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Title: China's Unwritten Code of Engineering Ethics. English Final Data Set
Date: 2020, 2020
Publisher: Springer
Description: This dataset contains the final results of a survey completed by several hundred engineers in China about what they think about engineering...
Show moreThis dataset contains the final results of a survey completed by several hundred engineers in China about what they think about engineering ethics, their awareness of ethics in their work, and how Chinese engineers' view of engineering ethics is not very different from those of American Engineers.
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Title: SODIUM-BASED ENERGY METABOLISM AND DYNAMIC ENERGY DEPENDENCY OF CHLAMYDIA TRACHOMATIS
Creator: Liang, Pingdong
Date: 2019
Description: Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium that is responsible for various human diseases including trachoma, genital tract...
Show moreChlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium that is responsible for various human diseases including trachoma, genital tract infections, and lymphogranuloma venereum. Energy metabolism consists many essential pathways to generate energy for every organism. However, it remains much unknown in C. trachomatis. For decades, C. trachomatis has been considered as an “energy parasite”, which needs the energy supply from the host cells entirely. In contrast, genomic studies show that this bacterium is capable of encoding enzymes that involve energy metabolism. However, no experimental data were provided to support the genomic information due to the peculiar developmental cycle of C. trachomatis inside the host cells. In this project, the oxidative phosphorylation pathway of C. trachomatis is first identified with experimental results. This pathway starts with the sodium pumping NADH:Ubiquinone oxidoreductase enzyme complex (NQR) transferring the electrons along the respiratory chain and generating a sodium gradient across the membrane. C. trachomatis contains an A-type ATPase that can utilize this sodium gradient to generate ATP. In vitro experiments in mammalian cells with different respiratory inhibitors show that C. trachomatis is not an obligate energy parasite. Instead, it has a dynamic energy dependency on the host metabolism that the bacterium switches from entirely to partially relying on the host energy metabolism for its energy requirement. The sodium gradient established by NQR and/or other transporters is of great importance to chlamydial metabolism. Further, the respiratory inhibitors test on interferon-γ-induced persistence of C. trachomatis in mammalian cell cultures shows that an inhibited energy metabolism prevents and eliminates the persistent form. This study provides new insights about antibiotics development and therapeutic methods against C. trachomatis infections.
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Title: Foregrounding Temporality to Design with Emerging Futures
Creator: Heidaripour, Maryam
Date: 2020
Description: The rhetoric of today’s economy has framed entrepreneurship as a key contributor to inventing the future, which raises questions about who is...
Show moreThe rhetoric of today’s economy has framed entrepreneurship as a key contributor to inventing the future, which raises questions about who is counted as an insider, how the future is being designed, and for whom. The concentration of future-making has too long been in the hands of a few, given future’s tremendous impact on the many. This dissertation joins the growing body of scholarly explorations on channeling the design capacity to transition toward a future with a plural world system, where the economy offers a multiplicity of possibilities. Central to this exploration is to rethink how shaping futures might be done differently, with different people, and in different forms.By incorporating feminist temporality, I challenge the established mode of design investigation. My empirical chapters demonstrate the ways in which sharpening our temporal sensitivity could impact what we study, how we study it, and what we can find. In particular, I rearrange the power dynamics in design activities by opening up the position of knower to the emerging collectives. I then introduce the concept of designing a time-space yet to come that makes you wonder—an open invitation to rethink who we are and what we want to become.While it remains to be seen whether this contribution will have a meaningful impact on design knowledge, I argue that it makes a solid case for incorporating feminism in design. Feminist theory offers the theoretical underpinning for ontological reframing of design and helps us understand what other forms of design practice are emerging in this era of increasing complexity. I conclude with my take on an emerging design practice where the fundamental element of design is to enable other ways of knowing to inquire about what they truly want to become.
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Title: Nanopore Detection of Heavy Metal Ions
Creator: MohammadiRoozbahani, Golbarg
Date: 2019
Description: Nanopore sensing is an emerging analytical technique for measuring single molecules. Under an applied potential bias, analyte molecules are...
Show moreNanopore sensing is an emerging analytical technique for measuring single molecules. Under an applied potential bias, analyte molecules are transported through the nanopore and cause ionic current modulations. Accordingly, the fingerprint of the analyte is reflected in the signature of the current blockage events. Due to its advantages such as lable-free and multi-analyte detection, nanopore sensing technology has been utilized as an attractive versatile tool to study a variety of topics, including biosensing of different species, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, peptides, anions, and metal ions.Metal ions play a crucial role in human health and environmental safety. Although metal ions are essential for numerous biological processes, the presence of the wrong metal, or even the essential metals in the wrong concentration or location, can lead to undesirable results and serious health concerns, including antibiotic resistance, metabolic disorders, mental retardation, and even cancer. Therefore, it is still of prime importance to develop highly sensitive and selective sensors for metal ions.In this dissertation, various nanopore sensing strategies to detect metal ions will first be discussed. These include: a) construction of metal ion binding sites in the nanopore inner surface; b) utilization of a biomolecule as a ligand probe; and c) employing enzymatic reactions. Then, three projects will be summarized. Among them, two projects are involved with detection of non-essential metal ions: uranyl and thorium ions, while the other is targeted at essential element, zinc ion. To be more specific, uranyl and thorium ions are detected by taking advantage of peptide molecules as ligand probes. In this case, the event signatures of peptide molecules in the nanopore are significantly different in the absence and presence of metal ions, which might be attributed to the conformational change of the biomolecules induced by the metal ion-biomolecule interaction. On the other hand, zinc ion is detected based on enzymatic reaction: without Zn2+, ADAM17 (a zinc dependent protease) is inactive and cannot cleave peptide substrate molecules; in contrast, with Zn2+ ion in the solution, the enzyme was activated, and its cleavage of the peptide substrate produced new types of blockage events with smaller residence time and amplitude values than those the peptide substrate.
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Title: Fast Automatic Bayesian Cubature Using Matching Kernels and Designs
Creator: Rathinavel, Jagadeeswaran
Date: 2019
Description: Automatic cubatures approximate multidimensional integrals to user-specified error tolerances. In many real-world integration problems, the...
Show moreAutomatic cubatures approximate multidimensional integrals to user-specified error tolerances. In many real-world integration problems, the analytical solution is either unavailable or difficult to compute. To overcome this, one can use numerical algorithms that approximately estimate the value of the integral. For high dimensional integrals, quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are very popular. QMC methods are equal-weight quadrature rules where the quadrature points are chosen deterministically, unlike Monte Carlo (MC) methods where the points are chosen randomly.The families of integration lattice nodes and digital nets are the most popular quadrature points used. These methods consider the integrand to be a deterministic function. An alternative approach, called Bayesian cubature, postulates the integrand to be an instance of a Gaussian stochastic process. For high dimensional problems, it is difficult to adaptively change the sampling pattern. But one can automatically determine the sample size, $n$, given a fixed and reasonable sampling pattern. We take this approach using a Bayesian perspective. We assume a Gaussian process parameterized by a constant mean and a covariance function defined by a scale parameter and a function specifying how the integrand values at two different points in the domain are related. These parameters are estimated from integrand values or are given non-informative priors. This leads to a credible interval for the integral. The sample size, $n$, is chosen to make the credible interval for the Bayesian posterior error no greater than the desired error tolerance. However, the process just outlined typically requires vector-matrix operations with a computational cost of $O(n^3)$. Our innovation is to pair low discrepancy nodes with matching kernels, which lowers the computational cost to $O(n \log n)$. We begin the thesis by introducing the Bayesian approach to calculate the posterior cubature error and define our automatic Bayesian cubature. Although much of this material is known, it is used to develop the necessary foundations. Some of the major contributions of this thesis include the following: 1) The fast Bayesian transform is introduced. This generalizes the techniques that speedup Bayesian cubature when the kernel matches low discrepancy nodes. 2) The fast Bayesian transform approach is demonstrated using two methods: a) rank-1 lattice sequences and shift-invariant kernels, and b) Sobol' sequences and Walsh kernels. These two methods are implemented as fast automatic Bayesian cubature algorithms in the Guaranteed Automatic Integration Library (GAIL). 3) We develop additional numerical implementation techniques: a) rewriting the covariance kernel to avoid cancellation error, b) gradient descent for hyperparameter search, and c) non-integer kernel order selection.The thesis concludes by applying our fast automatic Bayesian cubature algorithms to three sample integration problems. We show that our algorithms are faster than the basic Bayesian cubature and that they provide answers within the error tolerance in most cases. The Bayesian cubatures that we develop are guaranteed for integrands belonging to a cone of functions that reside in the middle of the sample space. The concept of a cone of functions is also explained briefly.
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Title: Self-Stigma & Vicarious Stigma Experienced by Parents of Children with Mental Health Challenges
Creator: Serchuk, Marisa Dyan
Date: 2019
Description: Research has been limited regarding the stigma experienced by parents of children with mental health challenges. It is commonly understood...
Show moreResearch has been limited regarding the stigma experienced by parents of children with mental health challenges. It is commonly understood that stigma effects people with lived-experience (e.g., a child with mental health challenges), however, stigma has been noted to have a wide scope, which extends to family members as well. Parents of children with mental health challenges have been found to endorse aspects of self-stigma, specifically regarding public stereotypes of blame and feelings of incompetence. Vicarious stigma is a fairly new area of research, which describes the sad and/or angry response a parent may experience when witnessing their child being stigmatized. The purpose of this study is to examine emotional and behavioral outcomes related to specific types of stigma experienced by parents of children with mental health challenges. Archival data from a larger study of adult participants (N=50), who identified as having a child (age 3-10 years old) with mental health challenges, completed measures examining self-stigma, vicarious stigma, stress, depression, quality of life, disclosure, secrecy coping, and help-seeking. A novel measurement for vicarious stigma was introduced and examined in this study. Results found higher levels of self-stigma and dimensions of vicarious stigma were associated with higher levels of depression as well as diminished quality of life. Higher levels of self-stigma were also associated with lower perceived benefits of disclosing and greater levels of secrecy coping. These findings highlight the importance of further examining the role of stigma for parents of children with mental health challenges.
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Title: A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING ALIGNMENT BETWEEN THE EXISTING AND SELF-ADOPTED ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION STANDARDS: UNITED STATES SIXTH TO TWELFTH GRADE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE STANDARDS
Creator: Connell, Margaretann Grace
Date: 2019
Description: The purpose of this thesis was to conduct a systematic approach to determine the alignment between the existing and self-adopted science 6th...
Show moreThe purpose of this thesis was to conduct a systematic approach to determine the alignment between the existing and self-adopted science 6th-12th grade EE science standards for 10 U.S. National States (6th-8th [AZ; ID; MA; WY]) and (9th-12th [NE; NYS; OH; PA; SC; TX]). The criteria for States’ selection were based on States with SASS (non-NGSS adoption) and 2) demographics - random selection from the 10 U.S. EPA Regions. The Existing Environmental Education Standards (EEES) (GCDEE, Hungerford et al., 1980; NAAEE Guidelines, Simmons, 2010a; Tbilisi, UNESCO, 1978) were aligned with the 10 States. The investigation was conducted by a DCA (Mayring, 2002). Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 2018.1(VERBI, 2017), judged by a Content Match (La Marca et al., 2000), and measured by the adapted criteria for Categorical Concurrence and Range of Knowledge Correspondence (Webb, 1999). Instruments to score the output were: 1). CEEI – Tbilisi/GCDEE (K-12), and EEI – NAAEE Guidelines (6-8; 9-12). Results for the Content Match of the EEES revealed that 50% of the States were Partly Aligned and other 50% were Not Aligned with the NAAEE Guidelines Code Coverage. Additionally, the Content Match with Tbilisi/GCDEE revealed that 20% of the States (OH, PA) were Fully Aligned and the other 80% Partly Aligned . The States’ science standards ability to reach appropriate levels of alignment was due to the scientific specificity of those States with implicit EE standards. Moreover, it was difficult to come to a common ground to expect complete alignment based on the socioecological approaches and interdisciplinary nature (Kyburz-Graber, 2013; Simmons, 2010a) of the EEES. Therefore, it is now left up to the policymakers at the State levels to work with stakeholders and come to a consensus in support of EE standards that are relevant, fair, and balanced with multidisciplinary, socioecological approaches to promote of an environmentally literate citizenry.
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Title: KINETIC MODEL FRAMEWORKS OF ANIMAL CELL CULTURES FOR CONTROL AND OPTIMIZATION
Creator: Yilmaz, Denizhan
Date: 2019
Description: This dissertation proposes four different kinetic model frameworks that havebeen developed for optimization and control of monoclonal antibody...
Show moreThis dissertation proposes four different kinetic model frameworks that havebeen developed for optimization and control of monoclonal antibody producing mammalian cell cultures to improve biopharmaceutical production by decreasing the costof trial and error experimentation. The developed models mainly describe the transient metabolic behavior of mammalian cell culture under different culture conditionsand predicts cell growth and death, cell metabolism, and monoclonal antibody synthesis, and production. These models are developed via ordinary differential equationsbased on the assumption of well-mixing reactor. All developed models were calibrated, and their predictive capabilities were tested with experimental reports published in the literature. Good agreement was obtained between model predictions and experimental data. The presented results illustrate that the developed models successfully describe and predict the transient behavior of mammalian cell cultures and can be a useful tool for biopharmaceutical production.
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Title: STRATEGIES TO MAXIMIZE DOSE REDUCTION IN SPECT MYOCARDIAL PERFUSION IMAGING
Creator: Juan Ramon, Albert
Date: 2019
Description: Radiation exposure in medical imaging has become a topic of major concern, gaining intense attention within the clinical and research...
Show moreRadiation exposure in medical imaging has become a topic of major concern, gaining intense attention within the clinical and research communities. In 2009, the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) announced radiation exposure of patients via medical imaging increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006, with cardiac nuclear medicine, specifically myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) being the second biggest culprit. The goal of this work is to evaluate several strategies to enable radiation dose to be minimized while maintaining current levels of diagnostic accuracy in the clinic. We achieve dose reduction through optimization of advanced image reconstruction strategies, to obtain higher-quality images at a given dose (noise) level, through a machine learning approach to predict the optimal dose for each patient, and through advanced deep learning (DL) algorithms to improve the quality of reconstructed images. Our ultimate objective is to provide the nuclear cardiology field with a new set of algorithms and guidelines for selecting administered activity levels and image reconstruction procedures in the clinic. The project is based on a clinical study in which imaging and various other data are being collected for a set of patients. The project has the following components. First, we investigate a global dose-reduction approach (i.e., reducing dose by a uniform proportion across all patients) via optimization of image reconstruction strategies. Specifically, we maximize perfusion-defect detection (diagnostic accuracy) over a range of simulated dose levels using clinical data into which we have introduced simulated defects. We measure diagnostic performance using clinically validated model observers from the Quantitative Perfusion SPECT (QPS) software package. We investigate the diagnostic accuracy over a range of dose levels ranging from those currently used in the clinic down to one-eighth of this level. We consider the following image-reconstruction: filtered-backprojection (FBP) with no correction for physics effects, and ordered-subsets expectation-maximization (OS-EM) with several combinations of attenuation correction (AC), scatter correction (SC), and resolution correction (RC).Second, we propose a patient-specific ("personalized") dose reduction approach based on machine learning that aims to predict the minimum radiation dose needed to obtain consistent perfusion-defect detection accuracy for each individual patient. This prediction is based on patient attributes, especially body measurements, and various clinical variables. We compare the diagnostic accuracy produced by predicted personalized doses to that produced by standard clinical dose levels to validate the predictive models.Third, we verify that the dose minimization results obtained in the context of perfusion-defect detection also maintain diagnostic accuracy in evaluating cardiac function, as characterized by myocardial motion.Finally, we propose a deep learning (DL) method to denoise SPECT-MPI reconstructed images. The method is a 3D convolutional neural network trained to predict standard-dose images from low-dose images. We quantify the extent to which dose reduction can be achieved using the proposed DL structure when dose is reduced uniformly across patients or by means of our patient-specific approach.
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Title: SI NANOSTRUCTURED COMPOSITE AS HIGH PERFORMANCE ANODE MATERIAL FOR NEXT GENERATION LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES
Creator: He, Qianran
Date: 2019
Description: Silicon has attracted huge attention in the last decade as the anode material for Li-ion batteries because it has a theoretical capacity ∼10...
Show moreSilicon has attracted huge attention in the last decade as the anode material for Li-ion batteries because it has a theoretical capacity ∼10 times that of graphite. However, the practical application of Si is hindered by three major challenges: large volume expansion during cycling (∼300%), low electrical conductivity, and instability of the SEI layer caused by repeated volume changes of the Si material. Our study focused on novel design and synthesis of Si anodes that can solve all the key problems of Si anodes simultaneously. The Si micro-reactors we designed and synthesized contain well-designed internal structures, including (i) nanoscale Si building blocks, (ii) the engineered void space, and (iii) a conductive carbon shell. Because of these internal structures and nitrogen doped carbon shell, these sub micrometer-sized Si particles are termed as Si micro-reactors and denoted as Si@void@C(N). According to our electrochemical results, the as-synthesized Si micro-reactors could live up to 1000 charge/discharge cycles at high current densities (up to 8 A/g) while still providing a higher specific capacity than the state-of-the-art carbonaceous anodes. Our investigation shows that the unique design of Si@void@C(N) has a relatively low specific surface area (SSA) which significantly reduces the undesired surface side reactions and increases ICE to 91%, while the engineered voids with nano-channel shape inside the structure can accommodate Si volume expansion and keep the structure and SEI layer stable. Furthermore, the porous N-doped carbon shell along with nano-channeled voids allows rapid lithiation of the Si micro-reactor without Li plating during ultrafast charging. As a result, Si@void@C(N) exhibits ultrafast charging capability with high ICE, superior specific capacity and long cycle life.
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Title: HETEROGENEOUS CATALYST FOR ALKANE DEHYDYGENATION AND IMPLEMENTING TO SOLID OXIDE FUEL CELL
Creator: Xu, Yunjie
Date: 2019
Description: In the past decade, shale gas has become the most import source of natural gas in the United States. Large amounts of light alkanes in shale...
Show moreIn the past decade, shale gas has become the most import source of natural gas in the United States. Large amounts of light alkanes in shale gas, such as methane, ethane, and propane are available as an industrial source of chemicals through the catalyzed, on-purpose light alkane dehydrogenation to olefins. Therefore, it is obvious there is a benefit to developing catalysts to directly convert shale gas to olefins. However, alkane dehydrogenation and non-oxidative methane coupling are thermodynamically unfavorable reactions at low temperatures. The energy requirements make these reactions less attractive for shale gas utilization. In principle, consuming the hydrogen product with a fuel cell can drive the thermodynamically unfavorable reaction by reducing the hydrogen partial pressure in the anode and by heat generating by the fuel cell, while also generating electricity in the process. Moreover, catalyst integration with fuel cell can facilitate the transfer of charge in anode which is rate determine step in the fuel cell. This thesis will focus on catalyst development for alkane dehydrogenation and exploring a way to integrate these catalysts with fuel cells.Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focus on designing, characterizing, and studying catalysts for non-oxidative coupling of methane (NOCM) and propane dehydrogenation (PDH). PtM (M is a transition metal) alloys were found to efficiently decrease the desorption energy of olefin products and avoid deeper C-H bond activation compared to metallic Pt. Based on the previous study of single cobalt on silica, a novel synthesis of PtCo3 was developed to further increase the activity of the PDH reaction. The Pt bimetallic catalyst made by novel synthesis route was proven to be one of several types of alloy. It was observed that extremely high conversion of PDH and high selectivity of target olefin were catalyzed by PtCo3/SiO2. Ga, as another promotor to replace Co, was also investigated. As expected, PtGa3 alloy was formed by a similar synthesis, and it showed extraordinary stability and activity for propane dehydrogenation. A Mo-Pt dual-metal catalyst was found to catalyze methane coupling even though Pt-Mo bimetallic alloys do not form. We hypothesize that Pt catalyzed C-H bond cleavage of CH4 to form methyl radical, and a MoOC species, formed by MoO3 reacting with CH4, could effectively facilitate methyl radical coupling to form larger alkanes and alkenes. Pt-Mo dual-metal catalyst had higher catalytic activity for methane coupling than a physical mixture of Pt and Mo and genuine PtMo alloy. Chapter 5 details our efforts to transplant PtM catalysts from silica support to target fuel cell material--(La,Sr)(Cr,Fe)O3 as a support. Different catalyst structures were observed, and, in this case, second transition metals become a barrier to prevent Pt aggregation. When using propane as fuel for fuel cell, we observed electrochemical redox reactions occurred via electrochemical analysis. However, the resistance of cell is comparatively high and limited overall system performance. Chapter 6 details a study of the impact of the electrode oxide phase on overall cell performance. In this case, we conducted a fundamental study of degradation of cathode material, (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3. We found that raw material and cells can degrade even under room temperature. Thus, the storage of raw powder and fabricated cells is critical for performance studies. This also indicates that our high cell resistance in previous electrochemical measurements could come from the insulating compound formation during storage. Some directions for future research on catalyst integration and electrochemical testing are outlined.
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Title: DOPING OF SODIUM CHROMIUM OXIDE CATHODE MATERIALS TO ENHANCE ELECTROCHEMICAL PERFORMANCE FOR SODIUM-ION BATTERIES
Creator: wang, ziyong
Date: 2019
Description: In this project, we investigated the effects of doping several types of metals to NaCrO2 on its electrochemical performance. The doping method...
Show moreIn this project, we investigated the effects of doping several types of metals to NaCrO2 on its electrochemical performance. The doping method is aiming to stabilize the O3-type structure by partial substituting some of Cr with other metals during intercalation/deintercalation by suppressing Cr6+ migration to alkaline slab, and thus facilitate long-term cycle performance and reversible capacity. All doped NaCrO2 powders were hereby denoted to NaMe0.1Cr0.9O2 (Me=Al, Co, Ni, Mn). To achieve metal-doped NaCrO2 powders, sodium, chromium and dopant sources were mixed with various metal oxides and then subjected to 6-hour high energy ball milling, followed by heating in flow-Ar tube at 900℃ for 1 hour. Pristine NaCrO2 powder synthesized in the same process was to make comparisons with doped ones. To understand the mechanism of doping, field emission scanning microscopy (FESM) and energy Disperse Spectroscopy (EDS), as well as X-ray diffractometer (XRD), were employed to analyze the morphology and composition of final products. Benefiting from Ni doping, NaNi0.1Cr0.9O2 cell exhibited a high reversible capacity of 132 mAh g-1 at the initial cycle in a potential region between 2.0 and 3.6 V vs. Na/Na+, and 78 % of capacity retention over 70 cycles. For NaMn0.1Cr0.9O2, reversible capacity at first discharge is about 30 mAh g-1, lower than that of Ni-doped and pristine NaCrO2, while the cycle retention stays at nearly 100% after 100 cycles. The opposite charge/discharge behaviors from Ni- and Mn-doped NaCrO2 provide us a potential method for the optimization of cathode materials with the best electrochemical performance in the future.
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Title: L-cumulants, L-cumulant embeddings and algebraic statistics, AS2012 Special Volume, part 1: This issue includes a second series of papers from talks, posters and collaborations resulting from and inspired by the Algebraic Statistics in the Alleghenies Conference at Penn State, which took place in July 2012.
Description: Focusing on the discrete probabilistic setting we generalize the combinatorial definition of cumulants to L-cumulants. This generalization...
Show moreFocusing on the discrete probabilistic setting we generalize the combinatorial definition of cumulants to L-cumulants. This generalization keeps all the desired properties of the classical cumulants like semi-invariance and vanishing for independent blocks of random variables. These properties make L-cumulants useful for the algebraic analysis of statistical models. We illustrate this for general Markov models and hidden Markov processes in the case when the hidden process is binary. The main motivation of this work is to understand cumulant-like coordinates in alge- braic statistics and to give a more insightful explanation why tree cumulants give such an elegant description of binary hidden tree models. Moreover, we argue that L-cumulants can be used in the analysis of certain classical algebraic varieties.
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Collection: Journal of Algebraic Statistics

Title: Multi-function multi-modality sensing and communication system: a designer's perspective
Creator: Fepeussi, Tonmo Vanessa Carine
Date: 2019
Description: The combination of sensing and communication functionalities on the same electronic device is the key to autonomous sensing applications in...
Show moreThe combination of sensing and communication functionalities on the same electronic device is the key to autonomous sensing applications in the transportation industry, including driverless vehicles and structural health monitoring (SHM) of aero-vehicles. Due to the limited availability of spectral and hardware resources, there is a need for resource sharing between sensing and communication systems. This is achieved by the efficient integration of sensing and communication functions through a unified design of both systems into smart sensors. To that end, a multi-modality approach is employed in this research to design multi-functional systems at two different bands of the frequency spectrum, namely radio and acoustic frequencies.First, a radio-frequency (RF) software-defined system capable to support radar sensing and RF communication is proposed for use in modern interconnected automotive applications such as driverless vehicles. The proposed RF radar is designed on a software-defined homodyne transceiver prototype capable of radio communication. The system is implemented in the S band over a narrow frequency bandwidth of 34 MHz between 3.550 GHz and 3.584 GHz. Experimental measurements show that the designed radar sensor can measure short-range targets with a range accuracy of less than 21 cm.An acoustic sensing and communication system is developed in parallel for use in autonomous SHM monitoring of aero-vehicles. The proposed communication system uses M-ary time-reversal pulse position modulation (M-TRPPM) as the modulation scheme for dispersion compensated wireless communication across the elastic channel. The time reversal based time division multiple access (TR-TDMA) protocol is introduced to regulate channel access by multiple sensors. Simulation and experimental validation demonstrate that the designed system, using an excitation signal generated by a PZT sensor disc at 300 kHz resonant frequency, is capable of reliable data transmission with a bit error rate (BER) approximating zero at low data rates of a few kilobits per seconds.
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Title: Kinetic and Structural Characterization of the Vibrio cholerae Flavin Transferase ApbE
Creator: Fang, Xuan
Date: 2019
Description: Cholera has long been a global concern and in the past decades traditional antibiotic treatments have failed due to the emergence of the...
Show moreCholera has long been a global concern and in the past decades traditional antibiotic treatments have failed due to the emergence of the antibiotic-resistance of its causative agent, V. cholerae. The resistance is mainly supported by a transmembrane electrochemical gradient of Na+ produced by the respiratory complex Na+-NQR coupled with an internal electron transfer pathway. The assembly and function of Na+-NQR is fulfilled by ApbE, the only known flavin transferase which covalently attaches two FMN molecules to the complex as part of its electron transport chain. Hence, ApbE is closely associated with the cause of antibiotic resistance. Because it does not have any human homologues, ApbE becomes an excellent drug target. In this work, we have investigated the physical properties of the enzyme and clarified its substrate specificity and pH dependence. For instance, our experiments indicate that divalent cations are essential for ApbE function, and that the selectivity depends largely on the size and the coordination sphere of the cation. Our data also show that ApbE regulation by pH, ADP and potassium is an important mechanism that enhances the adaptation, survival and colonization of V. cholerae in the small intestine. Moreover, pH dependence, mutagenesis, and steady-state kinetic studies have led us to identify the conserved His257 as a residue with dual roles: substrate binding and catalysis. Furthermore, bi-substrate kinetic studies have also revealed that ApbE follows a random Bi Bi mechanism. Together with structural studies, we propose a reaction mechanism where His257 functions as a base, shedding light into the understanding of the ApbE family.
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Title: Main Building entrance, Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, ca 1920s
Date: 1920-1929
Description: Photograph of the east entrance to Main Building on the Armour Institute of Technology campus. Photographer unknown, possibly C.V. Smith. Date...
Show morePhotograph of the east entrance to Main Building on the Armour Institute of Technology campus. Photographer unknown, possibly C.V. Smith. Date of photograph unknown. Date indicated is an estimate.
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Collection: C.V. Smith photographs, circa 1900-1929

Title: Armour Mission and Main Building, Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, ca. 1900
Date: 1900
Description: Photograph of the Armour Institute of Technology campus, including the Armour Mission and Main Building, with part of Armour Flats visible...
Show morePhotograph of the Armour Institute of Technology campus, including the Armour Mission and Main Building, with part of Armour Flats visible along Federal Street to the south. Photographer unknown, possibly C.V. Smith. Date of photograph unknown. Date indicated is an estimate.
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Collection: C.V. Smith photographs, circa 1900-1929

Title: Generalized Fréchet Bounds for Cell Entries in Multidimensional Contingency Tables, Special Volume in honor of memory of S.E.Fienberg
Description: We consider the lattice, L, of all subsets of a multidimensional contingency table and establish the properties of monotonicity and...
Show moreWe consider the lattice, L, of all subsets of a multidimensional contingency table and establish the properties of monotonicity and supermodularity for the marginalization function, n(·), on L. We derive from the supermodularity of n(·) some generalized Fr ́echet inequalities comple- menting and extending inequalities of Dobra and Fienberg. Further, we construct new monotonic and supermodular functions from n(·), and we remark on the connection between supermodularity and some correlation inequalities for probability distributions on lattices. We also apply an inequal- ity of Ky Fan to derive a new approach to Fr ́echet inequalities for multidimensional contingency tables.
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Collection: Journal of Algebraic Statistics

Title: Maximal Length Projections in Group Algebras with Applications to Linear Rank Tests of Uniformity
Description: Let G be a finite group, let CG be the complex group algebra of G, and let p ∈ CG. In this paper, we show how to construct submodules S of CG...
Show moreLet G be a finite group, let CG be the complex group algebra of G, and let p ∈ CG. In this paper, we show how to construct submodules S of CG of a fixed dimension with the property that the orthogonal projection of p onto S has maximal length. We then provide an example of how such submodules for the symmetric group Sn can be used to create new linear rank tests of uniformity in statistics for survey data that arises when respondents are asked to give a complete ranking of n items.
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Collection: Journal of Algebraic Statistics

Title: Institute of Design sculpture class, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, ca. 1956-1969
Date: 1956-1969
Description: Photograph of an Insitute of Design Sculpture class in S.R. Crown Hall. Possibly pictured at center is Professor Cosmo Campoli. Photographer...
Show morePhotograph of an Insitute of Design Sculpture class in S.R. Crown Hall. Possibly pictured at center is Professor Cosmo Campoli. Photographer unknown, possibly Reginal Heron. Date of photograph is unknown. Date range listed is approximate.
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Collection: Office of Communications and Marketing photographs, 1905-1999

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