Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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Item Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Rehabilitation Improves Recovery of a Motor Task after Neurological Injury(2015-06-25) Choi, Rachel; Meyers, Eric; Ganzer, Patrick; Hays, Seth; Kilgard, Michael P.; Rennaker, Robert L.; 0000 0001 3852 473X (Kilgard, MP); 0000 0001 2879 2132 (Rennaker, RL)Ischemic stroke and spinal cord injury are neurological injuries that produce persisting motor deficits. Additionally, the majority of those suffering from impairments due to ischemic stroke or spinal cord injury rarely fully recover complete function with current treatment options. Here, we investigate the use of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), which facilitates specific and long-lasting plasticity after injury. Sprague-Dawley rats affected by a spinal cord contusion at C5 and administered VNS paired with rehabilitation exhibited significant recovery of forelimb strength on an isometric pull task. We also propose similar recovery of supination function in Sprague-Dawley rats affected by endothelin-1‐induced focal motor cortex ischemic stroke. Thus, VNS paired with rehabilitation may be an effective therapeutic tool in the event of neurological injury such as ischemic stroke or spinal cord injury.Item Surface Engineering of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides for Two-Dimensional Electronic Device Applications(2016-12) Azcatl Zacatzi, Angelica; Wallace , Robert M.Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are considered potential channel materials for emerging electronic devices in the roadmap beyond Si-CMOS technology. Layered TMDs offer intrinsically an ultrathin body without compromising the semiconducting properties. For the implementation of TMDs in electronic device structures, the understanding of their surface properties is essential. This work combines a variety of materials characterization techniques such as in-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy to investigate the chemistry and structure of TMDs upon different surface treatments. In addition, first-principle calculations are presented to give insights on the mechanism involved in the surface modification of TMD. The impact of the TMDs surface modification on processes for gate-oxide integration by atomic layer deposition and covalent doping are investigated here. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of the surface chemistry of TMDs for two-dimensional electronic device applications.Item Predicting Arrest Trajectories in Micro-Places: A Test of Social Disorganization Theory(2016-12) Wong, Ivan T.; Worrall, John L.Although much has been learned about crime in micro-places, their development and continuity over time remains largely misunderstood. In 2006, Weisburd, Bushway, Lum and Yang were the first to develop trajectories of crime at micro-places, but their study was largely atheoretical. In 2012, Weisburd, Groff, and Yang explored theoretical predictors of crime in micro-places, but they did not formally test any one theory. This study builds on both prior efforts by testing whether social disorganization theory predicts Census block-level arrest trajectories in Dallas, Texas, between 2010 and 2014. Results suggest that social disorganization can help explain arrest trajectory group membership, but not completely. While socioeconomic factors, residential stability, and family disruption were significantly associated with trajectory group membership, racial heterogeneity was only significant when it was interacted with other variables. Also, urbanization exerted no discernible effect on arrest trajectory group membership. Finally, social disorganization variables helped predict certain arrest trajectories, but not all of them. Policy implications and research limitations are also discussed.Item The Impact of Word-Based and Situation-Based Knowledge on Reading Speed in Adults and Children: A Self-Paced Moving Window Study(2016-12) Miller, Blair C.; Dollaghan, ChristineThe purpose of this study was to examine the manner in which word-based knowledge and situation-based knowledge affect reading speed in typically developing (TD) 3rd grade children and adults. Research has demonstrated that both word-based and broader situation-based information are critical for optimal text comprehension, but their relative contributions to reading speeds in children and adults is unknown. In the current study, a sample of 36 adults and 36 children from the greater Katy, Texas area silently read sentences using self-paced moving window computer software. Sentences were constructed such that half had main clauses containing agent:action pairs with a relatively high probability of co-occurrence (e.g., . . .the bird flew from the nest) and half had relatively improbable agent:action pairs (e.g., . . .the bird fell from the nest). In addition, main clauses with improbable relationship were preceded by either a dependent clause containing situation-based information that was expected to make the improbable agent:action relationship more likely (e.g., After hurting its wings…), or a neutral dependent clause containing situation-based information that was not expected to affect the improbable relationship (e.g., After flapping its wings…). Three research hypotheses were tested: 1) Adult and child reading times will be faster for probable than for improbable agent:action relationships when preceded by a neutral dependent clause; 2) Adult and child reading times for improbable agent:action relationships will be faster when preceded by a biasing dependent clause than when preceded by a neutral dependent clause, and 3) The situation-based knowledge in the biasing dependent clause will have a relatively greater impact on adults than on children. Results supported the first hypothesis, showing that both adult and child readers were sensitive to the probability of word-based agent:action relationships. By contrast, situation-based information did not significantly affect reading times for improbable agent:action relationships at either age, and there was no significant interaction between age and condition. The current study is the first to use a moving window display to examine the relative effects of these factors on reading speed of adults and children as they process connected text. This study is also the first to carefully control for both syntactic and semantic characteristics, which have mostly been independently manipulated for investigation in prior studies.Item A Flexible Software Platform for Disease Management(2016-12) Ghaderi, Mohammad Ali; Gupta, Gopal; Tamil, Lakshman SChronic diseases afflict patients for many years. One way to decrease the burden of chronic disease care on the healthcare system is to have patients self-manage their disease. The ubiquity of smartphones presents a great opportunity for making self-management easier. This is an active research area, but the lack of appropriate software solutions compels many researchers to design and develop their systems from scratch. In this dissertation, we propose a novel and flexible software platform for the development of disease management research applications. Our platform is novel in the sense that a comprehensive platform similar to ours does not exist. We have considered a broad list of functional and non-functional features to support the most common research scenarios. To demonstrate the functionality of this platform, we have developed two representative applications—one for breast cancer risk assessment research and another one for post-surgical care research. Our initial studies show that our platform greatly facilitates the development process of such applications. The platform helps in considerably reducing the required development time by providing many ready-to-reuse features and ensuring high quality in the architectural design. The infrastructure developed is quite comprehensive and consists of more than a hundred thousand lines of code. Our research makes the following contributions: an advanced architectural design for developing research applications, a software platform with many built-in reusable components for medical research and consideration of non-functional requirements such as portability, reliability, maintainability to name a few, and an augmented reality module for breast tumor visualization.Item Reaction Time and the Task Evoked Pupil Response as Measures of Non-Volitional and Volitional Cognitive Effort(2016-12) Mueller, Jana Allison; Dollaghan, Christine; Campbell, Thomas; Evans, Julia L; Maguire, Mandy JThis study aimed to identify the utility of reaction time (RT) and the task evoked pupil response (TEPR) as measures of non-volitional and volitional cognitive effort. Stimulus probability was manipulated to measure non-volitional changes in cognitive effort toward rare stimuli compared with frequent stimuli. Congruency was manipulated to measure volitional changes in cognitive effort toward incongruent compared with congruent stimulus-response pairings. Participants were 81 typical young adults who completed two blocks of 100 trials in which they responded with key presses using the left or right hand to tones presented monaurally. A 1500Hz tone indicated congruent responding: if the tone was presented in the right ear, the correct response was the right key. A 500Hz tone indicated incongruent responding: if the tone was presented in the right ear, the correct response was the left key. Stimulus probability was manipulated such that each block contained 80 frequent trials (40 congruent, 40 incongruent) and 20 rare trials (10 congruent, 10 incongruent). Hypotheses were as follows: the effect of congruency would be significant for both measures, and larger for RT than for TEPR; the effect of stimulus probability would be significant for both measures, and larger for TEPR than for RT. Results revealed a significant effect of congruency for both RT (d = 0.51) and TEPR (d = 0.55), and a significant effect of stimulus probability for RT only (d = 0.26). Significant block effects occurred such that the effect of stimulus probability for TEPR was significant in the positive direction (d = 0.41) in Block 1 only; the effect was reversed in Block 2. The effect of stimulus probability for RT trended toward significance in Block 2 only. The results of the congruency manipulation of this study indicate that RT and TEPR are sensitive indicators of volitional cognitive effort. Results of the stimulus probability manipulation indicate that TEPR is a sensitive indicator of non-volitional effort toward a rare stimulus, and subsequent decrease in effort when the stimulus has become familiar. Furthermore, results of this study reflect the complex role of the locus coeruleus for non-volitional and volitional cognitive effort.Item Neural Correlates of Trustworthiness Evaluations in Cross-Cultural Interactions(2016-12) Young, Leanne Rebecca; Krawczyk, Daniel C.Studies researching the neural correlates of implicit appearance-based trust evaluations have implicated a number of brain regions, including the amygdala, prefrontal cortices, posterior superior temporal sulcus and the fusiform gyrus. In cross-cultural studies of explicit trust judgments, the anterior cingulate cortex has been implicated, and in cross-cultural studies of emotion recognition, the cuneus has been implicated. In this study, I applied multivariate pattern analysis using a linear discriminator to demonstrate that the neural activation patterns in these regions in response to passively viewing videos of trustworthy and untrustworthy-appearing East Asian and Caucasian men are dissociable. I show that the dissociation of brain patterns in response to trustworthy and untrustworthy stimuli is not dependent upon magnitudes of activation, and it is similar for both East Asian and Caucasian participants.Item Organizational Conflict in Public Service: Conflict Management, Contextual Factors, and Employee Outcomes(2016-12) Anestaki, Aikaterini Ioanna; 308753760 (Battaglio, RP); Battaglio, R. PaulBy expanding the conflict and conflict management literature to the public service environment, this study provides an insight into the role and aftermath of interpersonal conflicts for the organizational setting. Workplace conflicts consist of an inevitable, and typically perceived as toxic, phenomenon, owing to their negative consequences for employee job-related attitudes. Mitigating the dysfunctional conflict results can be a challenging endeavor for managers, as effectively handling workplace controversies is contingent upon the nature of conflicts, the adopted conflict management approach, and the prevailing organizational environment. As public organizations find themselves in the midst of a human capital crisis, and confront challenges for high performance results, delving into the factors that can threaten smooth organizational operations and employee behaviors becomes imperative. When studying the attitudes of state HR professionals about the role of organizational conflicts and their overall work experiences, this study reveals that relationship conflicts can be detrimental for organizational performance, even though there is not any association between organizational conflicts and turnover intent. Also, even though conflict management, and particularly a win-win approach, pertains to an essential human resources management mechanism, its role in balancing out the negative conflict outcomes only holds under the premise of a positive organizational environment. In view of fairness in interpersonal relations and an emotional attachment between employees and their organization, a cooperative approach to conflict handling could be positively associated with organizational performance and lower withdrawal intentions.Item Novel bidirectional single-phase single-stage isolated AC-DC converter with PFC for charging of electric vehicles(2016-12) Singh, Anant Kumar; Rajashekara, Kaushik; Al-Dhahir, NaofalThis thesis proposes a novel bidirectional single-phase single-stage AC-DC converter for Electric Vehicle (EV) charging application. AC side of the proposed converter consists of a current-fed half bridge converter. This is connected to the full-bridge converter on secondary side of a high-frequency (HF) transformer. Power Factor Correction (PFC) can be attained by regulating the current at the input of the ac side. In addition to that, the proposed converter achieves Zero Current Switching (ZCS) of primary side switches and zero current turn-on for secondary side devices throughout the operation without any additional components. Furthermore, a novel modulation technique and control algorithm is implemented. This ensures soft-switching throughout the operation range of the converter during bidirectional power flow. Design equations are derived to help suitable selection of components for a given specification. The proposed converter is designed for 1.5KW capacity for EV charging application. The simulation and experimental results are presented.Item X-ray Fluorescence and Total Organic Carbon Analysis of Delaware Basin Ordovician Age Sediments in the Ellenburger and Simpson Groups of West Texas(2016-12) Cuyler, Joshua Robert; Stern, Robert J.Ordovician age hydrocarbons have been drilled in the Permian Basin of West Texas since the early 1940s and have produced over a billion barrels of oil with additional natural gas. The source rock for these previously drilled Ellenburger Group reservoirs has been suggested to be the Simpson Group shales, but limited total organic carbon studies and no x-ray fluorescence analysis has been performed on the Permian Basin Ordovician rocks to determine the overall lithology and trace element enrichment relative to total organic carbon to substantiate this statement. The majority of Ordovician hydrocarbon production has occurred in faulted and structural traps in the Ellenburger, but the hydrocarbons have a different hypothesized source due to generally low total organic carbon within this group. Trace element enrichments can serve as indicators of the presence of organic material and paleoredox conditions. This study utilizes x-ray fluorescence elemental data and total organic carbon data from Permian Basin Ordovician sediments to analyze general rock lithology and to understand whether biologically- and paleoredox-sensitive trace elements coincide with total organic carbon, and if so, can these similarities give insight to the organic enrichment of these sediments and the paleoredox conditions present during their deposition. The findings of this study suggest that the Simpson Group reflects a depositional environment with intermittent layers of sandstone, green shale, black shale, red shale, and a large percentage of carbonate suggesting a shallow water marine environment. The majority of trace elements that serve as useful proxies for total organic carbon within these sediments are mostly associated with the detrital shale influx and are not associated with biological activity or paleoredox conditions. The majority of the total organic carbon values for the Simpson Group and Ellenburger Group suggest a poor (<0.5 wt. % total organic carbon) source rock with limited potential to generate hydrocarbons though fair (.5-1 wt. % total organic carbon) to good (1-2 wt. % total organic carbon) values are present in a limited number of samples. X-ray fluorescence data indicates the presence of trace element enrichments in some samples, but no clear correlation with total organic carbon is recognized.Item Relational Social Media Search Engine(2016-12) Banipal, Indervir Singh; Khan, Dr. LatifurGiven a collection of names of some people who are related to each other by a common relation, our goal is to find their profiles from social networks/media. For instance, they might belong to a particular class from a particular university. The problem poses severe challenges as there might be numerous people present in social media with the same name. The goal is to propose novel algorithms which will help us extracting the correct set of people from enormous possibilities. Social networks have become a primary source of communication and the number one choice for people to stay in touch with each other. Apart from the use of social networks in private life, people rely heavily on the social networks for their professional lives as well. We exploit this fact and use social networks to find the relevant people we are looking for. Facebook [11], LinkedIn [12] and Twitter [13] are the most widely used social networks, for staying in touch with others privately, as well as professionally. Our approaches are applicable to any of these major social networks although we focus on Facebook. We go through the chosen social network and search for the names in the collection. Every name in the input collection should be searched in the social network and its results are stored. After the searching through the social network, we will have a list of search results for each of the names in the collection. For each user, the social network has suggested multiple possible social network pro les which may or may not contain the target user which we are v looking for. We record all such search results for each user and this serves as our baseline. The goal is to improve this baseline/non-veri ed list by augmenting with semi-automated method to prune some irrelevant pro les and nd the relevant one. We will discuss about social media crawler which we developed for extracting the information from the social media. We will also talk about the algorithms which we designed and implemented for showing the relevant pro les to the user. We will also talk about the human intervention in the form of feedback and nally, we present a complete generic framework for solving this problem.Item The Regulation of Neuronal Survival through the Modulation of Aberrant Cell Cycle Re-Entry(2016-12) Pfister, Jason A.; D'Mello, Santosh R.The complex nature of the neuron is made that much greater knowing there are billions of them forming trillions of synaptic connections all while working in concert with billions of non-neuronal glial cells. To further complicate the highly intricate environment that forms the brain, upon maturation neurons become senescent, or post-mitotic, and will no longer regenerate. Nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1) is a highly abundant and ubiquitously expressed nucleolar phosphoprotein. While actively investigated for its role in the regulation of many cellular processes critical for proliferative cells, little is known about its role in the brain. The primary focus of this dissertation is to examine the effect of NPM1 on the regulation of neuronal viability. The dissertation is divided into the following four chapters: I begin in chapter 1 by providing an overview of the mechanisms regulating a form of programmed cell death known as apoptosis or cell suicide. While there are many causes that can lead to the initiation of neuronal apoptosis, one well-accepted method is through a neuron’s aberrant attempt to divide. In order to understand how this may occur, this chapter provides an overview of the complex regulation of the cell cycle. In chapter 2, I summarize what is currently known about the roles of NPM1 in actively dividing cells. Little has been published on neuronal NPM1. As such, this chapter concludes by describing these few studies, as well as what insights we can gain about its role in these cells from its functions in proliferative ones. Chapter 3 describes a complex nature for neuronal NPM1. I show that while neurons require this protein for their normal healthy survival, increasing its expression is toxic. This toxicity is regulated by NPM1’s ability to translocate to the cytoplasm and oligomerize. If restricted to the nucleus, which results in an inability to oligomerize, NPM1 no longer induces death and becomes fully protective against apoptosis. Finally, in chapter 4 I extend previously published findings with new and unfinished data describing the neuroprotective roles for SIRT1 and SIRT5, two members of the Class III histone deacetylases (HDACs) that are collectively know as the sirtuins. I describe how SIRT1 is able to confer a protective effect in a deacetylase independent manner through a dependence on HDAC1. Lastly, I provide evidence that SIRT5 is able to protect neurons in a PKA-dependent manner.Item Design of Area- and Power-Efficient Dual-Output Switched-Capacitor DC-DC Converters(2016-12) Hua, Zhe; Lee, HoiPower management integrated circuits have found wide applications in all battery-powered electronic systems like smartphones, wireless sensors, etc., to convert a time-varying unregulated battery voltage to constant regulated DC output voltages for different internal functional blocks of the system. With the increase in the complexity of today’s electronic systems, a multiple-output power management system is desired to optimize the power consumption of each loading block such that the power dissipation of the whole system can be minimized to extend the battery run-time. Driven by the demands for high power efficiency and high area efficiency in generating multiple outputs for energy-harvesting and portable applications, the multiple-output switched-capacitor (SC) DC-DC converter is becoming a popular candidate as it does not require any costly and bulky inductor for energy storage, thereby minimizing the overall converter volume and EMI noise. Moreover, flying capacitors as energy-storage components and power transistors as energy-transfer paths in the multiple-output SC DC-DC converters can be shared by different outputs such that the number of required flying capacitors and power transistors can be minimized to optimize both area efficiency and energy density. In the first part of this research, a reconfigurable step-up dual-output SC DC-DC regulator is introduced, analyzed and verified for low power energy-harvesting applications. A sub-harmonic adaptive-on-time (SHAOT) control scheme is proposed to improve the light-load power efficiency under different load currents, maintain low output ripples under different input voltages, provide predictable output noise spectrum, and minimize output cross regulation between both outputs in the SC DC-DC regulator. In the second part of this research, a battery-connected reconfigurable step-down dual-output SC DC-DC regulator is developed to deliver a maximum load of 1.2A for portable applications. With flying-capacitor sharing and an all-nMOS power stage, the proposed dual-output SC power stage is efficient in both chip and board areas. A switch-resistance-modulation (SRM) control scheme is also proposed to provide small output voltage ripples with a small load capacitance under 100s-of-mA load and to minimize output cross regulation between two outputs under large load-step variations.Item Geophysical Investigations of Southern Fish Lake Valley, Western Great Basin, California(2016-12) McBride, Kyle Andrew; Ferguson, John FGrowth of the Cucomungo Canyon restraining bend along the Fish Lake Valley-Furnace Creek fault zone has resulted in localized uplift at the southern end of Fish Lake Valley in eastern California. This thesis is part of an integrated study by the Miles Geoscience Center to develop a model of this recent deformation. This study focuses on the southernmost section of Fish Lake Valley, where Paleozoic sedimentary rocks are juxtaposed with Cenozoic sediments on multiple faulted boundaries. Structural constraints are poorly known as the faults are locally obscured by Quaternary alluvial deposits of various ages. A near surface geophysical survey utilizing high-resolution seismic refraction and microGal gravity measurements was done to explore the subsurface beneath the alluvium. Forward models were created to identify faults and ascertain vertical offsets and orientations. The geophysical models indicate a zone of extensional deformation north of the restraining bend.Item Mitochondrial Respiration Promotes Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Proliferation and Function(2016-12) Alam, Md Maksudul; Zhang, LiLung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related death both in the USA and worldwide. More than 80% of the lung cancer cases are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Since Otto Warburg made the first observation that the rate of aerobic glycolisis is increased in tumor cells, substantial amount of research has been done on altered cancer cell metabolism and bioenergetics. Recently, the use of more advanced metabolomics and genomics technologies has revealed the remarkable plasticity of tumor metabolism and bioenergetics. Many types of tumor cells have been shown to generate most of the cellular energy via mitochondrial respiration and oxidative phosphorylation. In this dissertation project it has been shown that the rate of respiration is intensified in an array of NSCLCs compared to the normal lung cell line. We also found that the respiration is greatly reduced when NSCLCs are grown in glutamine deprived media, whereas the respiration is unaffected when the cells are grown in glucose deprived media. In this project we have also shown that Hedgehog (Hh) signaling inhibitors Cyclopamine tartrate (CycT) and SNAT1 disrupt mitochondrial function and aerobic respiration. Our results showed that CycT, like glutamine depletion, caused a substantial decrease in oxygen consumption in a number of NSCLC cell lines, suppressed NSCLC cell proliferation, and induced apoptosis. Further, we found that CycT increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, causes mitochondrial membrane hyperpolarization, and mitochondrial fragmentation, thereby disrupting mitochondrial function in NSCLC cells. Furthermore, using two isogenic cell lines representing matched pairs of normal and cancer cells, we have identified changes in protein levels accompanying transformation of normal lung epithelial cells to cancer cells. Surprisingly, a substantial number of proteins involved in actin cytoskeleton were preferentially downregualted in cancer cells. However, similar numbers of proteins in other organelles were either up or down regulated. The formation of stress fibers and focal adhesions were also markedly decreased in cancer cells. Protein network analysis showed that the altered proteins are highly connected.Item Detoxification of Titanium Implant Surfaces: Evaluation of Surface Morphology and Pre-osteoblast Cell Compatibility(2016-12) Ramesh, Deepthi; Rodrigues, Dr. Danieli CSuccess of a dental implant is primarily assessed by its surface condition and its capability to biologically integrate with surrounding soft and hard tissues. When the surface of an implant is compromised by bacterial adhesion, it can result in development of peri-implantitis and ultimately implant loss. One of the primary etiological factors resulting in peri-implantitis is the formation of a biofilm created by adhesion of bacteria on implant surfaces. Peri-implantitis is a site-specific disease that causes bone loss and inflammation around a functional implant. Clinicians commonly use a combination of mechanical debridement/detoxification methods with acidic chemicals to remove adhered biofilm. It is hypothesized that acidic conditions caused by these detoxification chemicals, in addition to mechanical abrasion, can lead to surface changes including pitting, corrosion and discoloration, which can affect the growth of bone-forming cells. The study’s main goal was to evaluate changes in surface morphology of titanium after bacterial adhesion and detoxification procedures. In addition, proliferation and differentiation of bone-forming cells were analyzed after exposure to bacterial adhesion and detoxification procedures on implant surfaces to infer about re-osseointegration post-treatment.Item Does Studying Music and Sound Design Enhance Academic Abilities in Undergraduate Non-Music Majors? A Phenomenological Approach(2016-12) Evans, Kathryn C; Malina, RogerNumerous studies show a correlational relationship between the study of music and academic achievement, but what principles of music study enhance the higher order learning skills required for academic excellence? This research study looked at the experiences of students at UT Dallas taking music and sound design classes who are not music majors, through a Qualtrics survey and follow-up interviews. The data from the survey and interviews was analyzed using phenomenological methods. Additionally, three cohort comparisons were conducted: music and sound design students; STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and non-STEM majors; and ATEC (Arts, Technology and Emerging Media) majors and other STEM majors. From the analyses, we conclude students who have taken music and sound design courses feel that those experiences enhance their lives in many ways, and the majority of them feel it enhances their academic abilities. Students benefit by the nature of their experiences in music and sound design, but they benefit the most from the more analytical aspects of music and sound design courses. Those that had taken music theory saw a great benefit from those experiences. They benefit from the experience of listening to aural streams for extended periods of time with attentiveness to detail. Students experience “flow” during music or sound design experiences, which may transfer to other subjects. Students benefit from the two-dimensional nature of both music and sound design by the requirement of analyzing a score or sound design project in both the vertical and horizontal directions. The results of this work can lead to future research projects, and use the specific skills that were reported by students as a testing ground for evidence-based research. Further, the study has pedagogical implications for curriculum in both music and sound design. Courses should place more emphasis on the analytical skills that transfer to other academic subjects. While study in music and sound design gives students many psychological benefits, the educational benefits should be studied more and in a controlled environment, in order to significantly add to the body of evidence that courses in the arts can lead to higher academic achievement.Item Modeling of Permanent Magnet Machines Using Field Reconstruction Method(2016-12) Gu, Lei; Fahimi, BabakPermanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) is becoming more prevalent in industry applications due to its high power and torque density. The magnetic field distribution in the airgap of the motor is critical in predicting the performance, as well as implementing optimal design and control. Conventional methods to calculate the magnetic field include analytical lumped model, equivalent magnetic circuit (EMC) method, and finite element analysis (FEA) method. However, they have their limitation in terms of accuracy and computation time. Field reconstruction method was recently proposed for modeling of a surface mounted permanent magnet synchronous motor (SPMSM). It provides a fast method to reconstruct the magnetic field distribution with both high computation efficiency and good accuracy. However, due to the partial saturation effect in interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM), conventional FRM method cannot be directly applied for modeling of IPMSM. An extended FRM (EFRM) is proposed to overcome the issue of partial saturation and slotting effect in IPMSM. Conformal mapping (CM) was recently proposed to calculate the magnetic field analytically. In general, CM is to map the complicated air gap structure into a simplified structure such as a rectangle or an annulus, in which the analytical solution of the magnetic field is readily available. The analytical solution of the magnetic field in simplified geometry is then transferred back to obtain the magnetic field distribution in original air gap geometry. Also, the effect of stator slots can be modeled with an equivalent permeability. As such original stator slots are transfomed into a slotless structure. This greatly simplifies the process of CM. What’s more, considering the equivalent permeability method would simplify the stator slot to a slotless structure which would greatly reduce the time to build the basis functions in EFRM. The combination of EFRM and CM would be an effective method to model IPMSM. In summary, CM shows a great advantage in achieving high calculation efficiency in modeling of PMSM though the accuracy is limited by only the saturation effects. The application of EFRM is extended to calculate the core loss and to estimate the average torque in PMSM. FEA simulation and experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.Item Optimized Assembly and Utilization of Functional Materials Towards Designing Stable and Reliable Affinity Based Biosensing Platforms(2016-12) Munje, Rujuta Deepak; 0000-0002-2404-3801 (Prasad, S); Prasad, ShaliniA wide variety of biomarkers are found in human sweat such as electrolytes, metabolites, small molecules and proteins. This renders human sweat to be highly suitable for non-invasive, lancet-free diagnosis of biomarkers. For reliable detection, it is essential to detect biomarkers in their native state without adversely affecting their characteristics. Affinity based non-Faradaic electrochemical detection is a label-free technique which fulfills this objective. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop an affinity based wearable diagnostic platform for detection of biomarkers present in human sweat. This work focuses on optimal utilization of functional materials to develop wearable diagnostic platforms. Firstly, nanotextured zinc oxide thin film based sensors were designed and fabricated to operate with small volumes (~5 µL) of sweat on a flexible nanoporous polyamide membrane. Nanoconfinement and nanotexturing contributed in achieving amplified response leading to an ultrasensitive detection even in small volumes of sweat. Secondly, interactions between biomolecular solutions and a zinc oxide semiconductor surface were studied using electrochemical transduction to develop robust methodologies for immunoassay immobilization for detection of biomarkers. Capacitive charge modulations at the zinc oxide/biomolecular solutions interface were found to be proportional to the concentrations of biomarkers tested on the functionalized sensor surface. Lastly, room temperature ionic liquids were tested to enhance the stability of immunoassay for sustainable sensor performance. The developed sensor prototype demonstrated sensitive and stable non-Faradaic electrochemical detection of cortisol, glucose and interleukin-6 from human sweat. Thus, a combinatorial strategy of using zinc oxide as a functional material for non-Faradaic electrochemical detection, employing nanoporous flexible substrate to enable small volume based wearable biosensing and utilizing room temperature ionic liquid to sustain stability of affinity based immunoassay is a promising approach for robust wearable biosensing.Item Comprehensive Capacitance-Voltage Analysis Including Quantum Effects for High-K Interfaces on Germanium and Other Alternative Channel Materials(2016-12) Anwar, Sarkar; Hinkle, Christopher LHigh mobility alternative channel materials to silicon are critical to the continued scaling of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices. However, before they can be incorporated into advanced devices, some major issues need to be solved. The high mobility materials suffer from lower allowable thermal budgets compared to Si (before desorption and defect formation becomes an issue) and the absence of a good quality native oxide has further increased the interest in the use of high-k dielectrics. However, the high interface state density and high electric fields at these semiconductor/high-k interfaces can significantly impact the capacitance-voltage (C-V) profile, and current C-V modeling software cannot account for these effects. This in turn affects the parameters extracted from the C-V data of the high mobility semiconductor/high-k interface, which are crucial to fully understand the interface properties and expedite process development. To address this issue, we developed a model which takes into account quantum corrections which can be applied to a number of these alternative channel materials including SixGe1−x, Ge, InGaAs, and GaAs. The C-V simulation using this QM correction model is orders of magnitude faster compared to a full band Schrodinger-Poisson solver. The simulated C-V is directly benchmarked to a self consistent Schrodinger-Poisson solution for each bulk semiconductor material, and from the benchmarking process the QM correction parameters are extracted. The full program, C-V Alternative Channel Extraction (CV ACE), incorporates a quantum mechanical correction model, along with the interface state density model, and can extract device parameters such as equivalent oxide thickness (EOT), doping density and flat band voltage (Vfb) as well as the interface state density profile using multiple measurements performed at different frequencies and temperatures, simultaneously. The program was used to analyze experimentally measured C-V profiles and the extracted device parameters show excellent agreement with the known device structure and previously published results. CV ACE has been applied in the development of a process flow for germanium interface passivation in Ge based MOS devices using a GeOx interlayer. A post atomic layer deposition (ALD) plasma oxidation (PPO) process was developed using radio frequency (RF) plasma in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) chamber and demonstrated significant surface passivation. Various gases were investigated and 1% O2/Ar was found to reduce the growth rate and provide excellent control over the degradation of EOT. A 100 W plasma with 1% O2/Ar was found to provide the best combination of EOT and low Dit and is concluded to be the optimum process for PPO of germanium surfaces. CV ACE and PPO were also utilized to investigate other process development challenges. A study of the impact of low temperature anneals on Ge-based MOS devices was found to result in a degradation of the electrical thickness and a change in fixed charge, indicating that the process window is very narrow and at much lower temperatures than for Si.