Engineering Commons^™

Effect Of Perturbations On The Dominant Flow Structures In A Rectangular Lid-Driven Cavity With Particle Suspensions, Siva Bolisetty

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The lid-driven cavity is a canonical problem in the field of analytical and computational fluid dynamics. This work is focused on a 2-D rectangular cavity with a length twice the size of its width and consists of an incompressible fluid with a moving upper wall/lid while the rest of the wall boundaries are subjected to fixed, no-slip, zero-velocity boundary conditions. The objective is to investigate the effect of perturbations resulting from particle drag and particle collisions on dominant flow structures of the fluid within this cavity. The dominant flow structures in a rectangular lid-driven cavity constitute a primary vortex, a …

Adenovirus Co-Opts Neutrophilic Inflammation In Order To Enhance Entry Into Epithelial Cells, James Matthew Readler

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Human adenoviruses (AdV) are double-stranded DNA viruses that can cause a range of diseases. While AdV respiratory infections are often mild and self-limited, severe manifestations such as fulminant pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are not uncommon. In order to identify potential modalities to treat AdV infections and potentially enhance the effectiveness of AdV vector delivery, a thorough mechanistic understanding of how AdV enters host cells is needed. Previous studies have revealed polarized epithelia, one of the primary targets for AdV respiratory infections, are highly resistant to AdV entry from the apical (luminal) surface. However, upon exposure to interleukin …

Quantification Of Optical Parameters Using Frequency Domain Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (Fd-Fnirs), Christopher W. Davies

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive technique that uses near-infrared light and hemoglobin as the contrast to characterize tissue optical properties, namely optical absorption [����] and scattering [����′ ]. Through this characterization, it is possible to obtain information about the tissue’s oxygenated (HbO) and deoxygenated (Hb) hemoglobin concentrations and oxygen saturation which are important physiological markers for diagnosis and intervention monitoring. Many commercial devices use a continuous wave approach (CW-fNIRS), a technique that simply relies on intensity changes from a constant power laser to determine only relative changes in oxygenation. This is a significant limitation for clinical settings where …

Rescue Of Als Protein Fus Toxicity By Taf, Elliott Hayden

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Amyotrophic Lateral Scleroses (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord leading to progressive paralysis and ultimately death within 5 years of symptom onset. Only two drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating ALS that slow the disease progression by about 3 months. Mutations in the gene Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) cause inherited forms of ALS. FUS is a nuclear, multifunctional RNA-binding protein (RBP) involved in multiple RNA metabolic pathways. Mutations in FUS cause mislocalization of the protein from the nucleus to …

Improve Operating Room Utilization Through Distributed Scheduling Workflow And Automation, Miteshkumar Mahendrabhai Vasoya

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Operating room (OR) plays a crucial role in health care, contributing more than 50% of the hospital’s revenue and incurring over 35% of the hospital’s expense, ultimately determining the hospital’s profitability. Moreover, because the OR is a primary source of admissions, it is virtually impossible to streamline hospital‐wide workflow without first streamlining patient flow through the OR. Unfortunately, current OR scheduling practices often limit the utilization of OR, one of the most expensive resources in the health care industry, to around 60%. On the other hand, many patients have to wait an excessively long time before their surgeries can be …

The Characterization And Fatigue Life Impact From Surface Roughness On Structurally Relevant Features Produced Using Additive Manufacturing, Eric-Paul Daniel Tatman

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) produces rough surfaces that are detrimental to the mechanical performance of the part. In this work, downward-facing surfaces were fabricated in alloy 718 using laser powder bed fusion and investigated with surface characterization and axial fatigue testing. Coupons with downward-facing surfaces at 45°, 60°, and 75° and flat axial fatigue bars with as-built and machined holes were built. Both specimens were fabricated with three levels of downskin laser power and the coupons with three levels of downskin laser speed. Surface characterization showed roughness increased as the downward-facing angle decreased. Fatigue testing with digital image correlation showed localized …

Long-Term Impact On Environmental Attitudes And Knowledge Assessed Over Three Semesters Of An Environmental Engineering Sequence, Benjamin Michael Wallen, Nathaniel Sheehan, Luke Plante, Erick Martinez, Jeffrey A. Starke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The pedagogy employed in a three-course environmental engineering sequence is investigated to determine the efficacy of enabling long-term improvement of knowledge and attitudes toward the environment. These three courses incorporate concepts of the five grand challenges released by the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences and increase the breadth of knowledge for T-professionals. Previous studies of lengths from a few weeks to semester long courses evaluated the potential causality among various demographics and environmental knowledge and attitudes. The research presented herein contrasts and compares changes in environmental knowledge based upon a 12-question survey and changes in environmental …

Engaging Undergraduate Students In The Philippines In Photonics Research With A Novel Publication-Driven Online Mentoring Approach, Minella C. Alarcon, Benjamin Dingel, Annelle Chua, Aria Buenaventura, Nathaniel Joseph C. Libatique

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper discusses a publication-driven, education-by-research model of engaging undergraduate students in Photonics/Optics/Physics research by requiring that all activities lead to journal publication within a year. It is based on a non-traditional university-industry collaboration arrangement that has the following unique features.

First, it utilizes offshore-based alumni (in the USA) who are active in science and technology research as mentors for the students (in the Philippines) in conjunction with the university professor advisers. We adopt inexpensive online collaboration technologies to support their virtual presence.

Second, our research topic “fuses” uniquely two separate courses of study, namely: (i) the traditional Special Relativity …

Enhancing Group Social Perceptiveness Through A Swarm-Based Decision-Making Platform, David A. Askay, Lynn E. Metcalf, Louis Rosenberg, Gregg Willcox

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Swarm Intelligence is natural phenomenon that enables social animals to make group decisions in real-time systems. This process has been deeply studied in fish schools, bird flocks, and bee swarms, where collective intelligence has been observed to emerge. The present paper describes swarm.ai—a collaborative technology that enables swarms of humans to collectively converge upon a decision as a real-time system. Then we present the results of a study investigating if groups working as “human swarms” can amplify their social perceptiveness, a key predictor of collective intelligence. Results showed that groups reduced their social perceptiveness errors by more than half when …

Measuring Group Personality With Swarm Ai, Gregg Willcox, David Askay, Louis Rosenberg, Lynn Metcalf, Bryan Kwong, Richard Liu

Industrial Technology and Packaging

The aggregation of individual personality tests to predict team performance is widely accepted in management theory but has significant limitations: the isolated nature of individual personality surveys fails to capture much of the team dynamics that drive real-world team performance. Artificial Swarm Intelligence (ASI), a technology that enables networked teams to think together in real-time and answer questions as a unified system, promises a solution to these limitations by enabling teams to take personality tests together and converge upon answers that best represent the group’s disposition. In the present study, the group personality of 94 small teams was assessed by …

Magnetic Field Sensor Based On A Tri-Microfiber Coupler Ring In Magnetic Fluid And A Fiber Bragg Grating, Fangfang Wei, Dejun Liu, Arun Kumar Mallik, Gerald Farrell, Qiang Wu, Gang-Ding Peng, Yuliya Semenova

Articles

In this paper we propose and investigate a novel magnetic field sensor based on a Tri-microfiber coupler combined with magnetic fluid and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) in a ring. A sensitivity of 1306 pm/mT was experimentally demonstrated in the range of magnetic fields from 0 to 15 mT. The reflection peak in the output spectrum associated with the FBG serves as a reference point allowing to avoid ambiguity in determining the spectral shift induced by the magnetic field. Due to its high sensitivity at low magnetic fields, the proposed structure could be of high interest in low field biosensing …

Bridge Safety Against Multi-Hazard, Yahya Mohammed Mohammed

All ETDs from UAB

Multiple hazards (e.g., earthquake, wind gust, flood, vessel collision, traffic overload and accidents, and terrorist attacks, etc.) must be properly considered in highway bridge design in addition to the normal functionality requirements. Unfortunately, the structural health of bridges are continuously deteriorated over time, this in tandem with an excessive increase in hazard events, which makes the network extremely vulnerable to natural hazards. The main goal of this dissertation is to provide methods to investigate bridges safety against multi-hazard by obtaining load scenarios and evaluation of the performance based on these loads. Hazard events have been divided into routine events and …

Renewables-Integrated Internal Combustion Engine-Based Multi-Generation Options For Uab Buildings, Qing Mu

All ETDs from UAB

Distributed energy, also district or decentralized energy is generated or stored by a variety of small, grid-connected devices referred to as distributed energy resources, or distributed energy resource systems. The Distributed Generation (DG) systems can increase energy system reliability, reduce peak power requirements, and improve energy infrastructure resilience. In this study, a DG system using renewable energy sources and energy storage has been introduced for the whole University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) campus. The energy sources for this DG system are photovoltaic arrays, a natural-gas-powered Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and wind turbines. The energy storage component used in this …

The Role Of The Built Environment In Transforming Underserved Neighborhoods Into Smart And Connected Communities, Mary Claire Nabors

All ETDs from UAB

The goal of this report is to create a model for transforming underserved neighborhoods into smart, connected, healthy, and sustainable communities by focusing on the built environment. To do this, there must be a thorough neighborhood analysis of the existing conditions with recommendations for what needs to be done, both short term and long term. The built environment impacts many aspects of a neighborhood and the quality of life for residents. Sidewalks, streets, lighting, landscaping, and accessibility are all components of the built environment and research has continuously shown how the deterioration of the built environment affects the health and …

An Assistive Device That Aids The Visiually Imparied People To The Crosswalk, Jiayue Wang

All ETDs from UAB

The visually impaired people mostly rely on a blind cane or specially trained the dogs (Guide dogs) to help them walk or cross the road safely. However, the white canes are for only avoiding obstacles on the roadway and training the guide dogs is a long-term process. Deficiency of reliable assistive tools, traffic accidents seem to be inevitable, especially to visually impaired or blind people. In order to address this problem and decrease the accidents of this nature, technologically more advanced and intelligent tools are necessary. This proposed thesis work will help visually impaired individuals, without affecting their daily activities …

Wireless Charging And Data Communication Of An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Shang-Kai Wei

All ETDs from UAB

Wireless charging system in current market usually uses Class D oscillator in the transceiver side, however, this design is highly power consumption and low transfer efficiency. In this report, Class E oscillator is used to decrease the power consumption. Class E oscillator is perfectly zero voltage switching and high transfer efficiency. To increase the wireless transfer efficiency, spiral PCB inductor is also used as the wireless charging pad. Spiral PCB inductor usually uses for RF circuit with high accurately, moreover, the inductance and Q-factor is higher than current wireless charging coil with Litz or magnetic wire. In the receiver side, …

Genetic And Epigenetic Underpinnings Of End-Stage Human Heart Failure, Mark Emile Pepin

All ETDs from UAB

Heart failure (HF) is the clinical endpoint of numerous diseases that negatively impact the heart’s capacity to pump and/or fill with blood. A variety of genetic and environmental factors have been identified as critical determinants of HF susceptibility; however, these factors cannot independently explain the phenotypic diversity of human HF. Instead, a complex interplay has been theorized to exist between genetics and the environment, although the molecular underpinnings of this synergy remain poorly understood. Of the possible mechanisms, epigenetic influences are uniquely capable of explaining how acute stressors of the cardiac microenvironment trigger the stable – yet reversible – reprogramming …

Development And Validation Of A Recumbent Patient Weighing Scale, Kayla Rettig

All ETDs from UAB

Today, most medications are administered according to a standard amount or based on the patient’s weight (weight-based). For emergency departments and emergency medical services, weight-based medications are difficult to administer as medical personnel do not have a means to obtain accurate patient weights. Paramedics generally rely on visual estimation for adults and height- or age-based estimation tools for children in order to obtain weight. Over the past year, a team of biomedical engineering students, including the present author, worked to design and fabricate a weighing device for in-ambulance use. This device consists of three separate scales, wired together as one, …

Enhancing Work Zone Mobility Through Design And Control Of Lane Closures, Troyee Saha

All ETDs from UAB

Work zones hinder mobility, affecting travelers and transportation agencies that are trying to ensure efficient traffic flow through work zones. A study by Wunderlich & Hardesty, 2002 reported that nearly 20% of the National Highway System roads have scheduled construction work during the peak construction season. Additionally, approximately 24% of non-recurring delays on freeways are caused by work zones. Given the time lost by travelers due to work zone induced traffic congestion, it is critically important to efficiently plan temporary traffic control (TTC) at work zones. However, earlier research conducted by Sisiopiku & Ramadan, 2017 confirms that the majority of …

The Efficacy Of Weakly Supervised Learning For Biomedical Imaging, Solomon Lee Hatcher

All ETDs from UAB

This paper aims to investigate the use of unsupervised saliency proposals in extracting suitable prior information from computed tomography scans of the head using image-level labels. The weak supervision learning method obtains useful information about an object’s location and fuses this result with an unsupervised saliency proposal to propagate labels to all related pixels. However, it is shown that unsupervised saliency guidance fails to supply the synthetic annotations with enough coherence to produce suitable segmentation.

Towards Safeguarding Users Against Phishing And Ransomware Attacks, Arsh Arora

All ETDs from UAB

Over the past decade, malicious software (malware) attacks have skyrocketed and increased at a considerably faster pace than predicted. The variety in the number of malware categories is one of the contributing factors to this rapid insurgence. According to Microsoft statistics, a range of 300,000-400,000 malware binaries is observed on average per day. With this increase, there is an unmet need for innovative approaches to detect new malware, as current nomenclature is not equipped to handle the prevention against continuous growth. Developing appropriate preventive measures to stop these malware attacks has been an ongoing struggle for security experts. The most …

A Study Of Approximation Error In Eulerian Hydrocodes, Parth Yogeshbhai Patel

All ETDs from UAB

In this study, we examine a number of approximations in the formulation of hydrocodes. These approximations were borne out of an original requirement for the code to run as fast as possible i.e. with accuracy being secondary to speed. Many of these approximations originated from the 1970’s when computers were slow and memory was at a premium. Although speed and memory are not as much of an issue today, these approximations are still used to formulate the hydrocodes. In this study, the effect of these approximations is examined systematically. The lumped mass approximation is a simplification to the consistent mass …

Framework For Validation Of Different Media Types Using A Model Based On Consensus, Adilahmed Patel

All ETDs from UAB

Increasingly people of all ages consume news and entertainment through electronic media and social media [1]. As the internet in general and social media in particular are a recent phenomenon, the laws governing them and the technologies to monitor them are still evolving. There is a general consensus on the ubiquity and power of these media, hence the worry of how to handle these media. In this context, validating the online content becomes of paramount importance. Fighting fake content is not only relevant to news and current affairs but is very useful in other areas like technical content, legal content …

Assessment Of Whole Building Energy Modeling For Use In Building Retrofit, Steven A. Wyss

All ETDs from UAB

With rising energy costs and a move towards more efficient buildings, developing methods to predict energy usage has become more important than in past years. This study delineates a method for creating and verifying a baseline energy model. This baseline energy model is then modified to test various possible retrofits to identify their potential benefits on the building’s energy usage. This baseline is of the Hoehn Engineering Building located at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The building being over 30 years old and having little focus on energy efficient upgrades makes it an excellent candidate for energy modeling. …

Enhancing The Thermal Stability Of Carbon Nanomaterials With Dna, Mohammad Moein Safee, Mitchell Gravely, Adeline Lamothe, Megan Mcsweeney, Daniel E. Roxbury

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have recently been utilized as fillers that reduce the flammability and enhance the strength and thermal conductivity of material composites. Enhancing the thermal stability of SWCNTs is crucial when these materials are applied to high temperature applications. In many instances, SWCNTs are applied to composites with surface coatings that are toxic to living organisms. Alternatively, single-stranded DNA, a naturally occurring biological polymer, has recently been utilized to form singly-dispersed hybrids with SWCNTs as well as suppress their known toxicological effects. These hybrids have shown unrivaled stabilities in both aqueous suspension or as a dried material. Furthermore, …

Biomolecular Functionalization Of A Nanomaterial To Control Stability And Retention Within Live Cells, Mitchell Gravely, Mohammad Moein Safaee, Daniel E. Roxbury

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Noncovalent hybrids of single-stranded DNA and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have demonstrated applications in biomedical imaging and sensing due to their enhanced biocompatibility and photostable, environmentally responsive near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence. The fundamental properties of such DNA-SWCNTs have been studied to determine the correlative relationships between oligonucleotide sequence and length, SWCNT species, and the physical attributes of the resultant hybrids. However, intracellular environments introduce harsh conditions that can change the physical identities of the hybrid nanomaterials, thus altering their intrinsic optical properties. Here, through visible and NIR fluorescence imaging in addition to confocal Raman microscopy, we show that the oligonucleotide length …

Ultrasonic Generation Of Pulsatile And Sequential Therapeutic Delivery Profiles From Calcium-Crosslinked Alginate Hydrogels, Tania Emi, Kendra Michaud, Emma Orton, Grace Santilli, Catherine Linh, Meaghan O'Connell, Fatima Issa, Stephen Kennedy

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Control over of biological processes can potentially be therapeutically regulated through localized biomolecular deliveries. While implantable hydrogels can provide localized therapeutic deliveries, they do not traditionally provide the temporally complex therapeutic delivery profiles required to regulate complex biological processes. Ionically crosslinked alginate hydrogels have been shown to release encapsulated payloads in response to a remotely applied ultrasonic stimulus, thus potentially enabling more temporally complex therapeutic delivery profiles. However, thorough characterizations of how different types of therapeutic payloads are retained and ultrasonically released need to be performed. Additionally, the impact of potentially disruptive ultrasonic stimulations on hydrogel structure and temperature need …

An Investigation Of The Magneto-Active Slosh Control For Cylindrical Propellant Tanks Using Floating Membranes, Manikandan Vairamani, Pedro Llanos, Balaji Sivasubramanian, Somnath Nagendra, Kevin Crosby

Publications

The phenomenon of sloshing is a substantial challenge in propellant management, particularly in reduced gravity where surface tension-driven flows result in large slosh amplitudes and relatively long decay time scales. Propellant Management Devices (PMDs) such as the rigid baffles and elastomeric membranes are often employed to counteract motion of the free surface. In the present study, we investigate an active PMD that utilizes a free-floating membrane that, under an applied static magnetic field, becomes rigid and suppresses slosh. This semi-rigid structural layer can thereby replace bulky baffle structures and reduce the overall weight of the tank. In this paper, the …

A Tunable Electrostatic Mems Pressure Switch, Mark Pallay, Ronald N. Miles, Shahrzad Towfighian

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Scholarship

We demonstrate a tunable air pressure switch. The switch detects when the ambient pressure drops below a threshold value and automatically triggers without the need for any computational overhead to read the pressure or trigger the switch. The switch exploits the significant fluid interaction of a MEMS beam undergoing a large oscillation from electrostatic levitation to detect changes in ambient pressure. If the oscillation amplitude near the resonant frequency is above a threshold level, dynamic pullin is triggered and the switch is closed. The pressure at which the switch closes can be tuned by adjusting the voltage applied to the …

State Estimation For An Agonistic‐Antagonistic Muscle System, Thang Tien Nguyen, Holly Warner, Hung La, Hanieh Mohammadi, Daniel J. Simon, Hanz Richter

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Research on assistive technology, rehabilitation, and prosthetics requires the understanding of human machine interaction, in which human muscular properties play a pivotal role. This paper studies a nonlinear agonistic‐antagonistic muscle system based on the Hill muscle model. To investigate the characteristics of the muscle model, the problem of estimating the state variables and activation signals of the dual muscle system is considered. In this work, parameter uncertainty and unknown inputs are taken into account for the estimation problem. Three observers are presented: a high gain observer, a sliding mode observer, and an adaptive sliding mode observer. Theoretical analysis shows the …