Global warming has forced the power industry to adapt its infrastructure and develop technology in order to mitigate the effects and reduce the extent to which it will affect the operation of the electrical grid. With this goal in mind, the project attempts to quantify the effect of global warming on transmission line sag. First, a climate model that could predict temperature data for the time period (2001-2100) was needed. Next, a relationship between temperature and electricity demand needed to be quantified. Using this relationship and the temperature values generated by the climate model, the predicted electricity demand values were calculated for the examined time period. Since the voltage at which power is transported remains constant, the rate at which power is delivered will be given by the current flowing through the conductor. Using the estimated current values, the temperature of the conductor was calculated. This value is then used to calculate incremental sag due to the additional electrical demand. The calculated incremental sag is then plotted across time to show the increase in sag as temperatures increase. The plots also show various spikes in transmission line sag values ranging from less than an inch to just over two inches over the examined time period which does not significantly affect the operation of the grid. However, the project was performed using ideal values and is only a best case scenario. Overall, the project was successful in establishing that a relationship between global warming and transmission sag does exist, and that it needs to be addressed during future infrastructure planning. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

This thesis focused on developing an inexpensive and user friendly “point- of- care” (POC) device for early disease diagnosis. Proteomics research has elucidated many new proteins as biomarkers that have the potential to greatly improve disease diagnosis. A combination of several biomarkers has been determined to provide the information necessary for robust diagnosis of a disease in any person within a population. This technology was employed in a clinical application to identify two disease states: (i) vulnerable coronary plaque rupture, which is the cause of acute coronary syndromes stroke; and (ii) neurodegenerative diseases, which are some of the leading causes of death and debilitation worldwide. In this thesis, nanomaterials were utilized to generate high surface-area-to-volume structures in developing a biosensor platform for early disease diagnosis. These devices are known as nanomonitors. The protein-specific capacitance measurement method was employed as the basis for protein biomarker detection in a preoperative state. Troponin T and alpha-synuclein were employed as the target protein biomarkers because they have been identified to be clinically relevant in identifying vulnerable coronary vascular plaque rupture and neurodegenerative disease states, respectively. The primary purpose of this thesis was to measure performance parameters such as limit of detection, specificity, dynamic range, and detection speed of nanomonitor devices for protein biomarker-based disease detection with accuracy greater than 95 percent. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Transportable Physician Orders for Patient Preferences (T-POPP) is a POLST (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment) paradigm medical order form currently being developed as a bi-state initiative. T-POPP allows patients with serious illnesses to permit, limit, or refuse medical interventions. This thesis describes the documentation surrounding current resuscitation status orders for accessibility and clarity in the medical record prior to the regional implementation of T-POPP, in order to better understand at baseline how useful the present system is. Three code status designations are currently in use at KU Hospital relative to cardiac arrest: Full Code (which permits any and all resuscitative efforts); LAR, limited attempts at resuscitation (which permits certain medical interventions and limits others); and DNAR, do not attempt resuscitation (which limits all resuscitative interventions). This study methodology consisted of a systematic review of chart abstractions and reviews for patients with LAR and DNAR instructions in March 2011 from the University of Kansas Hospital. This study explores the prevalence of such orders, how decisions regarding these orders are documented in the medical record for clarity and accessibility, and associated patient demographics. Accessibility and clarity of such documentation is paramount. This study found that there is a high prevalence (96.2%) of documentation regarding code status orders, though significantly lower prevalence of documentation with clarity and accessibility; the highest level of clarity is found in orders with direct quotes and paraphrases; the highest level of accessibility is found in resuscitation status notes and chart notations in the code status order comments section; and that advance directives are not usually available at bedside to provide guidance for plan of care at point of care. / Thesis (M.S.W.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, School of Social Work

In the past two decades, researchers have been developing prepreg materials with matrix properties that can allow the elimination of the additional adhesive traditionally used between the core and the skins of composite sandwich structures. There have been several publications on self-adhesive prepreg used for sandwich structures; but none with a comparative study for primary structural application, from the same fabrication basis. This research focused on the properties of adhesiveless honeycomb sandwich structure with carbon graphite prepreg, while assessing the structure with adhesive film at the skin-to-core interface simultaneously. In the study, laminate and honeycomb sandwich panels were fabricated and tested with consistent lay-up, curing, and testing processes, all fully documented. Sandwich panels were made with the CYCOM 977-2 prepreg system from Cytec and the AF191 adhesive film from 3M, while the adhesiveless sandwich panel had the MTM45-1 prepreg systems from Advanced Composites Group (ACG). Laminate panels were also fabricated using the two different prepregs. Specimens from the panels where tested for physical and mechanical properties, as well as moisture absorption performance. The results obtained from the non-destructive testing and the experiments confirmed that the self-adhesive prepreg physical properties met the components and void content recommendations for use in primary structures. In addition to analysis of existing published data, mechanical tests were performed in room, hot and cold temperatures, as well as dry and wet conditions. The results suggested that aramid honeycomb sandwich structure with self-adhesive carbon graphite prepreg systems, alongside similar structure using additional adhesive, demonstrates the ability to be used for primary structure. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

As the popularity and demand grow, high-performance systems are adopting more processing cores. IBM Roadrunner, a petascale supercomputer, has 130K+ cores. No wonder, designing and/or analyzing such a gigantic system is very complicated and it costs vast amount of money. Modeling and simulation is attracting researches from many organizations and different disciplines to conduct research on expensive multi-core systems in an inexpensive way. Various multicore simulators have been proposed with various specific purposes. For example, MIT Hornet multicore simulator provides cycle-accurate performance of multicore chips. We feel the need for a fast flexible simulation platform capable of guiding to select the right system parameters (like number of cores) for optimal performance/power ratio when a set of applications is given. The proposed multicore simulation platform takes various system parameters as inputs during the runtime. It is able to analyze the sequential and parallel executions of the target workload. It generates detailed log-file indicating operations and system status for the entire execution time. This simulation results are evaluated using traditional check-point method and comparing with results published in [Chaturvedula, 2011]. There are opportunities to add functionalities to the proposed multicore simulation platform to facilitate in-depth analysis of various crucial multicore issues including core allocation and cache optimization. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends older adults (OA) spend 30min/5d/wk engaging in moderate intensity physical activity (MVPA). PURPOSE: To determine the efficacy of detailed feedback (FB) to increase OA time spent in MVPA compared to a verbal recommendation (VREC) and control (CON) group. METHODS: Sixty-eight women recruited from senior-based programs for an 8-wk, 3-intervention arm trial, were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: VREC, FB, and CON. Individuals meeting ACSM recommendations were excluded. All participants wore an accelerometer (ACCEL) to monitor 8 weeks of daily physical activity. VREC were read/received ACSM recommendations similar to mass media dialogue promoting MVPA and asked to meet recommendations by the 8-wk point. FB walked 3 d/wk on a monitored indoor walking track, and on their own 2 d/wk. FB received all VREC procedures, received MVPA walking instruction (HR monitored) and weekly ACCEL feedback (time spent in MVPA and MVPA goals for the next wk). CON continued their normal activities. RESULTS: Differences were noted between all 3 groups at Week 4 (p ≤ 0.05) and Week 8 (p ≤ 0.05). This reflects improvement in both the FB and VREC as well as a greater improvement by the FB compared to VREC. FB improved 264% over 8 weeks. VREC improved 85% from baseline to Week 8. There was no change in the CON. Difference between groups with respect to meeting ACSM recommendations (yes/no) were noted (, p ≤ 0.01). The only group to improve was FB. CONCLUSIONS: Providing simple feedback significantly improved time spent in moderate intensity physical activity by the 4th week. Based on the results of this study, which indicate that the detailed feedback is more effective than recommendation alone, this walking program should be implemented by healthcare providers as a means to improve the amount of moderate intensity physical activity engaged in by older adults. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Health Professions, Dept. of Public Health Sciences

This study examined the population of juvenile offenders admitted to a juvenile detention facility in one county in Kansas for a probation violation between July 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010. This descriptive study was exploratory in nature and identified characteristics of this population including demographics, risk of reoffending, case information, and outcomes. A total of 147 admissions were included in this study, involving 109 different youth, some of whom violated standard probation, and some of whom violated intensive supervision probation. This study also looked at the role of zero-tolerance language in sentencing orders and its role in the use of detention as a sanction for probation violations. For the majority of probation violation related detention admissions, the most serious offense in the case was a misdemeanor (71% of admissions) and a minor crime (65% of admissions). Nearly 50% of the admissions in this study were related to a single probation violation, and only 17% were related to an arrest or new charge. Of the 122 admissions for technical probation violations, 49% were related to a violation of zero-tolerance language in a sentencing order. Most of the admissions in this study resulted in a stay in detention that was less than one week, with 45% of admissions resulting in less than three days in detention. The vast majority (71%) of admissions for zero tolerance violations resulted in less than three days in detention. The results of this study indicate that nonviolent youth who have not committed serious crimes are serving time in detention due to technical probation violations. Additionally, zero tolerance language, particularly zero tolerance regarding school attendance, is related to multiple short stays in detention. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Criminal Justice

The use of atmospheric updrafts as an energy source for long endurance flight has proven to be extremely advantageous for birds, remote control sailplanes, and manned soaring vehicles. Recent research conducted by Michael Allen at NASA and Dr. Dan Edwards at North Carolina State University has demonstrated the viability of using a UAV to search for, detect, and gain altitude using thermal updrafts. This approach can be taken a step further by introducing multiple cooperating vehicles to reduce the time spent searching for thermal lift while simultaneously increasing the time spent in thermal lift gaining altitude and/or saving fuel. UAV missions calling for multiple vehicles can use this approach to reduce the demand for on board energy storage by using environmental energy more effectively than a vehicle flying alone. This research aims to complement existing autonomous soaring efforts by developing a low cost thermal soaring system that is capable of working with single or multiple cooperating vehicles to find and utilize thermal updrafts. Early simulations developed to validate this idea have given rise to further analysis and experimentation with two custom airframes, each equipped with instruments to detect updrafts and autonomous capabilities to test cooperative soaring algorithms in the real world. The system developed used a sub $1000 commercial off-the-shelf autopilot and custom ground control software to achieve many autonomous soaring flights with a single vehicle. Several flights with two autonomous vehicles were also performed and cooperative behavior was demonstrated. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering

In intermittently connected sensor networks, wherein sensor nodes do have connected paths to the base station periodically, preserving generated data inside the network is a new and challenging problem. We propose to preserve data items by distributing them from storage-depleted data generating nodes to sensor nodes with available storage space and high battery energy, under the constraints that each node has limited storage capacity and battery power. The goal is to maximize the minimum remaining energy among the nodes storing data items, in order to preserve them for maximum amount of time until next uploading opportunity arises. We refer to this problem as storage-depletion induced data preservation problem (SDP). First, we give feasibility condition of this issue by proposing and applying a Modified Edmonds-Karp Algorithm (MEA) on an appropriately transformed flow network. We then show that when feasible solutions exist, finding the optimal solution is NP-hard. Moreover, we develop a sufficient condition to solve SDP optimally. Finally, we design a distributed algorithm with less time complexity then compare it with flow based algorithm then show via simulations that distributed algorithm performs close to optimal solution. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

In this thesis, the concept of A-basis and B-basis as it relates to the aviation industry is studied. The rst assumption that will be made in order to help with the formulation of the A-basis and B-basis values is that each of the samples from the obtained data is given by a normal distribution. With this assumption, the paper begins by deriving the formulas needed for obtaining A-basis and B-basis values. Once these formulas have been derived, they will be put to use in programs that are capable of running simulations. Then the thesis will examine the results and investigate if any problem areas arise. It will be discovered that there is a problem with the formulas derived as it pertains to the aviation industry, so the next step will be to nd where the error originates from and nd a suitable way to x this error. The next item that will be looked at is how to successfully run simulations where it is desirable to impose certain restrictions on the population mean of each factor that is being taken into consideration. The thesis will conclude by looking at what happens when combining both the method used to x the error discovered earlier and the method used to apply the order restriction, and again will run simulations by means of programs that take both methods into account. The results show how order restriction can be applied to the population means of the breaking strength of composite materials to obtain results that follow certain theories that have been determined by engineers. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics