This dissertation is concerned with investigating robust approaches for the control of pneumatic muscle systems. Pneumatic muscle is a novel type of actuator. Besides having a high ratio of power to weight and flexible control of movement, it also...
Standard regularity assumptions for regression models are not satisfied in segmented regression models with an unknown change point, and consequently standard asymptotic results and inferential methods for confidence estimation are not applicable....
The purpose of this research study is to examine the use of time series forecasting and text mining to investigate the prescription of antibiotics. The specific objective is to examine the relationship between the total payments, private insurance...
Computer arithmetic; Computer arithmetic and logic units; Computer algorithms
This research evaluates an innovative binary adder design and compares it against five standard adder designs. It begins with an algorithmic description of the five standard designs followed by the innovative design. It uses two metrics, speed and...
African American men--Mental health; Depression in men; Depression, Mental--Social aspects
Background: In any given year depression affects as many as 121 million people worldwide and 20 percent or 19 million people in the U.S. suffer from at least one episode of depression during their lifetime. In the U.S., depression has a substantial...
Accelerated life testing; Reliability (Engineering); Service life (Engineering)
This dissertation is focused on finding lower confidence limits for the reliability of systems consisting of Wei bull components when the reliability demonstration testing (RDT) is conducted with zero failures. The usual methods for the parameter...
Acrolein--Toxicology; Stem cells--Effect of pollution on
Acrolein is a common pollutant present in ambient air, automobile exhaust, and tobacco smoke. Previous studies show that exposure to acrolein increases cardiovascular disease risk. To determine whether acrolein affect cardiovascular regeneration,...
Two stage stochastic programming is an important part in the whole area of stochastic programming, and is widely spread in multiple disciplines, such as financial management, risk management, and logistics. The two stage stochastic programming is a...
This study expands our efforts to make a new class of Pt (II) compounds analogous to cisplatin and its derivatives using sterically hindered ligands. Pt compounds in this series have been synthesized using specially designed pyridine and...
The complexity of high-dimensional data creates a number of concerns when trying to analyze it. This data often consists of a response or survival time and potentially thousands of predictors. These predictors can be highly correlated, and the...
Nonparametric statistics; Estimation theory; Distribution (Probability theory)
Multistate models are a type of multi-variate survival data which provide a framework for describing a complex system where individuals transition through a series of distinct states. This research focuses on nonparametric inference for general...
A common research interest in medical, biological, and engineering research is determining whether certain independent variables are correlated with the survival or failure times. Standard statistical techniques cannot usually be applied for...
The Combinatorial Nullstellensatz can be used to solve certain problems in combinatorics. However, one of the major complications in using the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz is ensuring that there exists a nonzero monomial. This dissertation looks...
Hemolysis (red cells lysis) caused by fluid stresses in flows within hypodermic needles, blood pumps, artificial hearts and other cardiovascular devices, is one of the major concerns during the design and use of cardiovascular or blood-processing...
A new procedure has been developed for determining
the location of the source of certain EEG discharges
given the measured surface potentials. The
source is modeled as a single current dipole with arbitrary
position and orientation, while the head...
The game of Snake has been selected to provide a unique application of the
TD( ) algorithm as proposed by Sutton. A reinforcement learning technique for
producing computer controlled players is documented. Using value function
approximation with...
Rapid Electrokinetic Patterning (REP) is a relatively new method for collecting and manipulating micrometer-scale particles at an electrode surface. REP is an AC electrokinetic technique that uses induced fluid motion to capture and manipulate...
High dynamic range imaging involves imaging at a bit depth higher than the typical 8-12 bits offered by standard video equipment. We propose a method of imaging a scene at high dynamic range, 14+ bits, to detect motion correlated with changes in...
Aluminum fiber metal laminates (AFMLs) are a promising new type of fiber metal laminate that consists of aluminum foils interleaved with layers of a graphite fiber-polymer matrix composite (PMC) material. AFMLs combine the attractive features of...
