Engineering Commons^™

Near Bandgap Two-Photon Excited Luminescence Of Inas Quantum Dots, Xian Hu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) confine carriers in three dimensions, resulting in atomic-like energy levels as well as size-dependent electrical and optical properties. Self-assembled III-V QD is one of the most studied semiconductor QDs thanks to their well-established fabrication techniques and versatile optical properties. This dissertation presents the photoluminescence (PL) study of the InAs/GaAs QDs with both above bandgap continuous-wave excitation (one-photon excitation) and below-bandgap pulse excitation (two-photon excitation). Samples of ensemble QDs, single QD (SQD), and QDs in a micro-cavity, all grown by molecular beam epitaxy, are used in this study. Morphology of these samples was examined using atomic force …

Evaluation Of Terahertz Imaging For Breast Cancer Detection Using Image Morphing, Tanny Andrea Chavez Esparza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes the use of a mesh morphing algorithm for the quantitative evaluation of terahertz (THz) images. This work differs from traditional evaluation methods based on qualitative evaluation because it provides a fair and quantitative measurement of the THz imaging system's performance. The objective of the algorithm is to match the alignment, shape, and resolution of the THz and reference pathology images. Therefore, the proposed morphing method provides a pathology reference for a pixel-by-pixel evaluation of the region classification in the THz image. To achieve this, the morphing algorithm aligns the images using the Pearson's correlation coefficient and reshapes …

The Incorporation Of Graphene To Lithium Cobalt Oxide As A Cathode To Improve The Performance Of Lithium Ion Batteries, Kenan Wang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the objectives of this thesis work was to investigate the cathode performance of lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) incorporated with graphene powder in lithium ion batteries (LIBs). Graphene powder was incorporated into cathode materials to enhance the performance of LIBs. The other objective was to impede the construction of a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) sheet using graphene sheet coating on its cathode.

The results of this work show that adding graphene powder improved the performance of LiCoO¬2 as a cathode material. With the incorporation of different weight percentages of graphene powder, the LiBs showed distinct changes in their charging …

Understanding The Evolution Of Surface Texture Under Boundary Lubrication, Salil T. Bapat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was to understand the evolution of surface texture under boundary/mixed lubrication (BL). Significant material/energy losses occur during BL because of direct contact between the two surfaces. Traditionally, tribofilms have been studied extensively for BL while textures have been used as a static engineering design parameter to enhance lubricant film properties. However, texture is dynamic at the tribological mating interface, where both physical and chemical interactions are continuously modulated. The evolution and the interplay between the tribofilm and texture is least studied in the literature, which is the focus of this research.

MoS2-based lubricants, known for …

Optimizing Construction Estimation: A Case Study Of The Etsu Football Stadium And The Etsu Fine Arts Center, John Paul Mitra

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Considering the complexity of the construction industry, it is vital to predict costs accurately throughout the entire planning, design, and construction process of a project. Various factors such as overhead, delays, cost variation, and program and scope play significant roles in determining the viability and profitability of a project. Thus, it is important to learn about what makes construction estimates so variable even among expert estimators within the same company. This study will look at the estimation methods used by BurWil Construction Company and Denark Construction, Inc. for the ETSU Football Stadium and the ETSU Fine Arts Center, respectively, as …

Automatic Speech Recognition Adaptation For Various Noise Levels, Azhar Sabah Abdulaziz

Theses and Dissertations

The automatic speech recognition (ASR) is a set of complicated algorithms that convert the intended spoken utterance into a textual form. Acoustic features, which are extracted from the speech signal, are matched against a trained network of linguistic and acoustic models. The ASR performance is degraded significantly when the ambient noise is different than that of the training data. Many approaches have been introduced to address this problem with various degrees of complexity and improvement rates. The general pattern of solving this issue lies in three categories: empowering features, train a general acoustic model and transform models to match noisy …

An Advanced Context Aware Operator Support System (Caoss) For Chemical Plant Operation, Sujin Babu Alfred Retna Dhason

Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing potential causes for recent industrial accidents and production losses highlights that the majority of these incidents are due to human factor failure: operator error, poor decision-making and violations (Dźwiarek, 2004). In the meantime, the process equipment design, fabrication, metallurgy and control system has improved significantly to combat these unpredictable failures. This research focus on the errors due to human-machine interaction (HMI) in chemical plant. This paper presents an advanced support system for operators in chemical plants, to perform safe and reliable plant operation and maintenance (O&M). In chemical industry, almost every tasks involving human interaction with the machines are …

Aerospace Mission Outcome: Predictive Modeling, Ephraim Suhir

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)-related models can be applied in various aerospace vehicular problems, when human qualifications and performance are crucial and the ability to quantify them is therefore imperative; since nobody is perfect, these evaluations should preferably be done on a probabilistic basis. The suggested models can also be used in many other areas of applied science and engineering, not even necessarily vehicular engineering, when a human encounters an extraordinary situation and should possess a sufficiently high human capacity factor (HCF) to successfully cope with an elevated mental workload (MWL). The incentive for probabilistic predictive modeling and the rationale for such modeling …

Characterization And Selection Of Hydroxyl-Terminated Polybutadiene Polymers For High-Strain Applications, Nathaniel Prine

Honors Theses

Understanding the behavior of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) as a composite matrix is imperative for the development of future military and aerospace munition technology. As a vital component of solid rocket fuel, HTPB strongly contributes to the fatigue behavior, burn-rate, and other properties that can cause critical failure of the rocket if not formulated properly. The purpose of this research is to identify traits characteristic of poor-performing HTPB matrices by analyzing two samples labeled as either “good” or “bad” based on their performance as a fuel matrix. Samples were analyzed via 1H NMR and GPC to determine their epoxy content, hydroxyl …

Thiol–Ene Photopolymerization: A Simple Route To Pro-Antimicrobial Networks Via Degradable Acetals (Pandas), William Martin

Honors Theses

The World Health Organization (WHO) has brought the growing epidemic of antibiotic resistance bacteria to the attention of the public and has expressed the need for the development of new methods of defense. In this direction, bioactive aldehyde essential oils have been shown to effectively act as antibiotic and antifungal agents. These bioactive compounds, when used in their pure form, are volatile and lack environmental stability. In this thesis, we describe the synthesis of pro-antimicrobial networks via degradable acetals (PANDAs) using thiol-ene photopolymerization. PANDAs were used as a new model for the high loading and release of bioactive aldehyde-containing compounds …

An Empirical Study On The Recovery Speed Of Usb Flash Drives Utilizing Raid-5 Compared To Hdds And Ssds, Joshua Manuel Martins

Honors Theses

Since their creation and implementation, storage drives have undergone and continue to undergo drastic changes in speed, size, and reliability. The original storage drives, known as hard disk drives (HDDs), are constructed using moving parts. The second modern type of storage drives, known as solid state drives (SSDs), are constructed using a series of silicon chips that utilize no moving parts. The third and most recent innovation in storage drives, known as USB flash drives (USBs), use only a single silicon chip to provide storage which grants them the smallest form factor of the three drive types.

This study compared …

Biocompatible, Responsive Polysoaps Via Raft Copolymerization For The Delivery Of Model Cancer Therapeutics, Mason Dearborn

Honors Theses

Many chemotherapeutic drugs are small, hydrophobic molecules that require water-soluble, biocompatible nanocarriers for enhanced vascular circulation. Existing polymeric carriers either conjugate the drug along a copolymer backbone or sequester drugs within a protected interior domain to be delivered to specific sites in the body. Such therapeutic systems must overcome a myriad of hurdles, beginning with complex, multi-step syntheses, followed by other inherent barriers that limit the efficiency of drug delivery at the targeted site. This work aims to circumvent a number of these issues using biocompatible, stimuli-responsive polysoaps that are capable of unimeric micelle formation, hydrophobic drug delivery, and triggered …

Corner Sealants For Tactical Shelters, Janine Carlita Nowak

Honors Theses

The demand for a lightweight, easy-assembly tactical shelter is high for those faced with unexpected disasters and global conflicts. This project focuses on designing and prototyping the corner sealant for such a shelter. Two materials were chosen and tested: an in-house thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and Texin 950. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) was performed on both of these materials. The in-house TPU showed initial degradation at 282.50 °C and sample degradation at 457.45 °C. Similarly, Texin 950 showed initial degradation at 293.68 °C and sample degradation at 453.26 °C. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) was then run. The crystallization temperature (Tc) was observed …

Consensus Ensemble Approaches Improve De Novo Transcriptome Assemblies, Adam Voshall

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Accurate and comprehensive transcriptome assemblies lay the foundation for a range of analyses, such as differential gene expression analysis, metabolic pathway reconstruction, novel gene discovery, or metabolic flux analysis. With the arrival of next-generation sequencing technologies it has become possible to acquire the whole transcriptome data rapidly even from non-model organisms. However, the problem of accurately assembling the transcriptome for any given sample remains extremely challenging, especially in species with a high prevalence of recent gene or genome duplications, those with alternative splicing of transcripts, or those whose genomes are not well studied. This thesis provides a detailed overview of …

Application Of Cosine Similarity In Bioinformatics, Srikanth Maturu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Finding similar sequences to an input query sequence (DNA or proteins) from a sequence data set is an important problem in bioinformatics. It provides researchers an intuition of what could be related or how the search space can be reduced for further tasks. An exact brute-force nearest-neighbor algorithm used for this task has complexity O(m * n) where n is the database size and m is the query size. Such an algorithm faces time-complexity issues as the database and query sizes increase. Furthermore, the use of alignment-based similarity measures such as minimum edit distance adds an additional complexity to the …

Energy Sustainability Analysis Of A Baja Test Facility, Seth Bishop

Honors Theses

The objective of this paper is to study the viability of building a Baja SAE competition site so that UTC could host events in the future. Part of this includes defining a building size in square feet and estimating the construction cost. Once that is accomplished it is necessary to determine what equipment may be used at the site, how much power each piece of equipment would use, and how many hours each would be used for within the year. With this information it is then possible to estimate the annual power consumption for a competition year and a regular …

Design Of A Pneumatic Conveying Test Loop For Laboratory Testing, Natalie Burdine

Honors Theses

Pneumatic conveying is the transportation of material through a closed conveying line in a gas medium via a pressure differential. In industry, pneumatic conveying is used extensively to handle materials: specifically, bulk solids and powders. 80% of all transported materials are bulk solids and pneumatic conveying is currently experiencing industry growth at a rate of 6.4% annually. Industrial pneumatic conveyor suppliers use specialized testing systems to make design decisions regarding specific applications, taking into account the conveyed material, the structure of the plant in which the system will be installed, and desired system characteristics such as necessary filtering or safety …

The Measurement Of The Adhesion Of Glaze Ice., Andrew Hardesty Work Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Icing is a lethal and costly aviation hazard affecting aircraft of all sizes ranging from small UAVs to large commercial craft such as the Boeing 787, resulting in hundreds of deaths over the last century and resulting in billions of dollars of economic impact. Three predominant types of icing, namely, airframe icing, engine icing, and rotorcraft icing, dominate aircraft icing research. Each type poses unique challenges. In the case of rotor icing, attention needs to give to the rotating environment with large oscillatory loads and icing conditions. In the case of airframe icing, special attention needs to be paid to …

Ultrasonic Nondestructive Evaluation Of Metal Additive Manufacturing., Venkata Karthik Nadimpalli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) is increasingly being used to make functional components. One of the barriers for AM components to become mainstream is the difficulty to certify them. AM components can have widely different properties based on process parameters. Improving an AM processes requires an understanding of process-structure-property correlations, which can be gathered in-situ and post-process through nondestructive and destructive methods. In this study, two metal AM processes were studied, the first is Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM) and the second is Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF). The typical problems with UAM components are inter-layer and inter-track defects. To improve the …

Horse Racing Prediction Using Graph-Based Features., Mehmet Akif Gulum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an applied horse racing prediction using graph based features on a set of horse races data. We used artificial neural network and logistic regression models to train then test to prediction without graph based features and with graph based features. This thesis can be explained in 4 main parts. Collect data from a horse racing website held from 2015 to 2017. Train data to using predictive models and make a prediction. Create a global directed graph of horses and extract graph-based features (Core Part) . Add graph based features to basic features and train to using same …

Effects Of Short-Term Strains On Concrete Bulb-Tee Bridge Girders And Analysis Of The Practicality Of Using Three-Dimensional Models Based On Drone Imagery To Aid In Bridge Inspections, Justin M. Pace

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

The University Transportation Center at Utah State University sponsors research through the Federal Highway Administration’s University Transportation Center Program. The purpose of this research is to advance technology and expertise in transportation-related fields. This includes research pertaining to bridge design, monitoring, and inspection (the focus of this research).

The first focus area of this research monitored short-term strains at the bottom of girders in a concrete bulb-tee girder bridge. The strains were caused by traffic loading and recorded using strain transducers attached to the bottom of each bridge girder. Patterns in the strain loading were monitored to draw conclusions about …

Skill Builder: Assistive Technology For Developing Skill And Habits, Aaron Kay

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

The Skill Builder application is assistive technology for helping individuals build skills through reminders and self-reporting feedback. The application has been built to support Android and iOS devices and followed a user-centric design methodology. Skill Builder’s architecture and development processes are set forth using cross-platform development environments and a native software development kit for the three different versions of the application that were built. The strengths and weaknesses of each of the platforms are explored.

Several studies have been proposed for helping individuals with different needs learn the skills to cope with their challenges. Applications of Skill Builder include students …

Designing Synthetic Environments To Control Valvular Interstital Cells In Vitro, Kent E. Coombs

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Aortic valve disease (AVD) is a large contributor to health costs in the United States affecting 2.8% of the population greater than 75 years old. With a growing elderly population due to medical advances, AVD will continue to rise in prevalence over time. Current treatments for AVD are insufficient due to a lack of preventative therapies and the bioprosthetic valves used for surgical replacement have major limitations. Tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs) present an ideal solution to current AVD needs because of their biocompatibility, capability to integrate with the host’s tissue, and ability to utilize the natural repair mechanisms of …

Authentication Via Openathens: Implementing A Single Sign-On Solution For Primo, Alma, And Ezproxy, Travis Clamon

ETSU Faculty Works

OpenAthens is a hosted identity and access management service that provides a streamlined solution for implementing single sign-on authentication. This presentation will outline the steps East Tennessee State University took to configure OpenAthens authentication across the Alma, Primo, and EZproxy platforms. We will give a brief overview of the internal configurations related to LDAP integration, allocating electronic resources, and selectively assigning permissions. Finally, we will share our experiences with OpenAthens including support, vendor adoption, and end user benefits.

Development Of A Model To Predict The Likelihood Of Complaints Due To Assorted Tone-In-Noise Combinations, Joonhee Lee, Lily M. Wang

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

This paper develops a model to predict if listeners would be likely to complain due to annoyance when exposed to a certain noise signal with a prominent tone, such as those commonly produced by heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems. Twenty participants completed digit span tasks while exposed in a controlled lab to noise signals with differing levels of tones, ranging from 125 to 1000 Hz, and overall loudness. After completing the digit span tasks under each noise signal, from which task accuracy and speed of completion were captured, subjects were asked to rate level of annoyance and indicate the likelihood …

Predicting The Impact Of Resource Delays On A Construction Project’S Critical Path Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Colby Weishaar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The construction industry is a complex and evolving industry, making the project manager’s job of planning, organizing, and making decisions a difficult one. One of the most difficult decisions throughout a project is determining what resources are needed to complete a task by the deadline. Uncertainties cause risks within the schedule often creating delays for which the project manager must develop a mitigation plan once risks are identified. After conducting a review of the literature, no research was found examining the use of an analytical model to estimate the delays caused within the resource allocation process. If an analytical model …

Glucose Level Estimation Based On Invasive Electrochemical, And Non-Invasive Optical Sensing Methods, Sanghamitra Mandal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to design and fabricate sensors for glucose detection using inexpensive approaches. My first research approach is the fabrication of an amperometric electrochemical glucose sensor, by exploiting the optical properties of semiconductors and structural properties of nanostructures, to enhance the sensor sensitivity and response time. Enzymatic electrochemical sensors are fabricated using two different mechanisms: (1) the low-temperature hydrothermal synthesis of zinc oxide nanorods, and (2) the rapid metal-assisted chemical etching of silicon (Si) to synthesize Si nanowires. The concept of gold nano-electrode ensembles is then employed to the sensors in order to boost the current …

Design Of A Multidirectional Wear Testing Device For Simulating Wear Of Biocompatible Materials Used In Joint Implants, Carlos A. Rodriguez Betancourth

Theses and Dissertations

In the present work, a novel multidirectional pin-on-disc wear testing device designated CNC-POD (computer-numerical-control pin-on-disc) capable of replicating the cross-shear motions experienced by a prosthesis in vivo was designed and developed in the UTRGV in order to evaluate the wear resistance of new biomaterials. The CNC-POD consists of six temperature-controlled pin-on-disc stations mounted on a two-axis CNC table (X-Y). Each pin-on-disc station is load-programmable up to 510 Newtons (115 pounds). The CNC table allows the machine to reproduce a wide range of 2D patterns in millimeter scale on the six stations under a specific load. Friction force is measured during …

Bs News May/June

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Development And Validation Of A Numerical Model Of The Co2 Dry-Ice Blasting Process For Aircraft Engine Cleaning Applications, Arthur Rudek

Doctoral

On-wing cleaning of engine compressors for commercial aircraft is a required maintenance task which results in greater operating efficiency and lower emission rates. It is typically carried out by injection of water and detergents into the intake of an engine while the engine is being cranked by the starter. Two drawbacks of this process are the risk of icing in cold weather and the collection and treatment of the water effluent. The dry-ice blasting process, a cleaning system which uses pressurized air and CO2 dry-ice particles as cleaning agent, has been proposed as an alternative method which does not suffer …