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Title: NON-LINEAR CREEP-RELAXATION CONSTITUTIVE MODEL FOR PLAIN CONCRETE WITH ANISOTROPIC DAMAGE
Creator: Teran Torres, Bernardo
Date: 2016, 2016-05
Description: A thermodynamic constitutive model for plain concrete, and other quasi-brittle materials, is developed. The model accounts for the anisotropic...
Show moreA thermodynamic constitutive model for plain concrete, and other quasi-brittle materials, is developed. The model accounts for the anisotropic damage-induced and the aging viscoelasticity of the material. The model is based on the theory of solidi cation proposed by Baºant and the continuum damage mechanics theory. The material is considered to be a viscoelastic-damageable material. The Helmholtz free energy utilized in the formulation is treated by means of the representation theorem of coupled damage-strain tensors. The model is capable of analyzing time-dependent damage (tertiary creep) under constant loading and damage due to cyclic creep. Two simple but practical examples are presented in order to illustrate the applicability of the model. The determination of the functions and constants representing the material behavior as well as any experimental companion is proposed for the continuation of the research.
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, May 2016
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Title: SYNTHESIS OF NANOPLATE STRUCTURES IN NI-BASED ALLOYS VIA DISCONTINUOUS PRECIPITATION
Creator: Zhou, Yang
Date: 2017, 2017-07
Description: Nanostructured materials are of increasing interest due to their potential for use in numerous applications including catalysis and filtration...
Show moreNanostructured materials are of increasing interest due to their potential for use in numerous applications including catalysis and filtration. Methods of synthesizing nanomaterials often include chemical techniques producing individual particles, which gives rise to issues of agglomeration and containment, and the processes are difficult to scale-up. This work is directed at addressing issues of the occurrence and kinetics of self-assembly and structural alignment of nanostructures, which involves the discontinuous precipitation transformation followed by selective dissolution. This synthesis method has been demonstrated using a Ni-49at.%Co-12at.%Al alloy. A complete discontinuous transformation in the Ni 49-12 alloy can be achieved in times as short as 30min. Thus, the large-scale production of such structures is feasible using conventional heat treatment facilities. The synthesis technique is generally applicable to any alloy system in which DP goes to completion and one phase can be selectively removed. The nanoplates are self-assembled, self-supported and well aligned if the precipitate is coherent with the matrix. In order to control the process it is necessary to understand the phase equilibria involving γ, γ′ and β phases in the Al-Co-Ni system. This has been investigated both experimentally and computationally. The isothermal sections at 1100°C and 800°C as well as a partial liquidus projection were determined which result in modifications to previously published work. Comparing the experimental results with the calculated results using Thermo-Calc (TCNI8), there is reasonable agreement. The predicted separation of the γ phase into a two-phase ferromagnetic and paramagnetic region has never been observed experimentally in this or other published work. Future work should explore the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phase separation as predicted using Thermo-Calc to verify its occurrence in this system. The nanostructured material produced by complete DP transformation may have interesting mechanical properties and these have been studied to a limited extent in this work. The hardness tests show that with decreasing annealing temperature to 600°C, the hardness of certain samples increases significantly due to the precipitation of second phase. The tensile and creep properties of alloy samples with DP phase present were also investigated. The results imply that the occurrence of DP will have a favorable effect on the tensile strength of the sample while lowering the ductility at the same time. A method to generate serrated grain boundaries based on the DP transformation is proposed. Such structures are expected to increase the creep resistance. This was found to be the case in a limited temperature and loading range. Higher temperature or stress levels lead to DP occurrence and cause negative effects on the creep resistance compared to conventionally processed material. The Curie temperature in the Al-Co-Ni alloy system was also studied and determined using a combined magnetic TG and DSC method. A ternary contour map of the Curie temperature has been constructed. From the contour map, the Curie temperature was seen to decrease from high Co, low Al content samples to low Co, high Al samples bypassing a platform at mid Co content. A nonlinear surface fitting was made through a Exponential2D model, the function is helpful for the prediction of Curie temperature of γ phase in Al-Co-Ni alloy system. This method also provides a novel idea of detecting phase transformation and precipitation through thermo-magnetically analyzing the magnetic behavior of the alloys.
Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, July 2017
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Title: Planning for Human Implantation of a Cortical Visual Prosthesis (sequence unknown), IPRO 334 - Deliverables: IPRO 334 Midterm Presentation F09
Creator: Bern, David, Chen, Shanyl, Deroo, Mary, Gorski, David, Kelly, Thomas, Leasenby, Alex, Li, Zhi, Pyrkh, Hanna, Subhani, Maham, Taneja, Aanchal
Date: 2009-12
Description: The Intracortical Visual Prosthesis is based upon that concept that by implanting a large number of subminiature electrodes within the human...
Show moreThe Intracortical Visual Prosthesis is based upon that concept that by implanting a large number of subminiature electrodes within the human visual cortex, coordinated temporal-spatial image information can be artificially communicated to the human visual cortex in the form of electrical currents, acting as a sensory substitute for normal vision.
Sponsorship: IIT Laboratory of Neural Prosthetic Research
Deliverables for IPRO 334: Planning for Human Implantation of a Cortical Visual Prosthesis for the fall 2009 semester
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Title: Adaptive Reuse Hybrid Development
Creator: Jarzabkowski, Henry
Date: 5/4/2011, 2011-05
Description: Producing and designing a prototype hybrid use development strategy for a neighboring pair of preexisting historical building in Chicago’s...
Show moreProducing and designing a prototype hybrid use development strategy for a neighboring pair of preexisting historical building in Chicago’s North side community of Lakeview.
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Title: Sloan Valve Company (sequence unknown), IPRO 306 - Deliverables: IPRO 306 Midterm Presentation F09
Creator: Delahanty, Sean, Jaouen, Julien, Thakkar, Hetul, Jones, Santiago Guerrero, Kim, Sung, Toor, Hammad, Jalan, Arjun, Soleja, Sikander, Zhang, Yayan
Date: 2009-12
Description: Sloan Valve manufactures and distributes commercial valves and plumbing fixtures globally. The IPRO team will work to improve the 'procure to...
Show moreSloan Valve manufactures and distributes commercial valves and plumbing fixtures globally. The IPRO team will work to improve the 'procure to pay' process and also assist in the development of a new warehouse management module.
Sponsorship: Sloan Valve Company
Deliverables for IPRO 306: Sloan Valve for the fall 2009 semester.
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Title: MULTIMODAL NEUROIMAGING IN BLAST INDUCED TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
Creator: Stout, Jeffrey
Date: 2015, 2015-12
Description: Recent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in an increase in the number of blast related traumatic brain injury (TBI)...
Show moreRecent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in an increase in the number of blast related traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases, currently estimated in excess of 300,000. Current neuroimaging methods, including MRI and CT, are generally not sensitive enough to diagnose blast TBL This research represents several advancements in the understanding of long-term TBI related changes as well as imaging comorbid neurocognitive deficits and psychopathologies. The multi modal approach was taken to leverage the differing sensitivities of each imagmg modality to better identify neuroimaging changes associated with blast TBL T l-weighted MRI was utilized to assess cortical thickness reduction in the TBI subjects, resulting in right temporal lobe decreases that were associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and neurobehavioral symptom indices. Utilizing positron emission tomography (PET), several areas of metabolic change were associated with blast TBI, PTSD, repetitive head injury, and TBI severity. Functional MRI was used to assess working memory deficit, demonstrating relatively normal function in the mild TBI subject, except for at higher cognitive loads; whereas the moderate TBI subjects demonstrated a trend of dysfunction at most levels of cognitive load. Fractional anisotropy (FA) changes were assessed using diffusion tensor imaging, however there was no resulting statistical significance due to differences in the locations of single subject FA changes that could not be realized at the group level using standard analyses. Investigation into multimodal searchlight to integrate the sensitivities of each imaging modality into a single statistical measure, provided enhanced sensitivity to TBI-induced changes in neuroimaging versus single modal searchlight and identified several clusters of change most notably in the cerebellum, temporal lobes, brainstem, and internal capsule. Through a multimodal approach we have shown several areas of damage and dysfunction associated with blast TBI in subjects greater than one year post injury. This research is important due to the large numbers of subjects currently experiencing long-term post concussive symptoms. Our findings show that both TBI and PTSD playa large role in the changes identified on neuroimaging. This research can provide information to assist in the understanding , diagnosis , and treatment of blast TBI.
Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, December 2015
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Title: Pressure Sensitive Paint Demonstrates Relationship Between Ejector Wall Pressure and Aerodynamic Performance
Creator: Taghavi, R., Raman, G., Bencic, T.
Date: 1999-05
Publisher: Springer Verlag
Description: This paper provides an example of the application of Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) to complex internal suspersonic flows and demonstrates the...
Show moreThis paper provides an example of the application of Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) to complex internal suspersonic flows and demonstrates the relationship between ejector wall pressure and aerodynamic performance. Details of such jet mixer-ejector nozzles are relevant to jet noise reduction programs. Several ejector configurations with straight, convergent, and divergent side walls were used in our experiments. The side-wall that was painted with PSP was also instrumented with an array of 156 pressure taps connected to Electronically Scanned Pressure (ESP) modules, enabling simultaneous measurement of "true" reference pressures. The PSP results agreed very well with the "true" reference pressures and also provided a detailed map of the complicated pressure patterns that could not be detected using the pressure taps. Finally, we also demonstrated the direct relationship between ejector side-wall pressure distribution and ejector performance characteristics such as exit mean flow uniformity, pumping, and thrust augmentation.
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Title: VIBRATION IN TRACTION MOTORS FOR ELECTRIC AND HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Creator: Yang, Zhi
Date: 2014, 2014-12
Description: Due to increased fuel efficiency and lower cost/mile feature, electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) are becoming more and...
Show moreDue to increased fuel efficiency and lower cost/mile feature, electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) are becoming more and more popular. It is estimated that the sale of electric vehicles will reach 3.8 million by 2020, while hybrid vehicles will grow to 4% by 2020 from their current share of 2%. To meet this target, EV an HEV motors, the core energy conversion components, should not only satisfy specific requirements in performance and efficiency but also constrain vibration. This necessitates the analysis of vibration in traction motors for EV/HEV application. The primary objective of this dissertation is to characterize and compare the electromagnetic and vibrational behavior of typical traction motors (PMSM with distributed winding, PMSM with concentrated winding, IM, and SRM) over a wide torque speed range. For this purpose, weak-coupled analysis of electromagnetic force and structure are performed in ANSYS environment. The secondary aim of this dissertation is to develop a rotor position related variable switching frequency pulse width modulated (PWM) strategy to ameliorate the acoustic noise due to high frequency harmonic current. Switching frequency is modified online to adapt current ripple and vibration requirement, thus ameliorate the acoustic noise. It is expected that this strategy with variable switching frequency has the advantages of spreading the vibration spectrum and reducing switching losses. Experimentally verification is also performed. At the end of this dissertation, characterization of vibration behavior of switch reluctance machine with higher number of rotor poles than stator poles is performed.
Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, December 2014
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Title: Design of a Large Scale Structure (sequence 315), IPRO 315 - Deliverables: IPRO 315 Project Plan F09
Creator: Aguilar-wedge, Carmen, Animashaun, Oladipo, Baur, Alex, Cullen, Michael, Hadi, Shuaib, Hedge, Namrata, Kuo, Steve, Lee, Christopher, Lee, Yongdoo, Rybaltowski, Karol, Scully, Dawveed, Shen, Jie-hua, Yousef, Shadi
Date: 2009-12
Description: Located in Oakbrook, IL the architects and engineers of IPRO 315 will design a 22 story hotel. Together architects and engineers will modify...
Show moreLocated in Oakbrook, IL the architects and engineers of IPRO 315 will design a 22 story hotel. Together architects and engineers will modify and re analyze a structure created by pervious designers, and select any new materials for construction. In creating the hotel students will be responsible for the structural analysis of columns, beams, foundation, steel, and concrete design required to insure all serviceability requirements. The students will be required to follow the 2006 International Building Code, and secure the safety of all possible occupants. Management, leadership, ethics, and teamwork will be an integral part of building a large scale structure as students learn to work together on a “real life” project.
Deliverables for IPRO 315: Design of a Large Scale Structure for the fall 2009 semester
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Title: Finding Uses for Alternative Fuels in Intermodal Transportation Hubs (sequence unknown), IPRO 307 - Deliverables: IPRO 307 Poster F09
Creator: Balakirev, Konstantin, Beau‐luby, Ryan, Bouikidis, John, Cargill, Matthew, Dziuba, David, Kehoe, Matthew, Slonski, Bryan, Tesfaye, Melat, Wiese, Matthew, Wiseman, Christopher, Zook, Joel
Date: 2009-12
Description: Chicago, being the third largest freight hub in the world, needs an efficient movement of goods for the increasing freight shipments.
Sponsorsh...
Show moreChicago, being the third largest freight hub in the world, needs an efficient movement of goods for the increasing freight shipments.
Sponsorship: Mi-Jack
Deliverables for IPRO 307: Finding Uses for Alternative Fuels in Intermodal Transportation Hubs for the fall 2009 semester.
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Title: Church & School Energy Efficiency and Financing Program (sequence unknown), IPRO 328 - Deliverables
Creator: Ciuffini, Kathryn, Kim, Ja Young, Knapczyk, Robert, Mckinley, Matthew, O'brien, Patrick, Maddamma, Todd, Schafer, Michael, Soderling, Philip, Wedster, Bonnie
Date: 2009-12
Description: The Fall 2009 IPRO 328 team envisions the development and ultimately execution of a volunteer program which would facilitate the...
Show moreThe Fall 2009 IPRO 328 team envisions the development and ultimately execution of a volunteer program which would facilitate the implementation of energy saving improvements in a church and/or parochial school within the surrounding neighborhoods of IIT campus.
Sponsorship: Vince Cushing of Clean Urban Energy
Deliverables for IPRO 328: Church & School Energy Efficiency and Financing Program for the fall 2009 semester
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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Title: Laboratory Notebook 108
Creator: Zhang, Zhe, Burton-freeman, Britt
Date: 2010-03-05T16:11:19Z
Description: This laboratory notebook relates to the " Thermal Inactivation of Ricin in phosphate buffer system and orange juice" project with Britt Burton...
Show moreThis laboratory notebook relates to the " Thermal Inactivation of Ricin in phosphate buffer system and orange juice" project with Britt Burton-Freeman as the Principle Investigator.
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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
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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
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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
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