Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Volumetric Imaging Using The Pupil-Matched Remote Focusing Technique In Light-Sheet Microscopy, Sayed Hassan Dibaji Foroushani

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

ABSTRACT

The dissertation explores innovative techniques in light sheet microscopy, a pivotal tool in biomedical imaging, to enhance its speed, resolution, and efficiency in capturing dynamic biological processes. Light sheet microscopy allows for quick 3D imaging of biological specimens ranging from cells to organs with high spatiotemporal resolution, large field-of-view, and minimal damage, making it vital for in vivo imaging.

The first project introduces a novel optical concept designed to optimize Axially Swept Light Sheet Microscopy (ASLM). This technique is crucial for imaging specimens ranging from live cells to chemically cleared organs due to its versatility across different immersion media. …

Advances In Cellulose Nanomaterial-Based Foams For Environmental Applications, Md Musfiqur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of metal-oxide nanoparticles adsorbents is limited to fixed-bed columns in industrial-scale water treatment applications. This limitation is commonly attributed to the tendency of nanoparticles to aggregate, the use of non-sustainable and inefficient polymeric resins as supporting materials, or a lack of adsorption capacity. Foams and aerogels derived from cellulose nanomaterials have unique characteristics, such as high porosity and low density, which enables their use in a variety of environmental applications, including water treatment. However, the overall use of cellulose nanomaterial-based foams in various environmental sectors is limited due to the high cost of production associated with time- and …

A Map-Algebra-Inspired Approach For Interacting With Wireless Sensor Networks, Cyber-Physical Systems Or Internet Of Things, David Almeida

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The typical approach for consuming data from wireless sensor networks (WSN) and Internet of Things (IoT) has been to send data back to central servers for processing and analysis. This thesis develops an alternative strategy for processing and acting on data directly in the environment referred to as Active embedded Map Algebra (AeMA). Active refers to the near real time production of data, and embedded refers to the architecture of distributed embedded sensor nodes. Network macroprogramming, a style of programming adopted for wireless sensor networks and IoT, addresses the challenges of coordinating the behavior of multiple connected devices through a …

Solar-Powered Microgrids In Northern California: An Opportunity For Resilience, Marina Riddle

Master's Projects and Capstones

Planned and unplanned power outages have been increasing in frequency and duration, negatively impacting all public sectors, and threatening public safety. These outages are deadly to those who rely on medical devices. As climate change-fueled extreme weather events (wildfires, earthquakes, storms, etc.) also increase in frequency, our electrical grid must be prepared to bounce back. Microgrids provide necessary redundancy and reliability. Through a novel GIS suitability analysis, based on solar radiation, land use type, local energy demand, distance to transmission lines, distance to roads, and slope, optimal locations for solar-powered microgrids throughout Northern California were determined. The counties of Fresno, …

Microplate-Like Metal Pyrophosphate Engineered On Ni-Foam Towards Multifunctional Electrode Material For Energy Conversion And Storage, Rishabh Srivastava

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

High clean energy demand, dire need for sustainable development, and low carbon footprints are the few intuitive challenges, leading researchers to aim for research and development for high-performance energy devices. The development of materials used in energy devices is currently focused on enhancing the performance, electronic properties, and durability of devices. Tunning the attributes of transition metals using pyrophosphate (P₂O₇) ligand moieties can be a promising approach to meet the requirements of energy devices such as water electrolyzers and supercapacitors, although such a material’s configuration is rarely exposed for this purpose of study.

Herein, we grow …

The Unheard Voices Of The Arkansas Delta: Living Through School Desegregation, Tameka D. Williams

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This study was guided by the central research question: What are the lived experiences and perceptions of former African American teachers and students that endured segregation, desegregation, and integration in Arkansas' Delta? The phenomenological study used eight former African American teachers and student participants. Of the participants, there were four former teachers and four former students. In this study, the participants' voices are captured as they share their experiences and perception of each phase of education that influenced their lives and left an everlasting imprint. Through counternarratives, the participants provided insight into education in the Arkansas Delta during school segregation, …

An Investigation Into Applications Of Canonical Polyadic Decomposition & Ensemble Learning In Forecasting Thermal Data Streams In Direct Laser Deposition Processes, Jonathan Storey

Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a process of creating objects from 3D model data by adding layers of material. AM technologies present several advantages compared to traditional manufacturing technologies, such as producing less material waste and being capable of producing parts with greater geometric complexity. However, deficiencies in the printing process due to high process uncertainty can affect the microstructural properties of a fabricated part leading to defects. In metal AM, previous studies have linked defects in parts with melt pool temperature fluctuations, with the size of the melt pool and the scan pattern being key factors associated with part defects. …

Brain-Inspired Spatio-Temporal Learning With Application To Robotics, Thiago André Ferreira Medeiros

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The human brain still has many mysteries and one of them is how it encodes information. The following study intends to unravel at least one such mechanism. For this it will be demonstrated how a set of specialized neurons may use spatial and temporal information to encode information. These neurons, called Place Cells, become active when the animal enters a place in the environment, allowing it to build a cognitive map of the environment. In a recent paper by Scleidorovich et al. in 2022, it was demonstrated that it was possible to differentiate between two sequences of activations of a …

Convolution And Autoencoders Applied To Nonlinear Differential Equations, Noah Borquaye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Autoencoders, a type of artificial neural network, have gained recognition by researchers in various fields, especially machine learning due to their vast applications in data representations from inputs. Recently researchers have explored the possibility to extend the application of autoencoders to solve nonlinear differential equations. Algorithms and methods employed in an autoencoder framework include sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics (SINDy), dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), Koopman operator theory and singular value decomposition (SVD). These approaches use matrix multiplication to represent linear transformation. However, machine learning algorithms often use convolution to represent linear transformations. In our work, we modify these approaches to …

Interactive Water Vortex Exhibit, Simon Way, Emily Laing, Roqaya Naseri, Makenzie Kan

Mechanical Engineering

The San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum requested an interactive water vortex exhibit to both engage and entertain inquisitive guests, ages two to eight. The goal was to design and manufacture an exhibit that would educate its users on the fluid mechanics behind water vortices. They activate the mechanics by spinning a wheel, which is perceived as the catalyst to manipulate the flow of water to successfully create a whirlpool. Our team has created an interactive display that will enlighten young minds, providing the museum with an educational exhibit which shares a concept not currently taught by any other. Our project …

Static And Dynamic State Estimation Applications In Power Systems Protection And Control Engineering, Ibukunoluwa Olayemi Korede

Doctoral Dissertations

The developed methodologies are proposed to serve as support for control centers and fault analysis engineers. These approaches provide a dependable and effective means of pinpointing and resolving faults, which ultimately enhances power grid reliability. The algorithm uses the Least Absolute Value (LAV) method to estimate the augmented states of the PCB, enabling supervisory monitoring of the system. In addition, the application of statistical analysis based on projection statistics of the system Jacobian as a virtual sensor to detect faults on transmission lines. This approach is particularly valuable for detecting anomalies in transmission line data, such as bad data or …

Atomic-Level Mechanisms Of Fast Relaxation In Metallic Glasses, Leo W. Zella

Doctoral Dissertations

Glasses are ubiquitous in daily life and have unique properties which are a consequence of the underlying disordered structure. By understanding the fundamental processes that govern these properties, we can modify glasses for desired applications. Key to understanding the structure-dynamics relationship in glasses is the variety of relaxation processes that exist below the glass transition temperature. Though these relaxations are well characterized with macroscopic experimental techniques, the microscopic nature of these relaxations is difficult to elucidate with experimental tools due to the requirements of timescale and spatial resolution. There remain many questions regarding the microscopic nature of relaxation in glass …

Exploring Soil Microbial Dynamics In Southern Appalachian Forests: A Systems Biology Approach To Prescribed Fire Impacts, Saad Abd Ar Rafie

Doctoral Dissertations

Prescribed fires in Southern Appalachian forests are vital in ecosystem management and wildfire risk mitigation. However, understanding the intricate dynamics between these fires, soil microbial communities, and overall ecosystem health remains challenging. This dissertation addresses this knowledge gap by exploring selected aspects of this complex relationship across three interconnected chapters.

The first chapter investigates the immediate effects of prescribed fires on soil microbial communities. It reveals subtle shifts in porewater chemistry and significant increases in microbial species richness. These findings offer valuable insights into the interplay between soil properties and microbial responses during the early stages following a prescribed fire. …

Upcyclying Of Polyethylene Terephtalate By Addition Of Thermoplastic Elastomer, Diego Francisco Bermudez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Continual overconsumption of single-use plastics has generated challenges of solid waste management across the United States. Common plastic waste management solutions, such as landfill, have caused the migration of contaminants into the environment consequently affecting not only the health of wildlife, but also that of human beings. Alternative strategies for the handling of single-use plastic such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), used in the food packaging industry, can ultimately help mitigate the noxious consequences of single-use plastics affecting entire ecosystems. This study demonstrates a potential avenue of materials upcycling by studying the effects of coupling PET with the thermoplastic elastomer styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene …

Leveraging Agile Software Methodologies Within Software Development To Introduce A Novel Educational Software Methodology, Montserrat Guadalupe Molina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Agile Software Development has been growing increasingly popular in the software engineering industry as a way to produce working software in a quick and people-centered manner. Agile methodologies require practitioners to have strong technical and non-technical skills, such as teamwork, project management, and communication skills. Students graduating from the software engineering discipline have been found to be lacking in these areas, leading to many difficulties faced by recent graduates as they begin their professional careers. Given that Agile Software Development is the most popular software development lifecycle currently used by practitioners in industry, it is important to expose students to …

Bitcoin's Technical Foundation And Its Potential For A Decentralized And Environmentally Friendly Future, Iqtiar Md Siddique

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research examines a systematic analysis of Bitcoin, employing a Coefficient of Variation (CV) approach to gauge its degree of decentralization. Bitcoin, an innovative decentralized digital currency, has received much attention for its potential to revolutionize traditional financial systems. This study employs the Coefficient of Variation (CV) to acquire insights into the wealth distribution and concentration among Bitcoin users. This research demonstrates how decentralized the network of Bitcoin is. The methodology uses real data on Bitcoin addresses and their holdings to compute the Coefficient of Variation (CV). This approach provides valuable insights into the ongoing discourse surrounding Bitcoin's decentralization, offering …

Decoding Usage And Adoption Behavior Of The Low-Carbon Transportation Market: An Ai-Driven Exploration, Vuban Chowdhury

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The transportation sector stands as a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, with its environmental impact steadily escalating over the past few decades. This has prompted government agencies to facilitate the adoption and usage of low-carbon transportation (LCT) options as alternatives to fossil-fuel-powered transportation. LCTs include modes of transportation that minimize the overall carbon footprint of the transportation sector by relying on energy sources that are environmentally sustainable. These sustainable transportation options have also garnered significant interest in the transportation research community. For government agencies and researchers alike, a comprehensive understanding of the adoption and usage …

Remote Side-Channel Disassembly On Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, Brandon R. Baggett

<strong> Theses and Dissertations </strong>

Over the last two decades, side-channel vulnerabilities have shown to be a major threat to embedded devices. Most side-channel research has developed our understanding of the vulnerabilities to cryptographic devices due to their implementation and how we can protect them. However, side-channel leakage can yield useful information about many other processes that run on the device. One promising area that has received little attention is the side-channel leakage due to the execution of assembly instructions. There has been some work in this area that has demonstrated the idea’s potential, but so far, this research has assumed the adversary has physical …

Gravel Conveyance System: An Evaluation On E. Coli Removal Capabilities, Madison Grace

<strong> Theses and Dissertations </strong>

In many rural, low-income communities such as the Black Belt of Alabama, there is a lack of wastewater infrastructure and solutions leaving homeowners non-compliant to state and federal law and with potential health risks on their property. New regulations have allowed for onsite, surface discharge for single family homes that are not connected to a centralized sewer or large flow development. These new regulations also contain strict disinfection criteria for the treated wastewater that will be discharged. A low-cost and low-maintenance treatment system that provides adequate disinfection is necessary to allow homeowners to take advantage of the new opportunity for …

Use Of Digital Twins To Mitigate Communication Failures In Microgrids, Andrew Eggebeen

Theses and Dissertations

This work investigates digital twin (DT) applications for electric power system (EPS) resilience. A novel DT architecture is proposed consisting of a physical twin, a virtual twin, an intelligent agent, and data communications. Requirements for the virtual twin are identified. Guidelines are provided for generating, capturing, and storing data to train the intelligent agent. The relationship between the DT development process and an existing controller hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) process is discussed. To demonstrate the proposed DT architecture and development process, a DT for a battery energy storage system (BESS) is created based on the simulation of an industrial nanogrid. The creation …

Exact Models, Heuristics, And Supervised Learning Approaches For Vehicle Routing Problems, Zefeng Lyu

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents contributions to the field of vehicle routing problems by utilizing exact methods, heuristic approaches, and the integration of machine learning with traditional algorithms. The research is organized into three main chapters, each dedicated to a specific routing problem and a unique methodology. The first chapter addresses the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Transshipments and Time Windows, a variant that permits product transfers between vehicles to enhance logistics flexibility and reduce costs. To solve this problem, we propose an efficient mixed-integer linear programming model that has been shown to outperform existing ones. The second chapter discusses a practical …

A Design Strategy To Improve Machine Learning Resiliency Of Physically Unclonable Functions Using Modulus Process, Yuqiu Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are hardware security primitives that utilize non-reproducible manufacturing variations to provide device-specific challenge-response pairs (CRPs). Such primitives are desirable for applications such as communication and intellectual property protection. PUFs have been gaining considerable interest from both the academic and industrial communities because of their simplicity and stability. However, many recent studies have exposed PUFs to machine-learning (ML) modeling attacks. To improve the resilience of a system to general ML attacks instead of a specific ML technique, a common solution is to improve the complexity of the system. Structures, such as XOR-PUFs, can significantly increase the nonlinearity …

Robust And Uncertainty-Aware Image Classification Using Bayesian Vision Transformer Model, Fazlur Rahman Bin Karim

Theses and Dissertations

Transformer Neural Networks have emerged as the predominant architecture for addressing a wide range of Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications such as machine translation, speech recognition, sentiment analysis, text anomaly detection, etc. This noteworthy achievement of Transformer Neural Networks in the NLP field has sparked a growing interest in integrating and utilizing Transformer models in computer vision tasks. The Vision Transformer (ViT) model efficiently captures long-range dependencies by employing a self-attention mechanism to transform different image data into meaningful, significant representations. Recently, the Vision Transformer (ViT) has exhibited incredible performance in solving image classification problems by utilizing ViT models, thereby …

Diverse Impacts Of Commercial Ev Charging Load Infrastructure On Electric Power Grid, Antonio Avila

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the rising prominence of electric vehicles (EVs) in the transportation sector, this thesis delves into the critical nexus between commercial EVs, charging infrastructure, and their consequential impacts on the power grid. As commercial EVs, particularly medium and heavy-duty variants, gain traction as viable alternatives in the commercial transportation landscape, understanding the intricacies of their charging requirements becomes paramount. This thesis critically examines the technological and logistical dimensions of the charging infrastructure for supporting commercial EVs, evaluating the consequential implications on the power grid and proposing strategies for mitigation through the utilization of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). In tandem with …

Viability Of Magnetic Nanoparticles For Magnetic Hyperthermia Cancer Therapy, Marcos Adrian Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Over the last few decades magnetic nanoparticles have gained an extraordinary amount of attention in the science community. Their versatile use in many different research areas such as medicine, engineering and technology and many other areas has made them a popular subject. In this thesis, the synthesis of different systems of magnetic nanoparticles will be explored along with the potential use of the MNP's as viable candidates for Magnetic Hyperthermia Cancer Therapy. With values of over 200 emu/g for Iron-Silver magnetic nanoparticles with particle sizes ranging from 30-70nm and their heating properties under an AC magnetic field. As well of …

Radiation Exposure Calibration Of The Al2o3:C With Radium-226 And Cesium-137 Using The Osl Method, Selma Tepeli Aydin

All Theses

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimetry was utilized to calibrate Al₂O₃:C powder dosimeters, available commercially as the nanoDot® from Landauer Inc., and compare the dosimeter response to radium-226 (²²⁶Ra) and cesium-137 (¹³⁷Cs). The signal from the OSL was quantified using a microSTARii^® OSL reader also produced by Landauer Inc. Dose-response curves were developed for ²²⁶Ra and ¹³⁷Cs experiments (5 dosimeters each) at thirteen absorbed doses. Individual dosimeter response was tracked by serial number. Linear regression analysis was performed to determine if there were significant differences between the intercepts of the …

Computationally-Driven Insights Into The Ligand Environments Of Materials For Catalysis And Separations, Stephen Vicchio

All Dissertations

Designing new catalytic and sorption materials is necessary to limit global temperature rise below 1.5 ◦C by 2050, while also meeting global energy demands. Climate change and energy production are not mutually exclusive; global population growth has direct impacts on global energy demands and climate. In both catalysis and adsorption applications, new technologies are needed to address these challenges. Catalysis can provide alternate, low-energy routes for converting low-value gases into higher-value chemical commodities, thus altering our current energy production. Likewise, new sorption materials can capture previously emitted CO₂ from decades of energy production from fossil fuels, thus helping to …

Atomistic And Mesoscale Modeling Of Microstructure Development During Solid-State Sintering, Omar Hussein

All Dissertations

Interfaces are ubiquitous in materials systems, and they influence the processing and properties of nearly all engineering and functional materials. Examples include grain boundaries (GBs) in polycrystalline materials, free surfaces in nanoparticles, and phase boundaries in multiphase materials. Therefore, understanding and controlling interfacial processes is a key aspect of materials design and discovery efforts.

Recent developments in advanced manufacturing and synthesis techniques have enabled the fabrication of materials architectures with intricate nanoscale features. Of particular interest is solid-state sintering, known for creating complex and high-precision geometries with controlled microstructures. While sintering science has been the subject of active research, very …

Evaluating The Impact Of Oyster Reef Breakwaters On Hydrodynamics, Morphodynamics, And Sediment Transport Using Xbeach, Tabassum Islam

<strong> Theses and Dissertations </strong>

Alabama Port is a unique marsh and sandy beach shoreline. Since the 1950s, substantial erosion has occurred along this shoreline due to storms, wind-generated waves, and ship wakes. This research focuses on evaluating the effect of oyster reef breakwaters on wave height attenuation and sediment stabilization through numerical modeling (XBeach) under three different synthetic storm scenarios coupled with three unique sea level rise projections near Alabama Port. This has been accomplished by comparing a with and without project condition using XBeach in a two-dimensional (2D) mode by analyzing wave height, velocity, and cumulative bed-level changes at the study site. The …

Initiation Criteria For The Onset Of Geomagnetic Substorms Based On Auroral Observations And Electrojet Current Signatures, Mayowa Michael Kayode-Adeoye

<strong> Theses and Dissertations </strong>

In recent years, several substorm onset criteria have been developed, either from auroral observations (many authors) or from auroral electrojet properties such as those described by (Forsyth et al., 2015; Maimaiti et al., 2019; Newell & Gjerloev, 2011; Partamies et al., 2011) The different criteria are being investigated using a low order physics model of the magnetosphere called WINDMI (Spencer et al., 2009) and inferences are being made in line with the WINDMI model. The model variables will be compared with the criteria for substorm onset proposed by examining the SML index.

The WINDMI model uses solar wind and IMF …