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Title: CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE USING SOLID SORBENTS IN A FLUIDIZED BED WITH REDUCED PRESSURE REGENERATION IN A DOWNER
Creator: Kongkitisupchai, Sunti
Date: 2012-11-11, 2012-12
Description: The most commonly used commercial technology for post-combustion CO2 capture for existing power plants is the amine solvent scrubber. However,...
Show moreThe most commonly used commercial technology for post-combustion CO2 capture for existing power plants is the amine solvent scrubber. However, the energy consumption for capturing CO2 from flue gases using amine solvent technology is 15 to 30% of the power plant due to the use of steam in solvent regeneration. Hence there is a need to develop more efficient methods of removing CO2. The objective of this thesis research is to demonstrate the design of a complete loop system of dry solid sorbent technology, which consumes less energy, as an alternative CO2 capturing technology. The design of a complete riser-sorber and downer-regenerator loop system for a dry solid sorbent technology is developed using the recently developed kinetic theory based multiphase computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The complete dry solid sorbent loop system comprises of an atmospheric fluidized bed riser-sorber and a reduced pressure downer-regenerator. The proposed dry solid sorbent used in this thesis research is a dry sodium carbonate sorbent recently developed at RTI and earlier by Gidaspow and Onischak. The dry solid sorbents capture CO2 and water vapor from flue gases through chemical sorption in the sorber-riser. The captured CO2 is released from the solid sorbent along with water vapor in the reduced pressure regenerator-downer where the solid sorbent regeneration occurred. The complete dry solid sorbent loop system demonstrates the possibility of solving three main technical challenges, which are the handling of large volumetric flow rate of the flue gases, the required operating power, and the quantity of CO2 sorption. xvii A new proposed pressure-equilibrium based sorption rate model for the dry sodium carbonate sorbents is used in the simulations. The simulations of both fluidized riser-sorber and downer-regenerator were done using commercial CFD code; Fluent. The energy efficiency of the proposed dry solid sorbent loop system was studied using thermodynamic availability analysis for both an individual vessel and for the overall process for evaluating the minimum energy requirement for CO2 separation. A T-s diagram of inlet and outlet streams for both the riser-sorber and the downer-regenerator are included in the thermodynamics analysis. The results from multiphase CFD simulations showed that the heat liberated during CO2 sorption in the riser-sorber can be nearly fully recovered in form of sensible heat in the solid sorbent. The captured heat in the solid sorbents is used as the energy for CO2 desorption in the sorbent regeneration process inside the reduced pressure downerregenerator. Hence, the only parasitic power loss will be the energy needed for sorbent circulation, air-lock rotary valves, and vacuum fan. The drastic energy saving is possible due to the high solid circulation rate between sorber-riser and downer-regenerator. Additionally, the simulation results showed that the core-annular regime flow pattern in the riser-sorber can be almost completely eliminated by using multiple jet inlets and increasing solid sorbent particle size, from 75 microns manufactured by RTI to 500 micron sorbent particles. Furthermore, the large sorbent particle size allows better solid settling in the downer. The simulations also showed that a core-annular flow pattern occurred inside the downer-regenerator. However, there is no negative effect of having a core-annular regime inside the downer-regenerator.
PH.D in Chemical Engineering, December 2012
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Title: BELIEFS AND CONTEXTUAL MEDIATORS AND MODERATORS OF DISCRETIONARY WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR
Creator: Raad, Jason H.
Date: 2014, 2014-07
Description: The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been successfully used to link attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control to the...
Show moreThe Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been successfully used to link attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control to the enactment of various behaviors in numerous situations; however, the TPB in not frequently used in organizational settings. Similarly, contextual factors may represent important moderating and mediating effects that have not been fully explored in prior TPB research. The current study employs the TPB in a healthcare setting to assess the use of Outcome Measures (OMs) by practicing clinicians. Two contextual mediators and a one contextual moderator were added to the standard TPB framework in an attempt to better explain the enactment of discretionary workplace behavior. Results suggest that TPB components are related to the discretionary use of Outcome Measures in clinical practice; however, results also suggest that hypothesized relationships between TPB factors may diverge significantly from those proposed in the original theory. Implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed.
Ph.D. in Psychology, July 2014
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Title: ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF THE LIAR MACHINE TO THE Q-ARY PATHOLOGICAL LIAR GAME WITH A FOCUS ON LOWER DISCREPANCY BOUNDS
Creator: Williamson, James W
Date: 2011-12-12, 2011-12
Description: The binary pathological liar game, as described by Ellis and Yan in [Ellis and Yan, 2004], is a variation of the original liar game, as...
Show moreThe binary pathological liar game, as described by Ellis and Yan in [Ellis and Yan, 2004], is a variation of the original liar game, as described by Berlekamp, R enyi, and Ulam in [Berlekamp, 1964], [R enyi, 1961], and [Ulam, 1976]. This two person, questioner/ responder, game is played for n rounds for a set of M messages. The game begins by the responder selecting a message from the set M. Each round the questioner partitions the messages into two distinct subsets. The responder selects one subset, and elements not in the selected subset each accumulate a lie. Elements accumulating more than e lies are eliminated. The questioner wins the original game provided after the completion of n rounds there is at most one surviving message. The questioner wins the pathological game provided there is at least one surviving message. The focus here will be to generalize the pathological game from two subsets to q subsets with a focus on providing a winning condition for the questioner. The q-ary variant of the pathological liar game has been studied, with rst results in [Ellis and Nyman, 2009]. We let the number of rounds the game is played go to in nity, with e a linear fraction of n, and present an upper bound on the number of messages required by the questioner to win the q-ary Pathological Liar Game. The liar machine and linear machine as discussed by Cooper and Ellis in [Cooper and Ellis, 2010] have been adapted to t this generalization and are used to track the approximate progression of the game. We provide an upper bound on the initial number of chips by bounding the discrepancy between the actual progression of the game and the approximate progression of the game as described by the linear and liar machines respectively. A similar upper bound can be found in [Tietzer, 2011], with di erent elements in the argument. Using methods similar to those found in [Cooper and Ellis, 2010], we provide a partial order argument to show that the winning condition bound for one response strategy by the questioner transfers to all possible response strategies.
M.S. in Applied Mathematics, December 2011
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Title: POSTPRANDIAL PLASMA POLYPHENOL PROFILE AND BIOAVAILABILITY OF ANTHOCYANINS IN INSULIN RESISTANT HUMANS AFTER CONSUMING MULTIPLE DOSES OF STRAWBERRIES BEVERAGE WITH A MEAL
Creator: Wei, Hequn
Date: 2014, 2014-05
Description: Strawberries represent a rich source of polyphenolic compounds that are purported to be important for human health. However, data on their...
Show moreStrawberries represent a rich source of polyphenolic compounds that are purported to be important for human health. However, data on their bioavailability are limited. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to assess the absorption and metabolism of strawberry polyphenols in the postprandial phase using LC-MS/MS. Plasma was collected from humans (n=17) every 30-60 min over 6 h after ingestion of a 650 kcal standard meal accompanied with a beverage containing 0, 10, 20 or 40 g freeze dried strawberry powder. Pelargonidin-O-glucuronide (PG) was the most abundant strawberry metabolite in plasma. Maximum concentrations (Cmax) of PG were achieved at 188 ± 44 min and the levels were significantly different among beverages containing 0, 10, 20, 40 g strawberry powder: 0, 66.0±4.15, 113.64±10.11 and 202.1±15.18 nmol/L, respectively (P<0.05). Area under the concentration curve (AUC) over 6 h also increased with increasing doses (P<0.05); Cmax and AUC of PG was reduced as a percent of pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside (P3G) delivered in the 4 strawberry beverages (P<0.05). The 3 major anthocyanin polyphenols (PG, Pelagonidin-3-Glucoside (P3G) and Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (CG)) found in plasma increased significantly after consumption of all strawberry-containing beverages compared to placebo (p<0,05). Bioavailability of PG from P3G among beverages containing 10, 20, 40 g strawberry powder were 1.76%, 1.40%, 1.30%, respectively. While higher concentrations of key strawberry compounds and metabolites were achieved with consumption of more strawberry powder, adjusting for dose suggested possible saturation of absorptive capacity of pelargonidin-based anthocyanins. These data provide the basis for understanding the relationship between dose, kinetic profile and efficacy outcomes for making recommendations to deliver optimal health benefits of strawberries; and moreover, serve as a model of the type of data required for understanding the relationship between dietary phytochemical intake and their biological effects.
M.S. in Food Processing Engineering, May 2014
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Title: IMPROVING FAULT TOLERANCE FOR EXTREME SCALE SYSTEMS
Creator: Berrocal, Eduardo
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), now calculated in days or hours, is expected to drop to minutes on exascale machines. In this thesis, a new...
Show moreMean Time Between Failures (MTBF), now calculated in days or hours, is expected to drop to minutes on exascale machines. In this thesis, a new approach for failure prediction based on the Void Search (VS) algorithm is presented . VS is used primarily in astrophysics for nding areas of space that have a very low den- sity of galaxies. We explore its potential for failure prediction using environmental information and compare it to well known prediction methods. Another important issue for the HPC community is that next-generation supercomputers are expected to have more components and consume several times less energy per operation. Hence, supercomputer designers are pushing the limits of miniaturization and energy-saving strategies. Consequently, the number of soft errors is expected to increase dramati- cally in the coming years. While mechanisms are in place to correct or at least detect soft errors, a percentage of those errors pass unnoticed by the hardware. Techniques that leverage certain properties of iterative HPC applications (such as the smoothness of the evolution of a particular dataset) can be used to detect silent errors at the application level. Results show that it is possible to detect a large number of corruptions (i.e., above 90% in some cases) with less than 100% overhead using these techniques. Nevertheless, these data-analytic solutions are still far from fully pro- tecting applications to a level comparable with more expensive solutions such as full replication. In this thesis, partial replication is explored to overcome this limitation. More speci cally, it has been observed that not all processes of an MPI application experience the same level of data variability at exactly the same time. Thus, one can smartly choose and replicate only those processes for which the lightweight data- analytic detectors would perform poorly. Results indicate that this new approach can protect the MPI applications analyzed with 7{70% less overhead (depending on the application) than that of full duplication with similar detection recall.
Ph.D. in Computer Science, May 2017
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Title: GREEN FACADES IN ARID CLIMATE: EFFECTS ON BUILDING ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA
Creator: Binabid, Jamil
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: In recent decades, the population of Saudi Arabia has increased significantly, reaching thirty-two million in July 2016. This proliferation of...
Show moreIn recent decades, the population of Saudi Arabia has increased significantly, reaching thirty-two million in July 2016. This proliferation of residents, along with substantial economic growth, has precipitated the construction of numerous new buildings, particularly residential structures. Consequently, post-1940, with the introduction of subdivisions and setbacks, more surfaces were exposed to solar radiation, leading to rising levels of surface heat. With the growing use of air conditioning since the early 1970’s, electrical energy consumption increased, exacerbated by the poor performance of building envelopes, the common use of concrete blocks for construction and, as reported in 2013 by the Saudi Electricity Company, the fact that 70% of buildings are not thermally insulated, all of which contributes to high cooling loads and the increased use of air-conditioning to provide building occupants with the desired level of thermal comfort. In response to this trend, the Saudi government established the Saudi Energy Efficiency Center (“SEEC’) in 2014, requiring that all new construction must have insulation. This policy did not, however, address the study of existing buildings in order to adopt appropriate energy-efficiency solutions. Green facades present an important and efficacious approach to meeting this need. The following research focuses on green facade design strategies, which in conjunction with thermal insulation retrofitting can significantly enhance building envelope performance on existing low-rise (one to three floors) single-family home structures in the arid climate of Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia, located in the western area in the most populated province of Mekkah. The city was selected as a case study because the residences require cooling and air-conditioning almost all year round due to low diurnal temperature variation resulting from low elevation and high humidity. Research methods included an experimental approach to understand how much solar radiation is blocked through green façade. After researching both native and nonnative plants, as well as certain vegetation properties provided from previous literature resembling evapotranspiration and thermal conductivity, Bougainvillea Glabra, Clerodendrum Inerme, Ipomoea Pes-Caprae, Jacquemontia Pentantha, and Pentalinon Luteum were chosen as the optimal plants for use in this study. Data collected from existing green façades in Jeddah during the summer season were analyzed for comparison and evaluation. In addition, energy simulation by Energy Plus was used to predict potential cooling and air-conditioning energy savings for buildings in Jeddah in respect to the differences between the types of plants and green façade systems used. Finally, the recommendations on the best design solutions for arid climate of Jeddah will be formulated and could be incorporated into the city policies and regulations from SEEC and the Municipality.
Ph.D. in Architecture, May 2017
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Title: DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SWITCHED RELUCTANCE MACHINES WITH HIGHER NUMBER OF ROTOR POLES FOR LOW POWER PROPULSION APPLICATIONS
Creator: Ray, Aishwarya
Date: 2013-04-30, 2013-05
Description: Currently most of the world along with the United States is based on a fossil fuel economy. The United States alone consumes around 25% of...
Show moreCurrently most of the world along with the United States is based on a fossil fuel economy. The United States alone consumes around 25% of global annual oil production. According to the Institute for Energy Research, around 70% of this oil is utilized for automotive applications [2]. Due to rising concerns over depleting fossil fuel reserves, global warming and other environmental concerns along with volatility in the fuel market, alternative sources of energy and fuel efficiency have received wide spread attention among researchers. Electric machines which are at the heart of any drive-train mechanism, have garnered particular attention. To date, a vast majority of research in this area has been focused on permanent magnet based machine topologies. However, due to concerns regarding rising demand and foreign dependence for the procurement of rare earth materials, coupled with rising costs and the environmentally hazardous excavation process of these materials, machine technologies with little or no permanent magnets have gained significant interest. Switched Reluctance Machines (SRMs) are one of the top contenders in this category. An SRM does not require permanent magnets, is extremely rugged and is well suited for harsh operating conditions. SRMs have a wide operating speed range, a very simple geometric structure and allow for fault tolerant operation. Conventional SRMs were designed to have a higher number of stator poles as compared to rotor poles. However, this configuration has many drawbacks such as high noise, torque ripple and complexity in modeling. Using the new formula developed at the Illinois Institute of Technology, a new SRM topology has been proposed which has higher number of rotor xii poles relative to stator poles (HRSRM). This topology has shown a significant improvement in torque ripple along with a reduction in noise as compared to conventional SRMs. This study evaluates the performance of an SRM with higher number of rotor poles for low power automotive applications like the electric bicycle (eBike), all-terrain vehicles (ATV), golf carts, utility task vehicles (UTV), etc. Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), the machine has been designed with 6 stator and 10 rotor poles. This thesis presents preliminary results from the iterative machine design process along with detailed results from each stage of development. A closed loop simulation of the system has been carried out in MATLAB for verifying dynamic performance of the designed machine. Finally an experimental setup was developed for the prototype machine. The drive consists of an asymmetric bridge converter operating in closed current loop along with phase detection enabled via a position encoder. This test bed has been used to verify the feasibility of the proposed solution.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, May 2013
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Title: MACROSCOPIC QUANTITIES FOR STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH A LEVY NOISE IN TWO DIMENSIONS
Creator: Albert, Hannah
Date: 2016, 2016-05
Description: The mean exit time and transition probability density function are macroscopic quantities used to determine the behavior of stochastic di...
Show moreThe mean exit time and transition probability density function are macroscopic quantities used to determine the behavior of stochastic di↵erential equations (SDEs). The integral-di↵erential equations determining these quantities for SDEs with non- Gaussian ↵-stable L´evy motions involve a nonlocal term consisting of a singular integral, which is a manifestation of the ’flights’ or ’jumps’ due to the non-Gaussian noise. A two-dimensional SDE with radially symmetric ↵-stable L´evy motion is considered, and an efficient second-order accurate numerical scheme is developed for calculating the mean exit time and transition probability density function. The scheme is numerically verified by testing the results of the deterministic integral-di↵erential equations with a known, smooth function u(x) in place of themean exit time, and by calculating an unknown mean exit time u(x).
M.S. in Applied Mathematics, May 2016
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Title: CLUSTERING ALGORITHM FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY DATA USING GENERAL-PURPOSE COMPUTING ON GRAPHICS PROCESSING UNITS
Creator: Ali, Ansab
Date: 2016, 2016-05
Description: Modern mass spectrometers can produce mass spectra data at a very high rate. Usually, this data has a signi cant percentage of redundant...
Show moreModern mass spectrometers can produce mass spectra data at a very high rate. Usually, this data has a signi cant percentage of redundant spectra that in- crease the database lookup time when searching for peptides. Therefore, there is a need for data-mining techniques (e.g. clustering) to reduce the complexity of these mass spectra datasets before database search. Multi-core architectures, speci cally Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have evolved tremendously in the recent years and are an ideal option for clustering these large mass spectra datasets. In this thesis, we present an e cient and scalable parallel algorithm for clustering mass spectra using the well known 'F-set' similarity metric. We describe the algorithmic framework and the various optimizations that serve to vastly improve the algorithm's performance and accuracy. We test the algorithm on a variety of real as well as self-generated mass spectra datasets and show that the algorithm achieves highly accurate clustering with performance gain of around 50 to 100 times as compared to serial implementations in literature. Thus, by clustering mass spectra corresponding to unique peptides to- gether, the algorithm allows faster identi cation of peptides in a subsequent database search.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, May 2016
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Title: A NUMERICAL AND ANALYTICAL STUDY OF THE GROWTH OF SECOND PHASE PARTICLES USING A SHARP INTERFACE APPROACH
Creator: Barua, Amlan K.
Date: 2012-08-15, 2012-12
Description: Two phase alloys are quite important in materials science and metallurgy. Some common examples include nickel-aluminum system, iron-carbon...
Show moreTwo phase alloys are quite important in materials science and metallurgy. Some common examples include nickel-aluminum system, iron-carbon system etc. The most important macroscopic properties of these alloys depend on size, orientation and concentration of the second-phase precipitates. It is necessary to understand the details of formation, growth and equilibrium conditions of these micro-structures for better material production. In this dissertation we investigate the growth of the precipitates within the matrix using a sharp interface approach. We consider the effects of elastic fields on the evolution of the precipitates. The elastic fields can either be applied at the far field or can simply arise as a result of crystallographic difference between matrix and precipitate phase. The precipitates exhibit complicated morphology because of the Mullins-Sekerka instability. Our investigation is based on both analytical and numerical techniques. We use linear analysis to understand the qualitative behavior of the problem, at least for short time. To simulate the long time dynamics of the problem and to understand the effects of nonlinearity, we use highly accurate boundary integral methods. Our main contribution in this thesis is threefold. First, starting from linear analysis, we focus on the conditions under which stable growth, in presence of elastic field, is possible for a single precipitate. Finding such conditions are important in material production and simple conditions like constant material flux and constant elastic fields produce precipitates with complicated shapes. Second, we propose a space-time rescaling of the original boundary integral equations of the problem. The rescaling enables us to accurately simulate very long time behavior of the system comprising of multiple precipitates growing under different mass flux and elasticity. It also helps us to understand the long time interaction of precipitates. Third, we xiii implement an adaptive treecode to reduce the computational complexity of the iterative solver from O(N2) to O(N logN) where N is the dimension of the discrete problem. The efficiency of the treecode is demonstrated by performing simulations. Also a parallelization strategy for the treecode is discussed. The speed-up from the parallelization is demonstrated using moderate number of cores. xiv
PH.D in Applied Mathematics, December 2012
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Title: THERMAL INACTIVATION OF POLYPHENOL OXIDASE IN POTATO, AVOCODO AND APPLE
Creator: Banstola, Anunaya
Date: 2011-06, 2011-07
Description: Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) needs to be inactivated to control the enzymatic browning which is undesirable in fruits and vegetables industry....
Show morePolyphenol oxidase (PPO) needs to be inactivated to control the enzymatic browning which is undesirable in fruits and vegetables industry. Enzymes have substrateorigin- specificity, and thus the functionality and inactivation properties of PPO varies depending on the source of enzyme, properties of food matrix, method of treatment applied as well as measurement techniques. Therefore, the result from one food cannot be extrapolated to another food, and more research is needed to understand the behavior of PPO in different processing conditions. In this study, thermal inactivation of PPO in potato, avocado and apple was studied at four different temperatures (50, 60, 70 and 80 °C). The treatment time varied from 1 to 60 min, depending upon the temperature used. The level of inactivation was deduced by residual enzyme activity which was assayed by spectrophotometric methods in two different substrates, pyrocatechol and 3,4- dihydroxyphenylalanin (DOPA) using an ELISA plate reader. The degree of PPO inactivation achieved in potato and apple extracts was higher using pyrocatechol as the substrate than using DOPA, where it was similar for both substrates in case of avocado. Inactivation kinetics was studied in terms of rate constant k, D values and activation energy. The inactivation rate followed the first order kinetics and higher dependency on treatment time was observed at higher temperatures. Biphasic inactivation was observed in case of apple PPO, where activation of enzyme was observed at low temperature (50 °C). In conclusion, level of PPO inactivation was dependent on the degree of the thermal treatment, source of PPO and substrate used for enzyme determination.
M.S. in Food Safety and Technology, July 2011
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Title: APPLICATION SOFTWARE DESIGN WITH THE FEATURE LANGUAGE EXTENTION
Creator: Maruyama, Shuichi
Date: 2013-04-23, 2013-05
Description: When implemented with existing mainstream programming languages, the code of interacting features will inevitably entangle in the same...
Show moreWhen implemented with existing mainstream programming languages, the code of interacting features will inevitably entangle in the same reusable program unit of the programming language such as a method. Interacting features are very common in software applications. Program entanglement destroys separation of concern, making the software difficult to develop, maintain and reuse. The Feature Language Extensions (FLX) is a set of programming language constructs that allow the programmer to develop interacting features as independently reusable program modules. This thesis addresses two questions: how to design software with FLX and whether programs that can be written in a procedural language such as Java can also be written in FLX. We illustrate our results with examples from a computer blackjack game that is implemented using FLX. For the first question, we introduce a set of seven design guidelines. Some of these guidelines are introduced for good programming practices: so that there is better separation of concern and so that FLX is complementary to object oriented design. Some of them are developed so that features written following them will be reusable, and when the features are integrated with other features, they do not need to be changed. A procedural programming language such as Java has constructs that allows a programmer to specify program units to be executed in sequence, conditionally, iteratively and recursively. Previous papers had given examples on how to implement the first two types of execution flows with FLX. In this thesis, we show how to implement the other two types of execution flows.
M.S. in Computer Science, May 2013
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Title: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FEATURE INTEGRATION WITH FLX AND ASPECTJ
Creator: Ramakrishna Reddy, Niranjana Sompura
Date: 2014, 2014-07
Description: Feature Language Extensions (FLX) and AspectJ are two sets of programming language constructs designed to enable the programmer to modularize...
Show moreFeature Language Extensions (FLX) and AspectJ are two sets of programming language constructs designed to enable the programmer to modularize interacting features, or equivalently crosscutting concerns, that cannot be modularized with a main stream programming language. The two approaches are quite di erent. The purpose of this thesis is to compare how e ective they are in feature integration, such as whether the already developed features will need to be modi ed. The study was conducted by integrating a set of features of the familiar computer blackjack game. The blackjack game is interesting because it has features that will execute some programs of the basic game iteratively and recursively. We found that with AspectJ we need to modify existing feature code or repeating feature code under certain integration scenarios. We discuss the underlying reasons why they occur and in some cases suggest methods to overcome them.
M.S. in Computer Science, July 2014
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Title: A NEW SATISFIABILITY SOLVER OF THE FEATURE LANGUAGE EXTENSION
Creator: Ai, Jieling
Date: 2012-04-23, 2012-05
Description: We introduce a satisfiability solver for first order formulas written in a modern object oriented programming language such as Java, which is...
Show moreWe introduce a satisfiability solver for first order formulas written in a modern object oriented programming language such as Java, which is the programming language that we use to implement the solver. The variables in the first order formula can be of any data type definable with the host programming language. The first application of the solver is to detect interaction conditions among programs written in the Feature Language Extensions (FLX). Therefore, it also determines the satisfying conditions of the formula if the formula is satisfiable. FLX is a set of programming language constructs designed to allow the programmer to develop interaction features as reusable program modules [25]. Interaction detection is equivalent to automating the task of finding where to make code changes if the interacting features are implemented with conventional programming languages. The solver requires that predicates in the formula contain no functional elements. This restriction should not reduce the kind of programs that can be written in the host programming language. FLX provides language support for the solver. The language constructs allow the programmer to provide semantic guidance to the solver on the data types that they define, and the compiler to enforce the standards required of the first order formula. While the first application of the solver is to analyze programs written in FLX, it should be useful to other applications which desire such a solver to process variables used in software directly.
M.S. in Computer Science, May 2012
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Title: THE STRUCTURAL BASIS OF MYOFILAMENT LENGTH DEPENDENT ACTIVATION
Creator: Hsu, Karen Hsiaoman
Date: 2014, 2014-12
Description: Titin-based passive tension is one of the mechanisms that modulate myofilament length dependent activation, the phenomenon that underlies the...
Show moreTitin-based passive tension is one of the mechanisms that modulate myofilament length dependent activation, the phenomenon that underlies the so-called Frank Starling Law of the Heart. The Greaser N2BA-G rat model, with a homozygous autosomal mutation in the titin gene, produce a longer isoform of titin that produce much less passive tension as well as a reduced degree of LDA. This provides a useful tool to test whether titin modulates sarcomere structure with changes in sarcomere length. Here we assessed sarcomere structure using small angle X-ray diffraction of intact, twitching papillary muscle in the diastolic phase of contraction at short and long sarcomere length. Comparison of our results from wild type and titin mutant rats indicated that the equatorial intensity ratio, I11/I10, decreases in both wild type and the titin mutant rats with increases in length indicating that the myosin heads are more associated with the thick filament backbone than the thin filament at long lengths. Analysis of the first myosin layer line shows that there is a radially inward movement of myosin heads in WT myocardium but not in the titin mutant when stretched. Difference electron density maps show the thick filament densities in wild type increases more than in titin mutant rats and that the densities of the thin filament are less in the titin mutant rats. Our data suggest, therefore, that increased calcium sensitivity at longer sarcomere length is not due to a radial extension of the myosin heads at long length. Rather, it is associated with transmission of titin-based passive tension from the thick filaments to the thin filament, resulting in increased ordering of the myofilaments at the hexagonal lattice positions requiring some sort of communicating structure, presumably crossbridges, between the thick and the thin filaments as part of the length transduction mechanism behind LDA. The X-ray diffraction studies showed that there are gross troponin structural cahnges when muscle is stretched indicating that troponin is an important regulator of LDA in the myofilaments. But the precise way in which troponin regulates muscle contraction is only partly understood. In the research reported here, we investigated the effects of cTnI phosphorylation of sites in human cardiac tissue using site-directed mutagenesis. Serine and threonine were replaced by aspartic acid (D) or glutamic acid (E) to mimic the phosphorylated state. Six recombinant human cardiac troponin complexes (hcTn), containing either hcTnI-WT, hcTnI-S5/6D, hcTnI-S23/24D, hcTnI-S42/44E, hcTnI-T143E and hcTnI-S150D were exchanged into skinned human cardiac fibers. Force and ATPase activity was measured as function of [Ca2+] at short and long sarcomere length (SL=2.0 and 2.3um). We found that LDA in the hcTnI-S150D substitution was attenuated, and was unchanged with the other sites. CD, as indexed by tension cost was decreased for hcTnI-S42/44E and hcTnI-S150D, and was unaffected for the other site substitutions. While some of these results were consistent with previous findings form rodent myocardium, others were not, suggesting that one should use caution in extrapolating from results in rodetn cardiac tissue to human cardiac tissue.
Ph.D. in Biological and Chemical Sciences, December 2014
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Title: INCORPORATION OF INORGANIC AND ORGANIC ADDITIVES INTO MODEL PACKAGING POLYMERS
Creator: Bajaj, Akhil
Date: 2016, 2016-12
Description: Nowadays, various commercial polymers such as low density poly(ethylene) (LDPE), poly(propylene) (PP), and Nylon, may contain or are...
Show moreNowadays, various commercial polymers such as low density poly(ethylene) (LDPE), poly(propylene) (PP), and Nylon, may contain or are fabricated with molecular and/or nano-sized inorganic filler elements. These fillers elements often modify, enhance or bring desired changes to the native properties of these polymers. However, these additives also have the potential to interact with the physical environment. For any new additive, it is important to assess and evaluate the potential consumer exposure under intended conditions of use. This thesis reports on the preparation of model polymer samples fabricated with various molecular and nano-sized filler elements (exfoliated clays, quantum dots, and organic colorants) to help evaluate factors affecting the rate of migration and the potential consumer exposure associated with these materials. One of the main aims of this project is the development of methods to incorporate organic and inorganic additives into polymers relevant to food packaging and medical devices using a laboratory scale twin-screw micro-compounder. Some of the samples prepared via optimized methods include (1) 1, 3, 5, and 7 wt.% Montmorillonite in LDPE; (2) quantum dots (QDs) spanning a size range of 3-8 nm into LDPE; and (3) 1-2 wt.% colorant-loaded polymer films, where the colorants include phthalocyanine blue, phthalocyanine green, quinizarin blue, manganese (II) phthalocyanine and titanium (IV) oxide, and the host polymers include poly(propylene), poly(carbonate), Nylon 12, and PEBAX (poly(ether-block-amide)). In addition to optimizing methods for composite fabrication, the properties of these materials were analyzed using many techniques, including differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), and Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Migration experiments were carried out to evaluate the interaction of samples with model food and environmental systems. This research was instrumental to support efforts to understand the mechanisms of potential exposure to polymer additives.
M.S. in Food Safety and Technology, December 2016
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Title: APPLICATION OF MACHINE LEARNING TO ELECTRICAL DATA ANALYSIS
Creator: Bao, Zhen
Date: 2017, 2017-05
Description: The dissertation is composed of four parts: modeling demand response capability by internet data centers processing batch computing jobs,...
Show moreThe dissertation is composed of four parts: modeling demand response capability by internet data centers processing batch computing jobs, cloud storage based power consumption management in internet data center, identifying hot socket problem in smart meters, and online event detection for non-intrusive load monitoring without knowing label. Mathematical models are constructed to fulfill the research of the four targets, and numerical examples are used to test the effectiveness of the models. The first two parts optimize jobs in Data Center in order to find the best way of utilizing the existing computing resources and storage. Mixed-integer programming (MIP) is used in the formulation. The purpose of the third part is to identify the hot socket problem in smart meter. Machine learning method has been used to locate the bad installation of smart meters by analyzing historical data from smart meters. The fourth part is non-intrusive load monitoring for residential load in houses. Signal processing and deep learning methods are used to identify the specific loads from high frequency signals.
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, May 2017
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Title: PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND EMOTIONAL EATING AS POTENTIAL MEDIATORS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND ADHERENCE TO POSTBARIATRIC SURGERY RECOMMENDATIONS
Creator: Bardsley, Leland Richard
Date: 2015, 2015-05
Description: Obesity is a major public health concern throughout the world. 10-38% of those who receive the most effective treatment for obesity--bariatric...
Show moreObesity is a major public health concern throughout the world. 10-38% of those who receive the most effective treatment for obesity--bariatric surgery--fail to lose substantial weight at all or over time regain weight that was lost post-surgery. The current study tested a model of autonomous motivation for diet and exercise, physical activity, emotional eating, and adherence to post-surgery recommendations (e.g., eating behaviors, fluid intake, dietary supplement management, etc.) in post-bariatric surgery patients. It was hypothesized that autonomous motivation for diet and exercise post-surgery would predict adherence to post-bariatric surgery recommendations. Further, it was also hypothesized that physical activity and emotional eating would in serial partially mediate the relation between autonomous motivation for diet and exercise and adherence to postsurgery recommendations. Results found a positive relation between autonomous motivation for diet and exercise and adherence to post-bariatric surgery recommendations; however, there was no evidence to support mediation via a path from physical activity to emotional eating. Implications for treatment are discussed.
M.S. in Psychology, May 2015
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Title: APPLICATION OF STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING IN SCUC
Creator: Hu, Bingqian
Date: 2012-05-04, 2012-05
Description: This thesis presents a scenario-reduction technique to solve stochastic security- constrained unit commitment (Stochastic SCUC) problems. The...
Show moreThis thesis presents a scenario-reduction technique to solve stochastic security- constrained unit commitment (Stochastic SCUC) problems. The uncertainty of wind power generation is simulated by the Monte Carlo (MC) method. The Stochastic SCUC problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MIP) problem and the large-scale optimization problem is decomposed into one master problem and several tractable subproblems for each scenario. Computational burdens for solving scenarios-based Stochastic SCUC are mainly depend on the number of scenarios and a scenario-reduction technique is applied to reduce the computation burdens. The numerical results of a 6-bus system show the effectiveness of the Scenarios-Reduction Techniques for solving the Stochastic SCUC problem. Index Terms—Power System Operation, Stochastic Programming, Stochastic SCUC, Monte Carlo Stimulation, Scenarios Reduction.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, May 2012
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Title: MATERNAL AND PATERNAL PARENTING WITH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNALIZING AND EXTERNALIZING DISORDERS
Creator: Hella, Bryce
Date: 2011-04-27, 2011-05
Description: Parenting has been shown to play a crucial role in the development of child emotional and behavior problems. Typically, however researchers...
Show moreParenting has been shown to play a crucial role in the development of child emotional and behavior problems. Typically, however researchers use “mothering” as a proxy for “parenting” and the role of fathers has been relatively ignored (Phares, Lopez, Fields, Kamboukos, & Duhig, 2005). Data also suggest that the gender of both the parent and child influence the relationship between parenting and children’s emotional and behavior problems. To date, however, there is no study in which both the direct effects and the 3-way interaction between paternal and maternal parenting, child gender and both internalizing and externalizing problems have been examined. The aim of this study, then, was to examine the direct and interactive relationships between maternal positive parenting, paternal positive parenting, and child gender on children’s externalizing and internalizing problems. Archival data from a subsample of the 1,103 54-month-old children and their parents who participated in wave 2 of the NICHD Study of Early Childcare were used (NICHD, 2001). Selection criteria for this subsample were that both parents participated and were co-residing. This resulted in a pool of 664 children (338 boys, 326 girls), mothers and fathers (96% married), who were predominantly (86%) White. Positive maternal and paternal parenting were assessed by a factor-analytically-derived score based on observer ratings of a semi-structured interaction paradigm, the Three Boxes Task (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1999). Child emotional and behavior problems were assessed by an averaged composite of maternal- and paternal-reported CBCL externalizing and internalizing scores (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991). Results from moderated hierarchical regression analyses indicated that there was a direct relationship between maternal parenting and child gender in predicting children’s externalizing scores. Specifically, lower levels of maternal positive parenting and being a girl predicted higher externalizing scores. No direct relationship between paternal positive parenting and externalizing scores was found. In addition, there was not a significant, direct relationship between maternal positive parenting, paternal positive parenting or child gender and internalizing scores. Results also indicate that there was a significant, but small three-way interaction between maternal positive parenting, paternal positive parenting and child gender in predicting externalizing and internalizing scores. Examination of interaction graphs suggested that for girls whose mothers display low levels of positive parenting, higher levels of positive paternal parenting may reduce the risk of internalizing and externalizing problems. For boys, having two parents with higher levels of positive parenting seems to serve as a protective factor, reducing the risk of emotional and behavior problems. These data suggest that fathers’ parenting does make a difference, and that both the gender of the parent and the child are important factors to consider when examining the relationship between parenting and children’s outcomes.
Ph.D. in Psychology, May 2011
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