Search results

Title: CHARACTERIZATION OF A NOVEL TUMOR SUPPRESSOR BAX
Creator: Wang, Xin
Date: 2013-04-16, 2013-05
Description: Bax is a pro-death tumor suppressor. The loss of functional Bax expression can enhance the tumor growth. Recently we discovered a new family...
Show moreBax is a pro-death tumor suppressor. The loss of functional Bax expression can enhance the tumor growth. Recently we discovered a new family of functional Bax isoforms generated specifically in certain tumors; one of them is Bax 2 . In this thesis, I characterized the properties of Bax 2 protein by comparing with the parental Bax 2. Bax 2 was cloned into a GFP mammalian expression vector and transfected into the bax knockout cells. I examined Bax 2 expression, cellular distribution, and ability to induce cell death. The results show that the Bax 2 protein aggregated as granules around the nucleus in cytoplasm and induced more cell death than that from previously studied Bax 2. The results implicate that cancer patients with Bax 2 isoform might have better prognosis or response to treatment.
M.S. in Biology, May 2013
Show less

Title: Aeroacoustic Characteristics of a Rectangular Multi-element Supersonic Jet Mixer-ejector Nozzle
Creator: Taghavi, R., Raman, G.
Date: 1997-10-23
Publisher: Academic Press Ltd
Description: This paper provides a unique, detailed evaluation of the acoustics and aerodynamics of a rectangular multi-element supersonic jet mixer...
Show moreThis paper provides a unique, detailed evaluation of the acoustics and aerodynamics of a rectangular multi-element supersonic jet mixer-ejector noise suppressor. The performance of such mixer-ejectors is important in aircraft engine applications for noise suppression and thrust augmentation. In contrast to most prior experimental studies on ejectors that reported either aerodynamic of acoustic data, the present work documents both types of data. Information on the mixing, pumping, ejector wall pressure distribution, thrust augmentation and noise suppression characteristics of four simple, multi-element, jet mixer-ejector configurations is presented. The four configurations included the effect of ejector area ratio (AR = ejector cross-sectional area/total primary nozzle area) and the effect of non-parallel ejector walls. The configuration that produced the best noise suppression characteristics has also been studied in detail. The present results show that ejector configurations that produced the maximum pumping (secondary (induced) flow normalized by the primary flow) also exhibited the lowest wall pressures in the inlet region, and the maximum thrust augmentation. When cases having the same total mass flow were compared, one found that noise suppression trends corresponded with those for pumping (per unit secondary area). Surprisingly, the mixing (quantified by the peak Mach number, and flow uniformity) at the ejector exit exhibited no relationship to the noise suppression at moderate primary jet fully expanded M-j (the Mach number that would have been attained under isentropic expansion). However, the noise suppression dependence on the mixing was apparent at M-j = 1.6. The above observations are justified by noting that the mixing at the ejector exit is not a strong factor in determining the radiated noise when noise produced internal to the ejector dominates the noise field outside the ejector. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.
Show less

Title: MOLECULAR AND GENETIC ENGINEERING STUDIES OF VITREOSCILLA HEMOGLOBIN
Creator: Chen, Yang
Date: 2014, 2014-05
Description: Biodesulfurization is a promising field that can be applied to the processing of crude oil for removing dibenzothiophene (DBT) and its...
Show moreBiodesulfurization is a promising field that can be applied to the processing of crude oil for removing dibenzothiophene (DBT) and its derivatives. A thermophilic bacterial strain Paenibacillus naphthalenovorans (32O-Y) was found to metabolize DBT as sole sulfur source. Another thermophilic strain Paenibacillus apiaries (32O-W) which cannot utilize DBT, however, was found to increase the desulfurization activity of 32O-Y in mixed 32O-Y+W culture in minimal-DBT medium at temperatures between 45 and 50 °C. In order to increase the desulfurization activity of these strains, we genetically engineered strain 32O-Y to express Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb). VHb is the first hemoglobin found in bacteria and has been used to increase the growth and product yields various cells. The VHb gene (vgb) was successfully cloned into shuttle vector pNW33N. 32O-Y was successfully transformed with pNW33N-vgb while 32O-W was not. Compared to untransformed 32O-Y, 32O-Y[pNW33N-vgb] grew slower and reached a lower maximum OD600 when cultured in minimal-DBT medium at 45 °C. However, the Gibbs assay showed that VHb expression in 32O-Y increased its desulfurization activity by 18%. Thus, VHb can help 32O-Y metabolizing DBT while it might not promote growth. A series of high temperatures cultures need to be conducted to select an even more thermophilic strain which can fulfill the 60 °C requirement of industrial process. The VHb mutant (vgbM3) was also studied, which was previously found correlated with increased growth of E. coli DH5α, compared with the effect of wild type VHb. The effect that the mutant amino acids in VHbM3 was determined. Plasmid pUC- vgbM3 was obtained and successfully transformed to DH5α. After sequencing, two copies of vgbM3 were found in the plasmid. In order to study only one copy of vgbM3, x primers were designed for amplification. Fragment vgbM3 was successfully inserted into vector pUC18, followed by successful transformation into DH5α. Cell free extract was obtained from strains DH5α, DH5α[pUC8:16] and DH5α[pUC18-vgbM3] for CO-difference assay. As expected, DH5α expressed no hemoglobin. DH5α[pUC8:16] expressed wild type hemoglobin at 20 nmol/gm wet weight, while DH5α[pUC18-vgbM3] expressed mutant hemoglobin at 4 nmol/gm wet weight. Oxygen dissociation constant determination of VHbM3 will be the next step.
M.S. in Biology, May 2014
Show less

Title: Garfield Station Area Rehabilitation Project
Creator: Oh, Soohyun
Date: 2011-04-25, 2011-05
Description: Architecture is significantly associated with people. Because architecture is design of life, activities and spaces for people. Therefore,...
Show moreArchitecture is significantly associated with people. Because architecture is design of life, activities and spaces for people. Therefore, architectural behavior does not have only a physical impact but also social and economic impact on the area. Especially the architectural elements can help to development an area and provide an enhanced economic aspect, cultural activities and social communication to inhabitants in underdeveloped or backward area. The Garfield Station Area Rehabilitation Project is a grand scale development project that comprehends urban scheme, site master plan and architectural design phases. The goal of the project, consistent throughout all phases, is to transform the abandoned Washington Park Community into a recovered, preserved and developed community with its rich history by promoting cultural, social and economical incentives to be linked to the Hyde Park Community.
M.S. in Architecture, May 2011
Show less

Title: Delta Shelter (sequence unknown), IPRO 311 - Deliverables
Creator: Schug, Timothy, Bradley, Joshua, Cahan, Noah, Dobbin, Dan, Hallenbeck, Jeff, Jordan, Davyd, Strandquist, Brad, Dohm, Jacob, Hoffman, Kent, Lee, Woong-kyo, Waisath, Nathan
Date: 2009-12
Description: The Delta Tau Delta fraternity wants to make their current house as energy efficient and green as possible. The team will look at all aspects...
Show moreThe Delta Tau Delta fraternity wants to make their current house as energy efficient and green as possible. The team will look at all aspects of the DTD house and their operations to create a more energy efficient fraternity. During the term, the team will consider possible alternatives to many issues including but not limited to: mechanical heating system, building envelope, thermal properties of buildings perimeter, roofing materials, air infiltration, ventilation, and occupancy trends.
Deliverables for IPRO 311: Delta Shelter for the fall 2009
Show less

Title: Integration of Process Improvement (sequence unknown), IPRO 304 - Deliverables
Creator: Bauer, Jessie, Bergeron, Tony, Campen, Matt, Gruchalski, Erik, Choi, Tae Ki, Marx, Ryan, Murti, Chaitanya, Robbins, Brian, Sohal, Atinder Pal, Stenson, Amanda, Taboada, Alejandro, Zhang, Bingjian
Date: 2009-12
Description: A. Finkl and Sons require an effective way of detecting carbide inserts on the steel milling machine. These inserts break off due to stress...
Show moreA. Finkl and Sons require an effective way of detecting carbide inserts on the steel milling machine. These inserts break off due to stress and shape of metal and need to be replaced immediately to avoid further damage to the machine and the steel to be milled.
Sponsorship: A. Finkl and Sona
Deliverables for IPRO 304: Integration of Process Improvements for the fall 2009 semester.
Show less

Title: CMOS POLAR DIGITAL POWER AMPLIFIER FOR HIGH DATA RATE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
Creator: Zhu, Qiuyao
Date: 2016, 2016-12
Description: Power amplifier (PA) is the most important circuit block in an RF transmitter. It typically consumes more than 80% of the power taken by the...
Show morePower amplifier (PA) is the most important circuit block in an RF transmitter. It typically consumes more than 80% of the power taken by the entire transmitter. Therefore, a highly efficient PA is the key to a successful RF front-end system. The polar transmitter architecture is studied herein in order to take advantage of the highly efficient switching-mode PA. However, due to the large expanded bandwidth from the nonlinear IQ to polar conversion and the sensitive amplitude/phase delay impairment, hardly any reported polar design is able to transmit high data rate wireless communication signals. In this work, an extensive research on the digital polar transmitter system for high data rate signals is presented. An integrated CMOS digital power am- plifier (DPA) design is demonstrated afterwards. This DPA consists of 9-bit fully thermometer-coded uniform cells to achieve high linearity for wide bandwidth OFDM signals. By analyzing the amplitude and phase paths impairment, which will cause both in-band and out-of-band distortions, a 960 MHz digital delay tuner is designed for precise amplitude and phase alignment. Furthermore, two digital pre-distortion algorithms for DPA are implemented and compared. Importantly, an on-chip DC- DC converter is included for direct battery connection and power control. A boosted cascode gate bias improves PA efficiency at the low power region. The proposed design is fabricated using a 55 nm RF CMOS technology. The DPA with several peripheral blocks occupies only 0.63 mm2 active silicon area. This DPA including the digital AM filtering achieves a peak output power of +21.9 dBm with 41% efficiency. It achieves EVM of 2.9% with 20 MHz IEEE 802.11ac compliance of 256-QAM OFDM signals, and also achieves EVM of 4.5% (CC0) / 4.8% (CC1) with 2 x 20 MHz 3GPP LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation compliance of 64-QAM OFDM signals. This highly linear DPA has demonstrated high flexibility, high efficiency, and small area. To the author's knowledge, this is the first reported DPA that meets either the linearity requirements of 256-QAM OFDM signals or the signal bandwidth of 40 MHz, paving the path for wideband high data rate wireless applications using digital polar architecture. At the same time, aiming at a higher average efficiency, a two-level class- G supply modulator is investigated to dynamically switch the DPA VDD. It has successfully demonstrated an average efficiency of 34.6% for this class-G modulated DPA in a complete circuit simulation using the IEEE 802.11b signal.
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, December 2016
Show less

Title: MEASUREMENT OF 013 IN THE DOUBLE CHOOZ EXPERIMENT
Creator: Yang, Guang
Date: 2016, 2016-12
Description: Neutrino oscillation has been established for over a decade. The mixing angle 013 is one of the parameters that is most difficult to measure...
Show moreNeutrino oscillation has been established for over a decade. The mixing angle 013 is one of the parameters that is most difficult to measure due to its small value. Currently, reactor antineutrino experiments provide the best knowledge of 013, using the electron antineutrino disappearance phenomenon. The most compelling advantage is the high intensity of the reactor antineutrino rate. The Double Chooz experiment, located on the border of France and Belgium, is such an experiment, which aims to have one of the most precise 013 measurements in the world. Dou- ble Chooz has a single-detector phase and a double-detector phase. For the single- detector phase, the limit of the 013 sensitivity comes mostly from the reactor flux. However, the uncertainty on the reactor flux is highly suppressed in the double- detector phase. Oscillation analyses for the two phases have different strategies but need similar inputs, including background estimation, detection systematics evalua- tion, energy reconstruction and so on. The Double Chooz detectors are filled with gadolinium (Gd) doped liquid scintillator and use the inverse beta decay (IBD) sig- nal so that for each phase, there are two independent 013 measurements based on different neutron capturer (Gd or hydrogen). Multiple oscillation analyses are per- formed to provide the best 013 results. In addition to the 013 measurement, Double Chooz is also an excellent playground" to do diverse physics research. For example, a 252Cf calibration source study has been done to understand the spontaneous decay of this radioactive source. Further, Double Chooz also has the ability to do a sterile neutrino search in a certain mass region. Moreover, some new physics ideas can be tested in Double Chooz. In this thesis, the detailed methods to provide precise 013 measurement will be described and the other physics topics will be introduced.
Ph.D. in Pyhsics, December 2016
Show less

Title: SPECTRUM SHARING USING CYCLOSTATIONARY SIGNATURES FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PROVISION
Creator: Iyer, Swapna
Date: 2011-11-21, 2011-12
Description: With the growth in wireless technology, and the ever increasing use of the available spectrum by radio systems, Spectrum Access and Sharing is...
Show moreWith the growth in wireless technology, and the ever increasing use of the available spectrum by radio systems, Spectrum Access and Sharing is highly desired in order to completely utilize the available band of frequencies and thus improve the overall Spectrum E ciency. Cognitive Radio can be used as a technology to improve the spectrum utilization in case of Public Safety Systems. With FCC reserving a 10 MHz band of dedicated spectrum allocated in the 700 MHz band for Broadband Communications, the need to use this band e ciently is necessary. In this thesis, we propose a method by which the available spectrum can be shared among multiple cognitive users in the presence of a high priority cognitive user. We use a Cyclostationary Signature to improve the detection method by other cognitive users. By using this signature we can achieve faster and reliable detection which in turn will improve the Spectrum Utilization.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, December 2011
Show less

Title: Test of a no. 300 De Laval oil purifier and clarifier
Creator: Webster, Sheldon H
Date: 2009, 1921
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/testofno300delav00webs
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology

Title: MULTI-LEVEL MONTE CARLO BASED ON THE AUTOMETIC SAMPLE SIZE ALGORITHM
Creator: Li, Yao
Date: 2013, 2013-12
Description: This research's purpose is to optimize an existing method to simulate stochas- tic integrals using Monte Carlo when the cost of function...
Show moreThis research's purpose is to optimize an existing method to simulate stochas- tic integrals using Monte Carlo when the cost of function evaluation is dimension dependent. In the area of mathematical nance, we often need to price a path- dependent nancial derivative. This will result in the computation of E[g(B( ))], where g stands for a payoff function, and B is the Brownian Motion. A simple way to approximate this expectation is to take the average of the functional over a large num- ber of sample paths. Each path is approximated by a d-dimensional random vector. A larger d will provide a more accurate result. However, due to the limitation in time cost and computer memory, some large dimensions are not easy to be implemented. Therefore, we introduce the multi-level technique that is based on multi-grid ideas. It can be used to reduce the computational complexity for these kind of problems. Moreover, when we apply the multi-level technique, the proper sample size for each subspace integration needs to be computed in order to satisfy our guaranteed conser- vative xed width con dence intervals. Thus, the automatic sample size algorithm (two stage con dence interval algorithm) is used in conjunction with the multi-level method.
M.S. in Applied Mathematics, December 2013
Show less

Title: IMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR PROSTATE CANCER LOCALIZATION WITH MULTISPECTRAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING
Creator: Xin, Liu
Date: 2011-11, 2011-12
Description: In this thesis, we develop a series of image processing algorithms to localize prostate cancer with multispectral magnetic resonance (MR)...
Show moreIn this thesis, we develop a series of image processing algorithms to localize prostate cancer with multispectral magnetic resonance (MR) images to guide biopsy, surgery and minimally invasive therapy. Besides, we develop a new method to for evaluation of image classification algorithms considering correlation between neighboring pixels. Prostate cancer is one of the most prevalent cancer types and one of the leading causes of cancer death among men in the United States. High-resolution MRI has shown higher accuracy than trans-rectal ultrasound (TRUS) to ascertain the presence of prostate cancer. In this work, three different types of MR techniques are employed to provide both morphological and functional information about the benign and malignant tissues of the prostate. These are T2-weighted (T2w) MRI, diffusionweighted imaging MRI (DWI) and dynamic contrasted enhanced MRI (DCE MRI). In the first chapter of this thesis, we briefly describe the fundamentals of different MR techniques, and the multispectral MR dataset used in our experiment. Then, we focus on two tasks of the prostate cancer localization problem: prostate gland extraction and prostate tumor localization. For each topic, we review the previous studies available in the literature, and present our methods with their advantages. Finally, the new image evaluation method considering correlation between pixels is presented. Our prostate segmentation method is fully unsupervised and extracts the prostate gland from DWI MRI in 3D by fusing the active contour model and shape prior information. For tumor localization, we develop an unsupervised approach which is based on fuzzy Markov random field (fuzzy MRF) model, a new scheme based on relative intensity values which can be combined with supervised segmentation classifiers to mimic the cancer localization procedures performed by human readers and a new feature named location map which incorporates the spatial inforx mation of the tumors to remove the need for manual peripheral zone extraction. The proposed image evaluation algorithm is based on receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis and it considers the correlation between neighboring pixels. This method could replace the conventional ROC analysis and offers a more accurate evaluation of the test image. Our algorithms are tested on 20 patients’ multispectral MR images, and the qualitative as well as quantitative experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of our segmentation methods and show that the proposed segmentation methods outperform the currently available used approaches. The evaluation method has been tested on computer simulated images and shows very promising results. The summary and future work is also described at the end of the thesis.
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, December 2011
Show less

Title: SOFT ERROR TOLERANT LATCH CIRCUIT DESIGN FOR DEEPLY SCALED CMOS TECHNOLOGY
Creator: Nan, Haiqing
Date: 2012-01-25, 2012-05
Description: As CMOS technology keeps scaling down, circuit designers face variety of challenges. Due to the scaling of supply voltage and node capacitance...
Show moreAs CMOS technology keeps scaling down, circuit designers face variety of challenges. Due to the scaling of supply voltage and node capacitance, digital circuits are more aware of noise and variations, which cause reliability issues such as soft error. Traditionally the soft error aware VLSI design is limited to applications which require high reliability and operated in high radiation environment such as avionics applications, medical equipments, space industry and military applications. However, with CMOS technology scales down to nanometer region, the VLSI circuits can also be affected by soft errors at ground level which features low radiation energy. In this thesis, totally 5 soft error tolerant latch designs are proposed including HLR-1, HLR-2, HLR-CG1, HLR-CG2, and HLR-CG3. All the proposed designs protect internal nodes as well as output node for soft error regardless the radiation energy. The proposed HLR-1 and HLR-2 latch circuits tolerate soft error for non-CG systems. Since the proposed HLR-1 and HLR-2 designs take advantages of floating node to tolerate soft error, these two designs cannot be applied with clock gating techniques and the minimum clock frequency of these two designs should be greater than 16MHz in order to maintain correct logic at the floating node. The power consumption and circuit delay between the proposed HLR-1 and HLR-2 designs are very close. The proposed HLR-1 design achieves a small amount of benefits in terms of power and delay compared with the proposed HLR-2 design. But the proposed HLR-2 circuit reduces area 3.5% compared to the proposed HLR-1 circuit. The proposed HLR-CG1, HLR-CG2 and HLR-CG3 latch designs fully tolerate soft error regardless of radiation energy for both CG and non-CG systems. Due to the auto correction mechanism embedded in the proposed HLR-CG1, HLR-CG2 and HLRCG3 designs, any soft error at any location will be automatically corrected without generating any floating nodes. The proposed HLR-CG3 features the smallest power consumption and delay but it has the largest area overhead compared to HLR-CG1 and HLR-CG2 circuits. The proposed HLR-CG1 design features the smallest area compared with HLRCG2 and HLR-CG3 designs. The design cost of HLR-CG2 design is between the proposed HLR-CG1 and HLR-CG3 designs. All the proposed designs achieve faster speed and smaller PDP compared to previous hardening techniques. Compared to the proposed HLR-1 design, previous designs increases power 3.77% on average, delay 272.74% on average, PDP 300.29% on average and decreases area 7.09% on average. Compared to the proposed HLR-2 design, previous designs increases power 3.77% on average, delay 272.40% on average, PDP 299.89% on average and decreases area 3.93% on average. Compared to the proposed HLR-CG1 design, previous designs increases area 19.65% on average, delay 213.14% on average, PDP 203.78% on average and decreases power 5.82% on average. Compared to the proposed HLR-CG2 design, previous designs increase area 6.49% on average, delay 193.28% on average, PDP 223.45% on average and power 6.51% on average. Compared to the proposed HLR-CG3 design, previous designs increases delay 272.18% on average, PDP 314.38% on average, power 8.01% on average and area 2.93% on average.
Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, May 2012
Show less

Title: Analysis of Maltese Cross Specimens to Determine Three-Dimensional Yield Surfaces
Creator: Chaudesaygues, Ludwig
Date: 2011-11-29, 2011-12
Description: Yield behavior of extremely porous solid foams under multiaxial states of stress is of significant importance because, unlike pressure...
Show moreYield behavior of extremely porous solid foams under multiaxial states of stress is of significant importance because, unlike pressure independent yield response of the majority of engineering materials, solid foams exhibit quadratic as well as linear dependence on hydrostatic stress component in their yield behavior. Therefore, there exists a critical need to analyze and use specimen geometries that allow biaxial and triaxial experiments through which yield surface can be probed under varying amounts of mean stress. This study investigates, through FE analysis, the feasibility of Maltese-Cross (MC) specimen geometry as a potential candidate for using in biaxial and triaxial experiments. Although solid foams have a pressure dependent yield behavior, the current study adopted a linear elastic-hardening J2 flow rule to keep the analysis reasonably simple and focus on the fundamental effect of specimen geometry on strain field and, more importantly, the extraction of yield point from multiaxial force-displacement data. One must recognize that in multiaxial experiments, particularly in triaxial loading, forces and displacements experienced by the nominal gage section cannot be directly measured for practical reasons. Instead, far field forces and displacements have to be used to calculate average measures of stress and strain within the gage section. This study shows through FE analyses that MC specimens can be used to determine the onset of macroscopic yielding under varying amount of mean stress component, provided that certain stress/strain paths, which cause premature deformation localization out of the gage section, are avoided.
M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, December 2011
Show less

Title: NUMERICAL OBSERVER FOR MOTION QUALITY ASSESSMENT
Creator: Massanes, Francesc
Date: 2011-04-25, 2011-05
Description: The objective of this work is to develop mathematical models (using machine learning regression) that can mimic human ability to perceive...
Show moreThe objective of this work is to develop mathematical models (using machine learning regression) that can mimic human ability to perceive motion of a small object in an image sequence or a video. The motivation for this work comes from the diagnostic cardiac imaging where a small deformation of a cardiac wall motion represents a signi cant diagnostic marker. First a brief overview of the state of the art in image and video quality assessment is given. This overview also points out a need for a new task based quality metrics which can better quantify, subjective, image sequence quality under various degradations, like blur and noise. Next a study is designed to measure human observers motion perception under various degradation models. Later, the results from this study are analyzed to detect which image sequence features are the most relevant for motion perception and the development of a mathematical model aiming to emulate humans. The chosen features are based on so called visual attention and estimated object motion. Since the computation requirement to calculate visual attention and estimated object motion are considerable we also present a fast parallel implementations based on graphical processing units using NVIDIA Compute Uni ed Device Architecture. The preliminary results indicate that proposed machine learning regression models with the use of the visual attention and estimated object motion can accurately predict human motion perception.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, May 2011
Show less

Title: Thermostatic control of electric heating appliances
Creator: Prochazka, R. V
Date: 2009, 1917
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/thermostaticcont00proc
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology, 1917 Bibliography: leaves 26-27 B.S. in...
Show morehttp://www.archive.org/details/thermostaticcont00proc
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology, 1917 Bibliography: leaves 26-27 B.S. in Electrical Engineering, 1917
Show less

Title: TENSIWALL
Creator: Chiu, Mark A.
Date: 2011-12-10, 2011-12
Description: A facade is the interface between building and environment, between indoor and outdoor; therefore it has a functional quality – protection of...
Show moreA facade is the interface between building and environment, between indoor and outdoor; therefore it has a functional quality – protection of the interior spaces, inhabitants, and services from the forces of the exterior surrounding environment. The facade is also the first component to be seen of any building; therefore it has a certain aesthetic quality that it needs to achieve. Currently, most facades are constructed of relatively heavy materials, requiring more structural material usage; and opaque materials, depriving the interior occupants of natural light. A textile facade, however, can provide a lightweight, lighttransmissive, and highly insulative exterior wall, while also offering versatility in the aesthetics. Although they are usually not considered to be a facade material, textiles can create a highly advanced alternative to the current facade solutions. Therefore, the thesis topic is to develop a future exterior wall system with advanced physical properties based on a textile facade.
M.S. in Architecture, December 2011
Show less

Title: DIFFERENTIAL SENSITIVITY OF BAXΔ2 POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CELLS TO ANTI-TUMOR AGENT BORTEZOMIB IN COLON CANCER
Creator: Chen, Wenjing
Date: 2015, 2015-05
Description: Tumor suppressor BaxΔ2 is a functional Bax isoform that is found in microsatellite unstable (MSI) colon cancer. However, BaxΔ2 proteins are...
Show moreTumor suppressor BaxΔ2 is a functional Bax isoform that is found in microsatellite unstable (MSI) colon cancer. However, BaxΔ2 proteins are not stable and are prone to be degraded by proteasomes in tumor cells. Bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor, is an FDA approved anti-cancer drug mainly used for the treatment of myeloma and lymphoma. We tested if Bortezomib can block BaxΔ2 degradation and potentially be beneficial for the treatment of BaxΔ2 positive colon cancer. In this project, we compared the efficacy of Bortezomib-induced cell death in BaxΔ2-positive and BaxΔ2-negative colon cancer cells. We found that BaxΔ2-positive cells were highly sensitive to Bortezomib-induced cell death in comparison with that in BaxΔ2-negative cells. The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of cell viability for BaxΔ2-positive cells is 11.1 nM, while it is 453.8 nM for BaxΔ2-negative cells. The results indicate that Bortezomib has a selectivity towards BaxΔ2-expressive cells and could be a drug candidate for the treatment of BaxΔ2-positive colon cancer.
M.S. in Biology, May 2015
Show less

Title: IMPACT OF WORK FLOW DISRUPTIONS, PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS AND FOREMEN CHARACTERISTICS ON IMPROVISATIONAL DECISIONS AND ACTIONS ON CONSTRUCTION SITES
Creator: Kleps, Stephen M.
Date: 2013, 2013-12
Description: Disruptions on construction sites are a constant issue and unfortunately can have negative impacts on the workflow and productivity of the...
Show moreDisruptions on construction sites are a constant issue and unfortunately can have negative impacts on the workflow and productivity of the impacted crews. As a result of these disruptions, foremen must quickly generate improvised solutions to the disruptions to keep the work of their crew progressing. Yet the mechanics of how exactly this improvisational decision making is occurring has not been previously studied. To address this void in the literature, this study examined the factors that may influence a foremen's ability to improvise, such as the type of disruption, the jobsite characteristics, and the personality, experience, and education of the foremen, in relation to the level of improvisation occurring. To accomplish this, this study collected data from 50 foremen within the electrical construction industry to measure to what degree they improvised and with what speed they improvised in response to their daily disruptions, resulting in 244 recorded disruption incidents. In analyzing these incidents with multilevel modeling analysis techniques, it was determined that the type of disruption did not have as large of an effect on the degree and speed of the resulting improvisation as originally hypothesized. In addition, it was found that factors such as the level of cooperation on the job site, the time pressure on the foremen, and the level of collaboration on the job site influenced the degree and speed of the improvisation. Yet the factors that explained the largest total variance in both the degree and speed of improvisation were the personality traits of the foremen. Thus, these findings emphasize the importance of foremen on job sites, while also documenting how improvisation is occurring on job sites.
PH.D in Civil Engineering, December 2013
Show less

Title: Some observations on the baking test as commercially applied to wheat and flour
Creator: Pirrie, Peter Gustave
Date: 2009, 1913
Publisher: Armour Institute of Technology
Description: http://www.archive.org/details/someobservations00pirr
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology; Includes index

repository.iit

Search the repository

Pages

Pages

Enabled Filters

Refine Results

Type

Date

Academic status of creator

Department

Subject

Creator

Part of