Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Embedding Oriented Graphs In Books, Stacey R. Mcadams

Doctoral Dissertations

A book consists of a line L in [special characters omitted]3, called the spine, and a collection of half planes, called pages, whose common boundary is L. A k-book is book with k pages. A k-page book embedding is a continuous one-to-one mapping of a graph G into a book such that the vertices are mapped into L and the edges are each mapped to either the spine or a particular page, such that no two edges cross in any page. Each page contains a planar subgraph of G. The book thickness, denoted bt( …

Anxiolytic Effects Of Propranolol And Diphenoxylate On Mice And Automated Stretch-Attend Posture Analysis, Kevin Scott Holly

Doctoral Dissertations

The prevention of social anxiety, performance anxiety, and social phobia via the combination of two generic drugs, diphenoxylate HC1 (opioid) plus atropine sulfate (anticholinergic) and propranolol HCl (beta blocker) was evaluated in mice through behavioral studies. A patent published on a September 8, 2011 by Benjamin D. Holly, US 2011/0218215 Al, prompted the research. The drug combination of diphenoxylate and atropine plus propranolol could be an immediate treatment for patients suffering from acute phobic and social anxiety disorders. Demonstrating the anxiolytic effects of the treatment on mice would validate a mouse model for neuroscientist to be used to detect the …

Generalized Partial Directed Coherence And Centrality Measures In Brain Networks For Epileptogenic Focus Localization, Joshua Aaron Adkinson

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate epileptogenic focus localization is required prior to surgical resection of brain tissue for treatment of patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy, a clinical need that is partially fulfilled to date through a subjective, and at times inconclusive, evaluation of the recorded electroencephalogram (EEG). Using brain connectivity analysis, patterns of causal interactions between brain regions were derived from multichannel EEG of 127 seizures in nine patients with focal, temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The statistically significant directed interactions in the reconstructed brain networks were estimated from three second intracranial multi-electrode EEG segments using the Generalized Partial Directed Coherence (GPDC) and validated …

Thermal Analysis In A Triple-Layered Skin Structure With Embedded Vasculature, Tumor, And Gold Nanoshells, Casey O. Orndorff

Doctoral Dissertations

In hyperthermia skin cancer treatment, the objective is to control laser heating of the tumor (target temperatures of 42-46 °C) so that the temperatures of the normal tissue surrounding the tumor remains low enough not to damage the normal tissue. However, obtaining accurate temperature distributions in living tissue related to hyperthermia skin cancer treatment without using an intruding sensor is a challenge. The objective of this dissertation research is to develop a mathematical model that can accurately predict the temperature distribution in the tumor region and surrounding normal tissue induced by laser irradiation. The model is based on a modified …

Direct And Inverse Scattering Problems For Domains With Multiple Corners, Jiang Yihong

Doctoral Dissertations

Direct and inverse scattering problems have wide applications in geographical exploration, radar, sonar, medical imaging and non-destructive testing. In many applications, the obstacles are not smooth. Corner singularity challenges the design of a forward solver. Also, the nonlinearity and ill-posedness of the inverse problem challenge the design of an efficient, robust and accurate imaging method.

This dissertation presents numerical methods for solving the direct and inverse scattering problems for domains with multiple corners. The acoustic wave is sent from the transducers, scattered by obstacles and received by the transducers. This forms the response matrix data. The goal for the direct …

Computational Micro-Flow With Spectral Element Method And High Reynolds Number Flow With Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Method, Haibo Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, two numerical methods with high order accuracy, Spectral Element Method (SEM) and Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Method (DG-FEM), are chosen to solve problems in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The merits of these two methods will be discussed and utilized in different kinds of CFD problems. The simulations of the micro-flow systems with complex geometries and physical applications will be presented by SEM. Moreover, the numerical solutions for the Hyperbolic Flow will be obtained by DG-FEM. By solving problems with these two methods, the differences between them will be discussed as well.

Compressible Navier-Stokes equations with Electro-osmosis body …

Experimental Investigation And Numerical Simulation Of A Copper Micro-Channel Heat Exchanger With Hfe-7200 Working Fluid, Eric Borquist

Doctoral Dissertations

Ever increasing cost and consumption of global energy resources has inspired the development of energy harvesting techniques which increase system efficiency, sustainability, and environmental impact by using waste energy otherwise lost to the surroundings. As part of a larger effort to produce a multi-energy source prototype, this study focused on the fabrication and testing of a waste heat recovery micro-channel heat exchanger. Reducing cost and facility requirements were a priority for potential industry and commercial adoption of such energy harvesting devices. During development of the micro-channel heat exchanger, a new fabrication process using mature technologies was created that reduced cost, …

Mutlifunctional Platforms For Gene And Drug Delivery For Cancer Therapy, Jeffery J. Ambrose Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society estimate that 1.6 million new cancer incidences and over half a million cancer related deaths occur annually [1][2]. Cancer the second most common cause of death in the United States [1], [2]. Although the causes of cancer can vary depending on cell type, all or almost all instances of cancer arise from a mutation or from an abnormal activation of the cellular genes that control cell growth and mitosis [3].

Treatment of a given cancer type depends on the subtype, stage and progression of the cancer. Varieties of cancer therapy include …

Electromagnetic Properties Of Metal-Dielectric Media And Their Applications, Shravan Rakesh Animilli

Doctoral Dissertations

The main objective of this dissertation is to investigate nano-structured random composite materials, which exhibit anomalous phenomena, such as the extraordinary enhancements of linear and non-linear optical processes due to excitation of collective electronic states, surface plasmons (SP). The main goal is to develop a time and memory efficient novel numerical method to study the properties of these random media in three dimensions (3D) by utilization of multi core processing and packages such as MPI for parallel execution. The developed numerical studies are then utilized to provide a comprehensive characterization and optimization of a surface plasmon enhanced solar cell (SPESC) …

Tunable Controlled Release Of Molecular Species From Halloysite Nanotubes, Divya Narayan Elumalai

Doctoral Dissertations

Encouraged by potential applications in rust coatings, self-healing composites, selective delivery of drugs, and catalysis, the transport of molecular species through Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), specifically the storage and controlled release of these molecules, has attracted strong interest in recent years. HNTs are a naturally occurring biocompatible nanomaterial that are abundantly and readily available. They are alumosilicate based tubular clay nanotubes with an inner lumen of 15 nm and a length of 600-900 nm. The size of the inner lumen of HNTs may be adjusted by etching. The lumen can be loaded with functional agents like antioxidants, anticorrosion agents, flame-retardant agents, …