Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Understanding The Physics Of Magnetic Nanoparticles And Their Applications In The Biomedical Field, Suvra Santa Laha

Wayne State University Dissertations

The study of magnetic nanoparticles is of great interest because of their potential uses in magnetic-recording, medical diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Additionally, they also offer an opportunity to understand the physics underlying the complex behavior exhibited by these materials. Two of the most important relaxation phenomena occurring in magnetic nanoparticles are superparamagnetic blocking and spin-glass-like freezing. In addition to features attributed to superparamagnetism, these nanoparticles can also exhibit magnetic relaxation effects at very low temperatures (≲ 50 K). Our studies suggest that all structural defects, and not just surface spins, are responsible for the low-temperature glass-like relaxation observed in many …

On A Multi-Dimensional Singular Stochastic Control Problem: The Parabolic Case, Nhat Do Minh Nguyen

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation considers a stochastic dynamic system which is governed by a multidimensional diffusion process with time dependent coefficients. The control acts additively on the state of the system. The objective is to minimize the expected cumulative cost associated with the position of the system and the amount of control exerted. It is proved that Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman’s equation of the problem has a solution, which corresponds to the optimal cost of the problem. We also investigate the smoothness of the free boundary arising from the problem.

In the second part of the dissertation, we study the backward parabolic problem for a …

Investigation Of Temperature Dependent Magnetic Hyperthermia In Fe3o4 Ferrofluids, Humeshkar Bhaskar Nemala

Wayne State University Dissertations

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) of Fe3O4 and gamma-Fe2O3 have been exploited in the biomedical fields for imaging, targeted drug delivery and magnetic hyperthermia. Magnetic hyperthermia (MHT), the production of heat using ferrofluids, colloidal suspensions of MNPs, in an external AC magnetic field (amplitude, 100-500 Oe and frequency 50 kHz -1MHz), has been explored by many researchers, both in vitro and in vivo, as an alternative viable option to treat cancer. The heat energy generated by Néel and Brownian relaxation processes of the internal magnetic spins could be used to elevate local tissue temperature to about 46 ˚C to arrest cancerous growth. …

Classical And Ab Initio Qm/Mm Simulations Of Bacterial Enzymes, Sajeewa Walimuni Dewage

Wayne State University Dissertations

This thesis describes analyses performed on three enzyme systems. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 involve studies carried out on the GatCAB enzyme of H. pylori and S. aureus. Since information at the electronic level was not required for these studies, sampling of the configuration space carried out at the molecular mechanics level was adequate. In Chapter 2, the snapshots sampled using MD were used as input for average correlation difference calculations and average RMSD difference calculations to ascertain the existence of a communication pathway between two subunits of GatCAB. Experimental and computational results obtained, suggest the existence of a communication …

Interaction Forces And Reaction Kinetics Of Ligand-Cell Receptor Systems Using Atomic Force Microscopy, Anwesha Sarkar

Wayne State University Dissertations

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) provides superior imaging resolution and the ability to measure forces at the nanoscale. It is an important tool for studying a wide range of bio-molecular samples from proteins, DNA to living cells. We developed AFM measurement procedures to measure protein interactions on live cells at the single molecular level. These measurements can be interpreted by using proper statistical approaches and can yield important parameters about ligand-receptor interactions on live cells. However, the standard theory for analyzing rupture force data does not fit the experimental rupture force histograms. Most of the experimental measurements of rupture force data …

Chirped-Pulse Fourier Transform Microwave Spectroscopy In Pulsed Uniform Supersonic Flows, Chamara S.W Abeysekera

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on the development of a new experimental apparatus that combines two powerful techniques: Chirped-Pulse Fourier-Transform Microwave (CP-FTMW) spectroscopy and uniform supersonic flows. This combination promises a nearly universal detection method that can deliver quantitative isomer, conformer, and vibrational level specific detection; characterize unstable reaction products and intermediates; and perform unique spectroscopic, kinetics and dynamics measurements.

Thus, a new high-power Ka band (26 – 40 GHz) chirped pulse spectrometer with sub-MHz resolution was designed and constructed. In order to study smaller molecules, E-band (60 – 90 GHz) capabilities were also added to the spectrometer. A novel strategy …

Synthesis Of Cryptands For Eu2+-Containing Complexes, Chengcheng Wang

Wayne State University Theses

Eu2+-containing complexes have considerable applications in synthetic chemistry, medical diagnosis, and materials science. However, Eu2+ is easily oxidized in solution when exposed to air. Allen and coworkers have demonstrated that Eu2+ can be stabilized by functionalized cryptands. Based on this idea, I focused my research on synthesizing cryptands. The progress towards synthesizing several modified cryptands is described in the thesis. The Eu2+-containing complexes of these cryptates have potential applications as magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents, luminescent materials, and magnetic materials.

A Customer Choice Modeling Framework For Assortment Planning Of Configurable Products In Automotive Industry, Farah Dubaisi

Wayne State University Theses

Due to the increased competition in the auto industry, proliferation of the vehicle models and increased customer need for choice and customization, it has become more critical than ever to offer a variety of features and customization flexibility while at the same time restraining and, even better, cutting down the costs. Product complexity, in the automotive industry, can be measured by the size of the assortment offered, i.e., set of vehicle configurations a customer can choose from (e.g., for a given model of a brand). While complexity fosters growth with increased alignment of product characteristics and customer needs, it results …

Effects Of Anthropogenic Particles On The Chemical And Geophysical Properties Of Urban Soils, Detroit, Michigan, Katharine Orlicki

Wayne State University Theses

There is a great need in many cities for a better quality of urban soil maps. This is due to the increasing interest in repurposing vacant land for urban redevelopment, agriculture, and green infrastructure. Mapping vacant urban land in Detroit can be very difficult because anthropogenic soils were often highly variable and frequently contained demolition debris (such as brick), this makes it difficult to use a hand auger. This study was undertaken in Detroit, MI to create a more efficient way to map urban soils based on their geophysical and chemical properties. This will make the mapping process faster, less …

Predictive Analytics For Disease Condition Of Patients In Emergency Department, Azade Tabaie

Wayne State University Theses

Emergency Departments (EDs) in hospitals are experiencing severe crowding and prolonged patient waiting times. The reported crowding in hospitals shows patients in hospital hallways, long waiting times and full occupancy of ED beds. ED crowding has several potential unfavorable effects including patients and staff frustration, lower patient satisfaction and poor health outcomes. The primary motivations behind this study are shortening the patients’ waiting time and improving patient satisfaction and level of care.

The very initial interaction between clinicians and a patient is recorded on nurse triage notes which contain details of the reason for patient’s visit including specific symptoms and …

Estimating Cold Nuclear Matter Effects Using Jets In P-Pb Collisions At √Snn = 5.02 Tev With The Alice Detector, Christopher Ghanim Yaldo

Wayne State University Dissertations

In heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC, a suppression of the nuclear modifi- cation factor for jets along with other strongly interacting particles has been observed relative to proton-proton collisions. To unambiguously determine if this suppression is due to the creation of a strongly interacting medium of de-confied partons referred to as the Quark-Gluon Plasma, or due to Cold Nuclear Matter effects, a "control experiment" is required. Proton-lead collisions serve as this control experiment, because these colli- sions are expected to be sensitive to cold nuclear matter effects while not producing a QGP at this collision energy (√sNN = …

Stochastic Approximation Algorithms With Applications To Particle Swarm Optimization, Adaptive Optimization, And Consensus, Quan Yuan

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this dissertation, we present three problems arising in recent applications of stochastic approximation methods. In Chapter 2, we use stochastic approximation to analyze Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. We introduce four coefficients and rewrite the PSO procedure as a stochastic approximation type iterative algorithm. Then we analyze its convergence using weak convergence method. It is proved that a suitably scaled sequence of swarms converge to the solution of an ordinary differential equation. We also establish certain stability results. Moreover, convergence rates are ascertained by using weak convergence method. A centered and scaled sequence of the estimation errors is shown …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Rna Reactivity Of Amino-Acid-Linked Cisplatin Analogues, Xun Bao

Wayne State University Dissertations

The essential role of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) in the cell life cycle is highlighted by protein synthesis; therefore, the ribosome is considered to be an ideal drug target. Ribosomal RNAs exhibit a high level of structural diversity. The well-known anticancer drug cisplatin was previously applied as a chemical probe of rRNA structure to determine solvent accessible purines (guanosine) in vivo and in vitro. Cisplatin accumulates faster on RNA than DNA, with less chance of repair. As such, designing new RNA-targeting Pt compounds is not only a promising direction for chemical-probing applications, but also for the design of anticancer drugs that …

Strong Field Ionization Of Radicals And Reaction Intermediates, Fadia Cudry

Wayne State University Dissertations

This work presents results of adapting SFI probe for detection of radicals and their isomers. Radicals and reaction intermediates were produced using an established method flash pyrolysis. This combination allows for new insight in studying radicals and provide complementary results to the other detection methods used. This is the first study reporting the use of SFI to detect radicals. This detection will also provide structural information of the radicals under study.

For acetone and isoprene, a detailed study shows the SFI flash pyrolysis mass spectra. These mass spectra were then compared to the spectra produced by other detection techniques. We …

Investigation Of New Ligand Architechtures Towards Proton And Water Reduction Catalysis By Cobalt Complexes, Debashis Basu

Wayne State University Dissertations

We designed several redox-active ligand architectures to optimize and understand the redox, electronic, and catalytic properties of their respective cobalt complexes. Ligand design was varied from pentadentate donor phenolate to tetradentate acceptor oxime in order to reduce the overpotential of hydrogen generation in organic solvents. We altered the substitution, axial ligands and axial ligand substitutions to vary electronic and catalytic properties for such tetra- or pentadentate ligand systems. Knowledge of the nature of the active species for catalysis enabled us to design the pentadentate oxime ligand which exhibited rich reaction chemistry along with suitable catalytic property in organic solvent. Presence …

Unsupervised Learning And Image Classification In High Performance Computing Cluster, Itauma Itauma

Wayne State University Theses

Feature learning and object classification in machine learning have become very active research areas in recent decades. Identifying good features has various benefits for object classification in respect to reducing the computational cost and increasing the classification accuracy. In addition, many research studies have focused on the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to improve the training time for machine learning algorithms. In this study, the use of an alternative platform, called High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC), to handle unsupervised feature learning, image and speech classification and improve the computational cost is proposed.

HPCC is a Big Data processing and …

Isomer Detection Of Radicals Produced By The Flash Pyrolysis Of Heptane And Its Structural Isomers, Steven Lingenfelter

Wayne State University Theses

Radicals can play an important role in combustion chemistry as key intermediates. As such studying them is vital in the study of combustion chemistry. Our study focused on the production of the 1 and 2-propyl radical from heptane isomers. Radicals were produced by flash pyrolysis which was achieved by restively heating a silicon carbide tube through which a molecular beam passed. Strong field ionization was utilized to discriminate between the two propyl isomers. Results indicated the expected trend however the signal intensity was quite low with significant noise. Further improvements are needed to improve the quality as well as the …

Design And Synthesis Of Isatin-Based Caspase Inhibitors For Ruthenium Caging Applications, Kasun Chinthaka Ratnayake

Wayne State University Theses

ABSTRACT

DESIGN AND SYNTHESIS OF ISATIN BASED CASPASE INHIBITORS FOR RUTHENIUM CAGING APPLICATIONS

by

KASUN CHINTHAKA RATNAYAKE

August 2015

Advisor: Jeremy J. Kodanko, Ph.D.

Major: Chemistry (Organic)

Degree: Master of Science

Apoptosis is the energy dependent programmed cell death. Improper function of apoptosis could lead to diseases such as cancers, strokes, Alziemer’s disease. Caspases are the enzymes involved in the later stage of this process. Peptidyl and non-peptidyl caspase inhibitors have been synthesized recently. These non-peptidyl compound classes which consist of pyrrolidinyl-5-sulfo isatins have showed a greater potency against executioner caspases, caspase-3 and -7. According to literature and for further …

Inference Of Hydrogeological Conditions And Source History Of Groundwater Contaminants Using 3-D Modeling And Human Health Risk Assessment, Mary Rosanna Carnagie

Wayne State University Theses

This study was completed using data interpolation and human health risk modules in Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance (SADA) software to model a 3-D time-series of 1,4-dioxane and vinyl chloride plumes and their associated health risks to infer hydrogeological conditions at the Ann Arbor Landfill site. Ordinary kriging estimates of contaminant distribution and human health risk distribution provide insight to groundwater flow direction, hydraulic conductivity distribution, and source history of contaminants at sites with groundwater contamination in a glacial aquifer system. More studies with larger datasets in glacial aquifer systems are necessary to prove these correlations, but this thesis illustrates …

Plus: A Unique Personalized Literature Recommender System, Jingwen Zhang

Wayne State University Theses

There are massive research papers published from various of disciplines every year, and people who are engaged in scientific research usually have to spend a large amount of time on searching and finding the papers that they are interested in.

In this thesis, we illustrated a unique personalized literature recommender system (PLUS) which was proposed to predict users' personal research interests and recommend the latest papers to them as much as possible. The system shows advantages in four aspects: (1) it takes multiple sources that could reflect a user's personal research interest as the input; (2) it prevents the recommendations …

Comparison Of Lazy Controller And Constant Bandwidth Server For Temperature Control, Zhen Sun

Wayne State University Theses

Temperature control plays an important role in building control systems; there are

numerous methods for controlling temperature. Recently, a popular controller is the

lazy controller which proposed by Truong et al. However, by applying lazy control, the

temperature is not stable since this controller simply lets temperature increase or decrease

until it reaches the upper or lower temperature thresholds. We seek a heater-control

schedule that can make room temperatures more stable. The Constant Bandwidth Server

(CBS) was developed to handle soft real-time tasks characterized by the execution time

and period. By employing the concepts of CBS, we can derive a …

Evaluation Of An Architectural-Level Approach For Finding Security Vulnerabilities, Mohammad Anamul Haque

Wayne State University Theses

The cost of security vulnerabilities of a software system is high. As a result,

many techniques have been developed to find the vulnerabilities at development time. Of particular interest are static analysis techniques that can consider all possible executions of a system. But, static analysis can suffer from a large number of false positives.

A recently developed approach, Scoria, is a semi-automated static analysis that requires security architects to annotate the code, typecheck the annotations, extract a hierarchical object graph and write constraints in order to find security vulnerabilities in a system.

This thesis evaluates Scoria on three systems (sizes …

Effective Auto Encoder For Unsupervised Sparse Representation, Faria Mahnaz

Wayne State University Theses

High dimensionality and the sheer size of unlabeled data available today demand

new development in unsupervised learning of sparse representation. Despite of recent

advances in representation learning, most of the current methods are limited when

dealing with large scale unlabeled data. In this study, we propose a new unsupervised

method that is able to learn sparse representation from unlabeled data efficiently. We

derive a closed-form solution based on the sequential minimal optimization (SMO)

for training an auto encoder-decoder module, which efficiently extracts sparse and

compact features from any data set with various size. The inference process in the

proposed learning …

Developing An Automated Forecasting Framework For Predicting Operation Room Block Time, Azad Sadr Haghighi

Wayne State University Theses

Operating rooms are the most important part of the hospitals, since they have highest influence on financial state of the hospital. Because of high uncertainty in surgery cases demands and their durations, the scheduling of the surgeries becomes a very challenging and critical issue in hospitals. One of the most common approaches to overcome this uncertainty is applying block times which is the time intervals allocated to surgery groups in the hospital. Assigning sufficient amount of the time to each block, is very important, since overestimating lead to wasting resources and on the other hand underestimation causes the overtime staffing …

Quantitative And Qualitative Evaluation Of Metrics On Object Graphs Extracted By Abstract Interpretation, Sumukhi Chandrashekar

Wayne State University Theses

Evaluating programming-language based techniques is crucial to judge their usefulness in practice but requires a careful selection of systems on

which to evaluate the technique. Since it is particularly hard to evaluate a heavyweight technique, such as one that requires adding annotations

to the code or rewriting the system in a radically different language, it is common to use a lightweight proxy to predict the technique's usefulness

for a system. But the reliability of such a proxy is unclear.

We propose a principled data-driven approach to derive a lightweight proxy for a heavyweight technique that requires adding annotations to the …

Search For Fully Reconstructed W Boson Decay, Sangeetha Baskaran

Wayne State University Theses

We have applied techniques used in reconstructing charm and bottom hadron decays to reconstruct W Boson decay. This technique can also be used for the study of other heavy Boson decays. We search for the decay of a W Boson to a D+ meson and a K*0 meson. Events are selected based on the topology of the displaced decay vertex of the D+ → K^- π^+ π^+ . The K*0 is reconstructed in its K^± π^∓ decay mode.

Bayesian Approach For Early Stage Event Prediction In Survival Data, Mahtab Jahanbani Fard

Wayne State University Theses

Predicting event occurrence at an early stage in longitudinal studies is an important and challenging problem which has high practical value. As opposed to the standard classification and regression problems where a domain expert can provide the labels for the data in a reasonably short period of time, training data in such longitudinal studies must be obtained only by waiting for the occurrence of sufficient number of events. On the other hand, survival analysis aims at finding the underlying distribution for data that measure the length of time until the occurrence of an event. However, it cannot give an answer …

Impacts Of Anthropogenic Watershed Activity On The Sedimentary Record Of Dams From The Midwestern United States: A Case Study From Michigan And Indiana, Jenna Hage-Hassan

Wayne State University Theses

Large-scale watershed land use changes, including urbanization, have resulted in accelerated soil erosion and sediment accumulation rates, which in turn have posed a threat to the longevity and productivity of a majority of the aging dams in the mid-western United States. In this study, we collected and analyzed 3 sediment cores each from two dams from the Mid-western United States: Webber Dam in Michigan and Goshen Pond Dam in Indiana. Cores were analyzed for 137Cs and 210Pb to establish chronology, as well as concentrations and isotopic composition of organic carbon and nitrogen to investigate the land use changes as preserved …

Survival Analysis Approach For Early Prediction Of Student Dropout, Sattar Ameri

Wayne State University Theses

Retention of students at colleges and universities has long been a concern for educators for many decades. The consequences of student attrition are significant for both students, academic staffs and the overall institution. Thus, increasing student retention is a long term goal of any academic institution. The most vulnerable students at all institutions of higher education are the freshman students, who are at the highest risk of dropping out at the beginning of their study. Consequently, the early identification of at-risk students is a crucial task that needs to be addressed precisely. In this thesis, we develop a framework for …

Evaluation Of Hygroscopic Soil Amendments And Natural Freeze-Thaw Cycling To Accelerate The Mechanical Breakdown Of Artifacts In Demolition Site Soils, Phillip Joseph Backers

Wayne State University Theses

Many cities worldwide have areas of vacant land produced by building demolition. This open space has attracted great interest as a potential resource for green infrastructure, urban agriculture, and other purposes related to urban renewal. Unfortunately, rock-like artifacts (e.g. brick, mortar, concrete) are often present in great abundance in demolition site soils. These artifacts make the soil difficult to till, create obstacles for root penetration, and limit the soil’s water-holding capacity, infiltration and aeration. As an alternative to physical removal, this study was carried out to test the feasibility of using hygroscopic compounds as soil amendments to accelerate the mechanical …