of urban stormwater runoff. In this study, we designed and implemented modern stormwater monitoring technologies to establish a “smart” stormwater sensor network within the Northwest Field Canal (NWFC), an urban water conveyance located in Logan, Utah, USA. This network was designed to collect flow and water quality data at high frequencies and simultaneously at multiple locations. The observatory’s innovative method of inter-site communication and changing sampling frequencies during storm events was able to capture short duration events at the upstream and downstream …

Effect Of Physical Stimuli On Angiogenic Factor Expression In Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells, Farhad Farjood

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a major cause of blindness in adults. Abnormal growth of blood vessels in the eye during the course of AMD causes damage to the retina, resulting in irreversible blindness. The goal of this research was to determine whether physical pressure on retinal cells can contribute to the increased blood vessel formation. To replicate the tears in the cell layers, a micropatterning method was used as a means of detaching cells from each other. Two new devices were also developed to mimic slow and fast increases in mechanical pressure on cell layers of the eye. After …

Advancing Streamflow Forecasts Through The Application Of A Physically Based Energy Balance Snowmelt Model With Data Assimilation And Cyberinfrastructure Resources, Tseganeh Zekiewos Gichamo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) provides forecasts of streamflow for purposes such as flood warning and water supply. Much of the water in these basins comes from spring snowmelt, and the forecasters at CBRFC currently employ a suite of models that include a temperature-index snowmelt model. While the temperature-index snowmelt model works well for weather and land cover conditions that do not deviate from those historically observed, the changing climate and alterations in land use necessitate the use of models that do not depend on calibrations based on past data. This dissertation reports work done to overcome these …

The Impact Of Wood Biochar On The Plant Uptake Of Pharmaceuticals And Personal Care Products From Reclaimed Wastewater, Jeffrey Flashinski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Reclaimed water (treated water discharged from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)) is increasingly used in drier regions for irrigation purposes. This effectively increases the water supply and reduces the amount of WWTP discharge into surface waters but it creates the potential for contaminants in the reclaimed water, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), to accumulate in exposed crops. The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) considers PPCPs contaminants of emerging concern due to their near universal presence in the environment and their potential for endocrine disruption. Biochar is gaining attention as a soil amendment and could potentially be used …

Stochastic Geometry Based Performance Study In 5g Wireless Networks, Zekun Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As the complexity of modern cellular networks continuously increases along with the evolution of technologies and the quick explosion of mobile data traffic, conventional large scale system level simulations and analytical tools become either too complicated or less tractable and accurate. Therefore, novel analytical models are actively pursued. In recent years, stochastic geometry models have been recognized as powerful tools to analyze the key performance metrics of cellular networks. In this dissertation, stochastic geometry based analytical models are developed to analyze the performance of some key technologies proposed for 5G mobile networks. Particularly, Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), …

Emerging Security Threats In Modern Digital Computing Systems: A Power Management Perspective, Rajesh Jayashankara Shridevi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Design of computing systems — from pocket-sized smart phones to massive cloud based data-centers — have one common daunting challenge : minimizing the power consumption. In this effort, power management sector is undergoing a rapid and profound transformation to promote clean and energy proportional computing. At the hardware end of system design, there is proliferation of specialized, feature rich and complex power management hardware components. Similarly, in the software design layer complex power management suites are growing rapidly. Concurrent to this development, there has been an upsurge in the integration of third-party components to counter the pressures of shorter time-to-market. …

Hydraulic Average Of Multiple Tap Sets To Improve Performance Of Venturi Flowmeters With Upstream Disturbance, Taylor Stauffer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Venturi flowmeters have been used to measure flow in piped systems for over 100 years (Finnemore & Franzini, 2006). There has been much research on the performance of Venturi flowmeters and for that reason they have become popular flowmeters used in various municipal and industrial applications. Venturi flowmeters can be calibrated in a laboratory setting to find their performance characteristics. In order for the flowmeter to achieve optimum performance, the flowmeter should be installed with sufficient length of straight pipe immediately upstream of the flowmeter. Often Venturi flowmeters that are not installed in ideal conditions produce errors and uncertainty is …

Understanding Industry’S Expectations Of Engineering Communication Skills, Lilian Maria De Souza Almeida

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The importance of communication in the engineering profession is widely acknowledged by various stakeholders, including industry, academia, professional engineers, and engineering students. Even though alternative strategies to help students improve their ability to communicate professionally have been approached by many engineering programs across the country, research indicates a continued dissatisfaction of employers when it comes to the performance of engineers as communicators in the workplace. This perspective suggests efforts to improve students’ communication skills in universities may be inconsistent with workplace needs, revealing an apparent gap between what is taught and what is expected from engineering professionals. This gap provides …

Estimating Upper Red Butte Watershed Contribution To Salt Lake Valley Water Resources, Sal Bir Limbu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Water is crucial for domestic, agricultural, industrial, environmental, and hydropower uses. Once precipitation occurs, it eventually partitions into streamflow, evapotranspiration (ET), and groundwater recharge. Distribution of precipitation into these partitions is called a hydrologic budget. The hydrologic budget of any geographic area or watershed under different climate change conditions help water managers to make appropriate water management plans. Computer based hydrologic modeling software has been used extensively to solve many water resources problems including hydrologic budgets. Hydrologic modeling requires high quality weather parameter data.

This study projected surface and groundwater flows from the portion of RBC watershed that lies above …

Reducing Road Wear While Ensuring Comfort And Charging Constraints For Dynamically Charged Passenger Vehicles Through Noise Shaped Control Inputs, Clint Jay Ferrin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Dynamically charged vehicles suffer from power-loss during wireless power transfer due to vehicle coil misalignment while driving. Autonomous dynamically charged vehicles can maximize wireless power transfer by following an optimal charging path, but the repeated precision increases road wear. To avoid unnecessary road wear and rutting, a path planner can intentionally inject variability into an autonomous vehicle’s path. However, introducing variability into an optimal charging path risks depleting battery life prior to destination arrival, and it increases rider discomfort. Therefore, a path planner is proposed that guarantees average charging criteria and ensures rider comfort while reducing road wear.

Micromechanics-Enriched Finite Element Modeling Of Composites With Manufacturing Or Service-Induced Defects, Alden S. Hyde

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Composite materials are increasingly used in many industries due to the high strength and low weight properties that they exhibit. Since composites are becoming more popular, they are being used in applications such as aircraft, boats, wind turbine blades, and even sports equipment. Composite behavior is complicated since they are made up of two completely different materials such as strong thin fibers and a relatively weaker resin material that hold the fibers together. It is becoming more important to understand how composites behave in different situations so that equipment designers have reliable material information in order to design safe products …

Segmentation And Registration Based Automatic Cancer Proton Treatment Analysis, Yang Zhang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Due to its low side effects, proton therapy is rapidly developing around the world. However, the time and labor it takes to deliver the treatment have prevented widespread use in the clinic setting. For this reason, an automatic proton treatment analysis system is needed to improve efficiency during the treatment process.

The challenge lies in improving the accuracy and speed of the current proton treatment analysis system. The Range shifter correction factor is considered the same value under any given condition in our treatment system. This approximate algorithm limits the accuracy of the proton treatment analysis system. In addition, medical …

Cure: Flexible Categorical Data Representation By Hierarchical Coupling Learning, Songlei Jian, Guansong Pang, Longbing Cao, Kai Lu, Hang Gao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The representation of categorical data with hierarchical value coupling relationships (i.e., various value-to-value cluster interactions) is very critical yet challenging for capturing complex data characteristics in learning tasks. This paper proposes a novel and flexible coupled unsupervised categorical data representation (CURE) framework, which not only captures the hierarchical couplings but is also flexible enough to be instantiated for contrastive learning tasks. CURE first learns the value clusters of different granularities based on multiple value coupling functions and then learns the value representation from the couplings between the obtained value clusters. With two complementary value coupling functions, CURE is instantiated into …

Electrophysical Properties Of Multilayered Photo-Sensitive Structures With Barriers Of Metal-Semiconductor, Abdulaziz V. Karimov, Dilbara M. Yodgorova, Feruza A. Giyasova, Oybek A. Abdulkhaev

Euroasian Journal of Semiconductors Science and Engineering

The results of studies aimed at creating photodiode structures with a spectral range of 0.85÷0.9 µm and 1.31÷1.55 µm with an area of 3x4 mm2, which are obtained by successive vacuum deposition of cadmium sulfide and indium phosphide layers on a doped gallium arsenide substrate doped with oxygen with a specific resistance of 1∙107 Ohm∙sm. A distinctive feature of the obtained Au-vGaAs photodiode: O-nCdS-nInP-Au structures is the two-sided sensitivity and the presence of the amplification effect of the primary photocurrent (especially in the impurity region of the spectrum) and low dark current values (of the order of 10 nA) at …