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Title: Application-Oriented Scheduling for Optimizing Information Freshness in Wireless Networks
Creator: Yin, Bo
Date: 2020
Description: Recent years have witnessed a significant advancement of networking technologies as well as the proliferation of mobile devices. Due to the...
Show moreRecent years have witnessed a significant advancement of networking technologies as well as the proliferation of mobile devices. Due to the convergence of pervasive connectivity and ubiquitous computing, Internet of Things (IoT) systems are becoming increasingly information-centric. For those IoT devices, wireless communication is the dominant way to exchange information. The development of IoT has spawned a plethora of real-time applications, boosting the demand for timely information updates. Age of Information (AoI) has recently been introduced to quantify the freshness of the knowledge the controller has about the remote information sources. Due to its sheer novelty in capturing the timeliness requirements of various applications, AoI has sparked tremendous interest and been studied in many communication systems. This thesis aims at an exploratory study on how to characterize the essence of wireless scheduling for effective information freshness from the decision-making perspectives through two representative application scenarios, information retrieval and information integration. For the former, request-aware proactive scheduling policies in both static and dynamic request patterns are developed, which target at minimizing time-average effective AoI (EAoI). For the latter, an experience-driven scheduling framework based on deep reinforcement learning techniques is investigated to minimize the time-average AoI in the presence of correlated information sources. Future research directions are also discussed to present possible extensions of this thesis work to a broader range of network scenarios.
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Title: Transitional Refugee Community: Design Strategy for Dry/Arid Regions
Creator: Nakalembe, Hanifah
Date: 2010-05-01, 2010-05-01
Description: The proposed master’s project is the exploration of how architectural planning and design can improve and increase efficiency in transitional...
Show moreThe proposed master’s project is the exploration of how architectural planning and design can improve and increase efficiency in transitional housing during emergency relief and/or conflict related situations. The project proposal developed through design exploration of several prototypes that would not only be minimal but will also be culturally and climatically adaptive among other things. After a thorough select ion process, concentration was given to arid/dry climate and the area select ed for study was Darfur, Sudan.
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Title: Captured Moments: A Concept for a K-12 Urban School
Creator: Twardowski, Jacqueline
Date: 2012, 2012-05
Description: The inspiration to develop a vertical urban school originates from rising urban density and the lack of interconnection and identity in some...
Show moreThe inspiration to develop a vertical urban school originates from rising urban density and the lack of interconnection and identity in some urban environments. The urban condition is a construct of rhythm, memory, and the sensory. This condition is illuminated through the dense activity and interaction of city life. This scheme embraces the layers of activity and vibrancies inherent in the operation of schools and cities.
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Title: Regeneration
Creator: Yun, Sungkook
Date: 2012-04-24, 2012-05
Description: I want to make the senior center to allow the elderly to discover new places and new uses for them, to watch the activities of others between...
Show moreI want to make the senior center to allow the elderly to discover new places and new uses for them, to watch the activities of others between social spaces that can promote interaction among users, and to exercise like care services itself along the dynamic circulations. I also make the massing of the building that act as a landmark to bring the excitement of the welfare center not just to the users but also to passersby for regenerating people and the context as well.
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Title: Rehabilitation of "Kumbharwada", Dharavi Slums, Mumbai
Creator: Purandare, Bhakti
Date: 2010-05-01, 2010-05-01
Description: Within the slums of India small and unventilated dwellings serve as multipurpose spaces where a families live as well as manufactures pottery...
Show moreWithin the slums of India small and unventilated dwellings serve as multipurpose spaces where a families live as well as manufactures pottery products. In terms of production mechanisms, potter’s depend on conventional kilns which are shared between families. They use cotton dust, rags /wastes and diesel & oil soaked cotton as firing fuel which is serious cause of population & health hazards.
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Title: CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING OF A COMMERCIAL NATIONWIDE WI-FI HOTSPOT NETWORK
Creator: Divgi, Gautam
Date: 2014, 2014-12
Description: We present a thorough analysis of a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network. The analysis is approached in two ways, characterization and...
Show moreWe present a thorough analysis of a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network. The analysis is approached in two ways, characterization and modeling. First we characterize the network from a ve month long log of user activ- ity and traffic collected by a wireless network service provider operating hotspots in restaurants, serviced apartments, hotels and airports all over Australia. The users are categorized based on their account time limits to analyze the impact of account strati cation on the overall user behavior. A similarity index is developed to com- pare two data sets. This is used to quantitatively measure how similar or different various types of accounts are. The user population in the network is found to be highly uctuating, hence user speci c, population independent metrics are proposed to manage this transience. We also introduce metrics to measure account time and data utilization. We then follow through with detailed modeling of session and traffic parame- ters. We develop the truncated loglogistic (T-LL) distribution which can model light and heavy tailed data using a modi cation of Lavalette's law. A novel method to t the T-LL distribution to data by minimizing a goodness-of- t metric is presented. The T-LL distribution and the tting method are subsequently used to model session and traffic parameters of the network based on the categorization methodology de- veloped previously. We address concerns about the speci city of the model by using it to model other publicly available Wi-Fi network traces. The property of the introduced T-LL distribution to model both light and heavy tailed data makes it uniquely quali ed for modeling web le sizes. Thus we extend the applicability of the introduced model by tting it to publicly available web le size data. The T-LL models outperform those of the Pareto and lognormal distributions used to model such data currently.
Ph.D. in Computer Science, December 2014
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Title: A NEAR-THRESHOLD FLIP FLOP AND A SUB-THRESHOLD SRAM FOR LOW-POWER APPLICATIONS
Creator: Ramani, Arun Ramnath
Date: 2011-07, 2011-07
Description: This dissertation has two new circuit level designs proposed. One a Dual edge triggered Near threshold State Retentive flip flop and another a...
Show moreThis dissertation has two new circuit level designs proposed. One a Dual edge triggered Near threshold State Retentive flip flop and another a 9TSRAM cell for operation in Sub-Threshold Region. Since power consumption has become one of the major issues in the Ultra Deep Sub-Micron Technology, we have seen ideas where power saving methods being evolving and these given priority. Scaling the supply voltage into the near-threshold and the sub-thresholdregion for low power operation is possible. Power reduction in memory circuits with a little compromise on performance is very useful as these memory elements are the ones that form a major part of a integrated chip. The first part of this dissertation proposes a new dual edge triggered near threshold state-retentive pulsed latch or flip flop for low-power applications. The proposed circuit uses the idea of power gating during the sleep or idle mode thereby avoiding leakage but still retaining its state. It uses a dual edge triggered pulse which triggers the circuit at both the rising and falling edges of the clock. The circuit used low Vth Devices only and hence can operate at a Vdd as low as 0.5 V. The circuit was simulated using HSPICE at 45nm technology. In the second part of this dissertation, operation of various SRAM designs in sub-threshold region is examined and the ones which overcome the challenges that arise from operating in the sub-threshold region are also explained. Among the chosen designs for performance evaluation, the successful designs were the ones which resulted in proper read and write at sub-threshold supply voltage. Best combinations of them were taken and along with the considerations with respect to read noise margin, were made into a new SRAM design operating in subthreshold region. The circuit was simulated using HSPICE at 45nm technology using Predictive Technology Models.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, July 2011
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Title: PREDICTORS OF FUNCTIONAL SOCIAL SUPPORT FOR ADULTS WITH BRAIN INJURY
Creator: Batchos, Elisabeth
Date: 2017, 2017-07
Description: Extensive research has demonstrated social support is a protective factor in the recovery process for people with disabilities. Following...
Show moreExtensive research has demonstrated social support is a protective factor in the recovery process for people with disabilities. Following acquired brain injury (ABI), individuals’ social networks dwindle, support declines, and isolation increases; thus, social support is a critical variable in combating these issues during the rehabilitation process. This study draws on the tri-dimensional model of social support to examine predictors of functional support for adults with ABI. Specifically, this study examines the impact of problem solving characteristics and structural (e.g., network composition) and appraisal (e.g., network helpfulness) support variables on two types of perceived functional support outcomes: emotional and instrumental support. Participants included 170 adults with ABI from across the United States who completed an online survey about their social and community experiences. Separate hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine predictors of two dependent variables: perceived emotional and instrumental support. Four variable sets were entered: (1) demographic and injury characteristics; (2) problem solving variables (approach-avoidance style, problem solving confidence); (3) structural support variables (number of roles in informal and formal networks, Internet use); and (4) appraisal support variables (perceived helpfulness of informal and formal networks). Together these variables accounted for 44% of the variance in emotional support outcomes (R² = .44, p < .001) and 34% of the variance in instrumental support outcomes (R² = .34, p < .001). Both analyses showed a similar pattern of predictors—namely, problem solving confidence and quality and quantity of informal network ties. However, Internet use was a significant predictor only of instrumental support while helpfulness of one’s formal network only predicted emotional support. Findings from this study highlight the common and unique variables that promote different types of functional support. Psychosocial functioning is often a meaningful goal for long-term recovery from ABI, and these findings can be used to target the development of psychosocial interventions designed to increase emotional and instrumental support. Such interventions would address a gap in many current rehabilitation programs by focusing on strategies designed to increase specific types of social support. Further, interventions to enhance social support promote a valuable rehabilitation construct, as social support has repeatedly been associated with improved outcomes in other aspects of health and wellness for people with ABI.
Ph.D. in Psychology, July 2017
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Title: THE ROLES OF SUPPORT AND SOCIAL PROBLEM SOLV ING IN SOCIAL INTEGRATION FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH BRAIN INJURY
Creator: Batchos, Elisabeth
Date: 2014, 2014-12
Description: Individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI) may not only struggle with physical and cognitive impairments, but may also face challenges...
Show moreIndividuals with acquired brain injury (ABI) may not only struggle with physical and cognitive impairments, but may also face challenges reintegrating into the community socially. Research has demonstrated that following ABI, individuals’ social networks tend to dwindle, support may decline, and isolation increases. Social aspects of rehabilitation are often overlooked for more physical or cognitive symptom management. Social integration, however, may act as a protective factor for stress and has shown benefits for the rehabilitation process physically, cognitively, and psychosocially. Therefore, it may be vital to the rehabilitation process to examine factors promoting social integration. One important construct is that of social problem solving, which incorporates both the social and cognitive domains related to the rehabilitation of brain injury. Another such variable is social support, a factor previously shown to affect social outcomes. This study uses a sample of 102 individuals with ABI to examine factors impacting social integration. Predictors included emotional support, instrumental support, problem solving confidence, and approach-avoidance style of problem solving, while controlling for age, gender, education, and time since injury. Hierarchical regression was used to analyze whether these factors were predictive of social integration. Results demonstrated that emotional support was initially a significant predictor; however, when controlling for emotional support the variance in social integration was better accounted for by social problem solving—specifically, approachavoidance style. Given the results, a follow-up mediation analysis was conducted to look at social support as a mediator of the relationship between social problem solving (specifically, approach-avoidance style) on social integration. Findings indicated that the relationship between approach-avoidance style and social integration was indeed partially mediated by emotional support. This suggests that for individuals with ABI, their tendency to approach rather than avoid social problem solving issues is a significant predictor for social integration both directly and indirectly through its association with emotional social support.
M.S. in Psychology, December 2014
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Title: CTA Noise Abatement (Fall 1999) IPRO 597-029
Creator: Chong, Chung-ook, Danko, Michael, Takaoka, Alan, Banks, Christian, Erdman, Scott, Pai, Uday, Randhawa, Gaganpreet
Date: 1999, 1999-12
Description: Determine noise generation sources and parameters affecting noise production. • Produce samples of noise absorbing and noise barrier materials...
Show moreDetermine noise generation sources and parameters affecting noise production. • Produce samples of noise absorbing and noise barrier materials and evaluate them for effectiveness. • Develop skill in assessing the effect of barriers and buildings on noise propagation. • Develop designs for barriers of a variety of types: in building walls, free standing, and attached to something.
Sponsorship: NA
Project plan for IPRO 597-029: CTA Noise Abatement for the Fall 1999 semester
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Title: MULTI-LAYER AGENT-BASED MODELING FOR BONE TISSUE ENGINEERING
Creator: Lu, Chenlin
Date: 2018, 2018-05
Description: Bone tissue engineering (BTE) has emerged over the past few decades as a potential alternative to the field of conventional bone regenerative...
Show moreBone tissue engineering (BTE) has emerged over the past few decades as a potential alternative to the field of conventional bone regenerative medicine due to the exceedingly high demand of adequate bone grafts. Regeneration of bone tissue in BTE requires synergistic combination of biomaterial scaffolds, growth factors, and osteogenic cells. Scaffolds with well-designed architectures and degradation characteristics, provided with appropriate angiogenic and osteogenic factors are essential for bone tissue regeneration. Taking into account these factors that contribute to bone tissue regeneration process simultaneously and optimizing their characteristics presents a highly difficult task and cannot be addressed with experimentation alone. Computational models combined with experimental methods provide better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the complex process. The agent-based modeling (ABM) approach is used to develop three-dimensional models of vascularization and bone growth. ABM is a powerful modeling and simulation technique and is naturally suitable for complex biological system as it simulates actions and interactions of individual agents in an attempt to re-create and predict the appearance of complex phenomena. In this work, a multi-layered, agent-based computational model has been proposed to simulate the vascularization and bone tissue regeneration in a porous, biodegradable biomaterial scaffold. This model aims to investigate the interactions between osteogenic cells, signaling molecules, and biomaterial scaffolds in order to enhance scaffold vascularization and bone tissue formation. Our previous works have already investigated the interactions between endothelial cells (ECs) and biodegradable scaffolds, and provided us significant insights into the combined effect of scaffold geometrical properties and degradation dynamics on scaffold vascularization. Furthermore, the controlled release of angiogenic growth factors has been studied tothis work, a multi-layered, agent-based computational model has been proposed to simulate the vascularization and bone tissue regeneration in a porous, biodegradable biomaterial scaffold. This model aims to investigate the interactions between osteogenic cells, signaling molecules, and biomaterial scaffolds in order to enhance scaffold vascularization and bone tissue formation. Our previous works have already investigated the interactions between endothelial cells (ECs) and biodegradable scaffolds, and provided us significant insights into the combined effect of scaffold geometrical properties and degradation dynamics on scaffold vascularization. Furthermore, the controlled release of angiogenic growth factors has been studied to investigate their effects on vascularization process. This work will mainly focus on three aspects: 1) the improvement of scaffold degradation model. 2) the development of vascularized bone regeneration agent-based model in Repast High Performance Computing (Repast HPC). 3) the investigation of in vitro prevascularization strategy to enhance angiogenesis and overall bone regeneration in BTE applications. The developed model integrates all these factors and simulates the regeneration of bone tissue in biodegradable scaffolds over time. Simulation results can be used in combination with experimental data to design optimal scaffold constructs for bone tissue engineering. A multi-layer scaffold model is implemented in the degradation ABM. Scaffold vascularization is enhanced by the multi-layer scaffold strategy without losing the necessary mechanical support of biomaterial scaffolds. A integrated vascularized bone tissue regeneration ABM was developed using Repast HPC platform. The model successfully simulated the scaffold vascularization and coupled osteogenic differentiation in a 3D porous scaffold. The study demonstrated that scaffolds with higher porosity and combined angiogenic and osteogenic GF factor resulted in optimal vascularized bone formation. A diffusion ABM is developed to simulate the growth factor release in the scaffold. Simulation results indicated a good agreement between the diffusion ABM and mathematical model.The prevascularization high performance ABM is developed to simulate the integrated process of in vitro prevascularization followed by in vivo vascularized bone formation and evaluate the potential of prevascularization strategy to enhance overall scaffold vascularization and bone formation. The results demonstrated that prevascularized scaffold increases overall defect vascularization and bone formation upon implantation.
Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering, May 2018
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Title: IDENTIFYING E AND F LAYER IONOSPHERIC IRREGULARITIES WITH A SCINTILLATION AURORAL GPS ARRAY
Creator: Sreenivash, Vaishnavi
Date: 2018, 2018-05
Description: The Scintillation Auroral GPS Array (SAGA), comprising six kilometer-spaced receivers located in Poker Flat, Alaska, has been deployed for...
Show moreThe Scintillation Auroral GPS Array (SAGA), comprising six kilometer-spaced receivers located in Poker Flat, Alaska, has been deployed for four years to study high latitude scintillation effects on L1 and L2C frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. These scintillations disrupt the GPS signals received on the earth, affecting navigation services. Scintillation is associated with the variations in plasma densities known as irregularities, present in the ionosphere. Research on scintillation has been done from the past using different instruments and techniques, and for multiple purposes. One important prior effort is automated detection of the scintillation of L1 frequency GPS signals. Other successful research includes estimating the drift velocity of irregularities, anisotropy, height and thickness of the scattering layer. It is important to check before studying the properties of irregularities whether the sensors can detect the scintillations happening in the E or F region. In other words, it is essential to check that the sensors are sensitive not only to F region scintillations but also to the E region scintillations. The purpose of this work is to identify the ionospheric region, E or F, which is responsible for the scintillation on the L1 and L2C GPS signals. The scintillations of these GPS signals are further classified based on the type of scintillation i.e., phase scintillation and amplitude scintillation. The scintillation events are categorized as amplitude, phase, or both on L1 or L2C frequency occurring in the E or F region. Using the automated scintillation detection routine, a complete list of phase and amplitude scintillations on all days for both the frequencies L1/L2C in the years 2014 and 2015 is created. The highly scintillating days for 2014 and 2015 are sorted and the irregularities layer associated with these scintillation events are identified. The Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) and All Sky Camera images are used to develop the process of identifying the ionospheric region. The electron density from PFISR is assumed to be an essential parameter to determine the E/F layer irregularities. The All Sky Camera provides the red auroral brightness and the green auroral brightness, where red aurora implies F region and the green aurora implies E region. A summary of a subset of the scintillation events occurring on the highly scintillating days in 2014 and 2015 is provided through this work. It is found that phase scintillation is occurring more predominantly in the high latitudes than the amplitude scintillation. A number of these are attributed to E and F region irregularities. In future, the scintillation events obtained from this work will be used to study the E and F layers irregularities and properties in detail.
M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, May 2018
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Title: REAL-TIME INTRUSION DETECTION FOR VOIP OVER WIRELESS NETWORKS
Creator: Tang, Jin
Date: 2012-07-16, 2012-07
Description: Voice over IP (VoIP) has emerged as a prevailing application in recent years. At the same time, with the increasing coverage of the IEEE 802...
Show moreVoice over IP (VoIP) has emerged as a prevailing application in recent years. At the same time, with the increasing coverage of the IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks, VoIP over wireless networks is drawing extensive attention in both academia and industry. Due to the openness and distributed nature of the protocols involved in VoIP over wireless, such as the session initiation protocol (SIP) and the IEEE 802.11 standard, it becomes easy for malicious users in the network to achieve their own gain or disrupt the service by deviating from the normal protocol behaviors. The main objective of this research is to develop real-time intrusion detection techniques that can quickly track down the malicious behaviors which manipulate the vulnerabilities from either VoIP or 802.11 protocols. Further, we will achieve the objective without requiring modification to the relevant standard protocols, and develop analytical tools to guide the detection system design for guaranteed performance. Specifically, for the malicious selfish misbehavior utilizing vulnerabilities of the 802.11 protocol, we design a real-time detector, termed as the fair share detector (FS detector), which exploits the non-parametric cumulative sum (CUSUM) test to quickly find a selfish malicious node without any a priori knowledge of the statistics of the selfish misbehavior. And while most of the existing schemes for selfish misbehavior detection depend on heuristic parameter configuration and experimental performance evaluation, we develop a Markov chain based analytical model to systematically study the FS detector. Based on the analytical model, we can quantitatively compute the system configuration parameters for guaranteed performance. Further, to achieve better detection performance, we enhance the FS detector to develop an adaptive detector with the Markov decision process (MDP). Then based on a reward function defined by us, we are able to determine an optimal decision policy to maximize the overall system benefit through a linear programming formulation. The optimal policy also indicates the operation of the adaptive detector, which yields better performance in both false positive rate and detection delay. For attacks on the SIP layer, we first focus on the well-known flooding attack and develop an online scheme to detect and subsequently prevent the attack, by integrating a novel three-dimensional sketch design with the Hellinger distance detection technique. Also, we address the stealthy attack, where intelligent attackers can afford long time to attack the system, and only incur minor changes to the system within each sampling period. To identify such attacks in the early stage for a timely response, we propose a detection scheme based on the signal processing technique wavelet, which is able to quickly expose the changes induced by the attacks. Moreover, we identify a new type of malformed message attack that can manipulate both the “Session-Expires” header in the SIP message and openness of wireless protocols to severely drain the network resources. We develop a detection method based on the Anderson-Darling test to deal with such attacks. In the future work, we will continue with the CUSUM-based framework for selfish misbehavior detection over practical multi-hop wireless networks with guaranteed performance. It is expected that we can generate distributed CUSUM-based detection mechanisms for the multi-hop networks, analytical tools for the distributed detection system, and configuration parameter selection methods for guaranteed detection performance. Moreover, as attackers can employ the openness of the 802.11 protocols to generate more severe and harder-to-detect attacks to the SIP based VoIP system, to further enhance the detection performance, we plan to develop cross-layer intrusion detection techniques for the system.
Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, July 2012
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Title: FERN CREEK MENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOSPITAL DESIGN
Creator: Groszko, Larissa A.
Date: 2012-11-10, 2012-12
Description: During the past fifty years, mental and behavioral health treatments and patient needs have changed drastically within the psychiatric field....
Show moreDuring the past fifty years, mental and behavioral health treatments and patient needs have changed drastically within the psychiatric field. However, architecture and design characteristics of a mental healthcare facility have not adapted to meet the demands. In addressing numerous aspects related to psychiatric care, a new hospital design needs to emerge in order to better serve those in need of treatment related to mental and behavioral health disorders. The design of a Mental and Behavioral Health Facility should focus on and incorporate recent healthcare design theories, such as Evidence-based Design and Biophilic Design Theories. The integration of current theories will aid in the development of a healing environment that will support the successful functioning of the facility and patient/family treatment. Facility designs must consider staff areas, inpatient and outpatient care, rehabilitation and family/patient education, as integral components that contribute to the treatment of mental health disorders and illness.
M.S. in Architecture, December 2012
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Title: ADVANCED CIRCUIT TECHNICS FOR LOW POWER IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Creator: Wang, Junchao
Date: 2015, 2015-05
Description: In last 50 years, the feature size of fabrication process for integrated circuits has continuously emerged which proved Moore’s Law that the...
Show moreIn last 50 years, the feature size of fabrication process for integrated circuits has continuously emerged which proved Moore’s Law that the feature size will decrease in half every 18 months. However, in recent years, the problems caused by highly emerged CMOS devices such as large leakage current, high temperature when operating and high energy consumption became a huge barrier to impede the development of integrated circuits. In 1998, CNFET has been proposed, its great electrical characteristic has attracted a lot of attention and it is the best potential device to replace traditional CMOS devices. Meanwhile, in theoretical area, reversible computing has been proposed to solve the energy dissipation caused by irreversible computing in the system. According to Landauer’s Principle, the power consumption can infinitely approach zero when the circuit is designed based on reversible logic. In this thesis, the author proposed a novel CNFET-based ternary inverter with better performance compared to exist inverters. Also, a Carry Select Adder with improved architecture designed by reversible logic is proposed.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, May 2015
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Title: MODELING GLUCOSE-INSULIN DYNAMICS AND AUTOMATED BLOOD GLUCOSE REGULATION IN PATIENTS WITH TYPE 1 DIABETES
Creator: Oruklu, Meriyan
Date: 2012-11-06, 2012-12
Description: Estimation of future glucose concentrations is a crucial task for diabetes management. Predicted glucose values can be used for early...
Show moreEstimation of future glucose concentrations is a crucial task for diabetes management. Predicted glucose values can be used for early hypoglycemic/hyperglycemic alarms or for adjustment of insulin amount/rate. In the first part of this thesis, reliable subject-specific glucose concentration prediction models are developed using a patient’s continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) data. CGM technologies provide glucose readings at a high frequency and consequently detailed insight into a patient’s glucose variation. Time-series analyses are utilized to develop low-order linear models from a patient’s own CGM data. Glucose prediction models are integrated with recursive identification and change detection methods, which enable dynamical adaptation of the model to inter-/intra-subject variability and glycemic disturbances. Two separate patient data sets collected under hospitalized (disturbance-free) and normal daily life conditions are used to validate the univariate glucose prediction algorithm developed. Prediction performance is evaluated in terms of prediction error metrics and Clarke error grid analysis (CG-EGA). The long-term complications of diabetes can be reduced by controlling the blood glucose concentrations within normoglycemic limits. In the second part of this thesis, the subject-specific modeling algorithm developed in part one is integrated with a control algorithm for closing the glucose regulation loop for patients with type 1 diabetes. An adaptive control algorithm is developed to keep a patient’s glucose concentrations within normoglycemic range and dynamically respond to glycemic challenges with automated subcutaneous insulin infusion. A model-based control strategy is used to calculate the required insulin infusion rate, while the model parameters are recursively identified at each sampling step. The closed-loop algorithm is designed for the subcutaneous route for both glucose sensing and insulin delivery. xii It accounts for the slow insulin absorption from the adipose tissue and the time-delay between blood and subcutaneous glucose concentrations. The performance of the control algorithm developed is demonstrated on two simulated patient populations to provide effective blood glucose regulation in response to multiple meal challenges with a simultaneous challenge on a patient’s insulin sensitivity. Physical activity and emotional stimuli such as stress are known to have a significant effect on a patient’s whole-body fuel metabolism. In the third part of this thesis, the univariate time-series models developed from recent glucose concentration history are extended to include additional information on a patient’s physical and emotional condition. Physiological measurements from a multi-sensor body monitor are used to supplement a patient’s CGM data and develop multivariate glucose prediction models. The prediction performance of the multivariate algorithm developed is evaluated on data collected from patients with type 2 diabetes, and a real life implementation of the algorithm is demonstrated for early (i.e., 30 min in advance) hypoglycemia detection. Finally, the control algorithm developed in part two is extended to utilize the glucose profiles predicted by the multivariate patient model. The multivariate closedloop algorithm is tested with two clinical experiments performed on a patient with type 1 diabetes during a high intensity exercise followed by a carbohydrate-rich meal challenge. The algorithm acquires the patient’s CGM and armband (body monitor) data every 10 min, and accordingly calculates the required basal insulin infusion rate. Insulin is administered in a fully automated manner without any food or activity announcements (e.g., no information on meal/exercise size or time). None of the algorithms developed in this thesis require any patient specific tailoring or prior experimental data before implementation. They are also designed to function in a fully automated manner and do not require any disturbance announcexiii ments or manual inputs. Therefore, they are good candidates for installation on a portable ambulatory device used in a patient’s home environment for his/her diabetes management.
PH.D in Chemical and Biological Engineering, December 2012
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Title: CERTIFIED REHABILITATION COUNSELORS’ WILLINGNESS TO ADDRESS SEXUALITY-RELATED CONCERNS WITH CLIENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER
Creator: Easton, Amanda B.
Date: 2015, 2015-05
Description: Certified Rehabilitation Counselors (CRCs) are professionals who are responsible for supporting the rights and independence of people with...
Show moreCertified Rehabilitation Counselors (CRCs) are professionals who are responsible for supporting the rights and independence of people with disabilities. CRCs provide a number of services to those with a number of disabilities including, but not limited to, mental health counseling, vocational counseling, advocacy, and psychoeducation. Given the plethora of complexities associated with the wide range of disabilities people experience, CRCs are professionals who need to have a variety of skills, knowledge, and competencies. In recent years, the rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have increased drastically and issues related to the disorder have become more widely known than ever before. It is likely, given the rates of ASD diagnoses and the fact that CRCs work with individuals with disorders like ASD, that CRCs will interact with someone who has ASD at some juncture in their professional tenure. ASD is characterized by impaired social functioning, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. In some circumstances ASD is coupled with cognitive deficits, speech and language delays and deficits, and behavioral challenges. Still, those with ASD experience the same hormonal changes as anyone else during puberty and maturation and are impacted by sexuality. For CRCs sexuality is typically considered a part of culture and having a strong multicultural competency is expected by the governing agencies that dictate CRC ethical practice. Furthermore, few studies that explore CRCs attitudes and intentions have used the theoretical framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior. This study attempted to explore the factors that contribute to CRCs willingness to address sexuality-related concerns for clients with ASD. This study used a sample of 99 CRCs throughout the United States. The predictors included familiarity, attitudes towards sexuality for people with ASD, subjective normative beliefs, and control beliefs, while controlling for participants’ age, gender, training around sexuality, and spirituality. A hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze whether these factors were predictive of CRCs willingness to address sexuality-related issues for clients with ASD. Results demonstrated that gender and familiarity were initially significant predictors; however, when controlling for the TPB variables, the variance in willingness was better accounted for by subjective normative beliefs and control beliefs. Additionally, the CRCs in this study were asked to rate 11 areas of sexuality that they were most and least comfortable with. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA along with follow-up contrasts was completed. The CRCs in this study reported feeling the highest level of comfort with addressing sexual harassment and sexuality in the workplace and were least comfortable addressing masturbation and sexual behaviors and preferences. Further, based on a Spearman’s rank analysis, the vignette case example showed that CRCs thought that social skills development was the most important intervention, followed by emotional support, sexual identity, self-esteem, and job training, though scores on social skills did not differ significantly from the other interventions.
Ph.D. in Psychology, May 2015
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Title: CHARACTERIZATION OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER FONDUE MUTANTS
Creator: Bajzek, Clara
Date: 2013, 2013-12
Description: Efficient clotting is essential to invertebrates with open circulatory systems. Like blood clotting in vertebrates, coagulation is important...
Show moreEfficient clotting is essential to invertebrates with open circulatory systems. Like blood clotting in vertebrates, coagulation is important to stop bleeding and prevent bacteria from entering at the wound site of invertebrates. Multiple Drosophila clotting factors have been identified and work has started to study the effects of a few in vitro and more importantly in vivo. Here we characterize the fondue clotting factor mutants. Effects are seen in vitro for fon RNAi knock downs, hypmorph mutants, and null mutants we generated by excising a Minos element. However, with the current in vivo assay, no coagulation phenotype is observed. We developed a new quick and easy in vivo assay, called the capillary assay, to measure how much wounded larvae bleed. Although findings from this assay showed strong results for hmlf03374 mutants, fon mutants still showed no in vivo phenotype with this assay. This reinforces the idea of redundant hemostatic mechanisms in Drosophila larvae. In addition to coagulation phenotypes, fon mutants are pupal lethal and have an elongated pupal shape. Driving the expression of fondue-GFP fusion construct showed that fondue is expressed in a stripped pattern along the body of the larvae. The similarity of this pattern to the expression pattern of tiggrin, a protein involved in muscle attachment, led to the discovery that some clotting factors, including fondue, act in muscle attachment in Drosophila.
M.S. in Biology, December 2013
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Title: MULTI-AGENT MODELING OF TISSUE GROWTH AND ANGIOGENESIS WITH HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
Creator: Bayrak, Elif Seyma
Date: 2015, 2015-07
Description: Tissue engineering emerged as a result of the high demand of transplant organ and tissues in spite of low number of donors. Rapid and stable...
Show moreTissue engineering emerged as a result of the high demand of transplant organ and tissues in spite of low number of donors. Rapid and stable vascularization still presents the major challenge for three-dimensional functional tissues. Bone is a highly vascularized tissue. Regeneration of vascularized bone tissue from osteogenic cells in biodegradable scaffolds is strongly affected by the interplay between scaffold properties, chemical cues and precursor cells. The number of variables that contribute to the formation of engineered tissues present a challenging optimization problem that cannot be addressed with the experimentation alone. Complex system such as vascularized tissue growth can benefit from properly developed computational models. Computational models can help us understand interactions between the various parts of the complex systems, imagine all possible outcomes of a specific event, explain reasons and causes and forecast future trajectories. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a powerful modeling and simulation technique that builds a structure from bottom-up to model and understand systems comprised of autonomous, interacting entities. ABM is a natural choice to model biological system that is comprised of many interacting cells. ABM possesses great advantages including simulating of each individuals behavior, holding their history, allowing them to adapt to dynamic conditions and learn through simple to complex algorithms. One main concern of the modelers is the computational heaviness of ABMs that limits the use of this technique in real time optimization, monitoring and control applications. Discovering the full potential of ABM in biological system with huge population size depend on the computational power available.A multi layer agent based model to simulate vascular bone regeneration in degradable porous hydrogels is developed both for personal computer (PC) environment and high performance computing (HPC) platforms. The personal computer (PC) version of this model is built upon the angiogenesis model that was previously developed by Arsun Artel and Hamidreza Mehdizadeh. This work is focused on development of bone tissue growth layer while considering the interactions and improving the existing layers and uses the parallel processing paradigm for running tissue growth more efficiently and more quickly. This model aims to help investigating and understanding the interactions between soluble factors, scaffolds and cells, and finding the optimal biomaterial structure and soluble cues to maximize vascularization and differentiation to bone tissue.
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, July 2015
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Title: FACTORS PREDICTING SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF A COUNTY DRUG COURT PROGRAM
Creator: Haak, Christopher
Date: 2013, 2013-12
Description: Drug treatment courts have become a vital part of the trend towards rehabilitative criminal justice and spawned numerous other rehabilitative...
Show moreDrug treatment courts have become a vital part of the trend towards rehabilitative criminal justice and spawned numerous other rehabilitative courts since starting in Dade County, Florida over 23 years ago. The growth and increased use came out of a strong research foundation that looked at the factors that led to the ability to complete the program and avoid rearrest. This study used archival data on 183 individuals who had previously completed the drug court program either successfully or unsuccessfully and examined factors that predicted successful graduation, focusing on those that could be modified. Predictors included age, gender, employment at entry, drug of choice, level of risk, depression, anxiety, and defensiveness. The predictors were grouped into three different areas: demographics, level of risk, and mental preparedness to enter treatment. Logistic regression was used to examine whether the predictor variables were predictive of completion status. Findings show that individuals with alcohol as drug of choice and individuals with higher anxiety scores were significantly more likely to successfully complete the drug treatment court program. Individuals with higher level of risk, depression, and defensiveness scores were found to be significantly more likely to unsuccessfully complete the drug treatment court program. These findings support previous research on individual factors and drug treatment court program outcome, and the results show that further exploration is necessary to understand why these variables are predictive and whether changes to treatment can address the needs they highlight.
M.S. in Psychology, December 2013
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