Currently, simulation predictions of the Orion Crew Module (CM) dynamics with drogue parachutes deployed are under-predicting the amount of damping as seen in free-flight tests.  The Apollo Legacy Chute Damping model has been resurrected and applied to the Orion system. The legacy model has been applied to predict CM damping under drogue parachutes for both Vertical Spin Tunnel free flights and the Pad Abort-1 flight test.  Comparisons between the legacy Apollo prediction method and test data are favorable.  A key hypothesis in the Apollo legacy drogue damping analysis is that the drogue parachutes' net load vector aligns with the CM drogue attachment point velocity vector.  This assumption seems reasonable and produces good results, but has never been experimentally verified.  The wake of the CM influences the drogue parachutes, which makes performance predictions of the parachutes difficult.  Many of these effects are not currently modeled in the simulations. A forced oscillation test of the CM with parachutes was conducted in the NASA LaRC 20-Ft Vertical Spin Tunnel (VST) to gather additional data to validate and refine the Apollo legacy drogue model.  A second loads balance was added to the original Orion VST model to measure the drogue parachute loads independently of the CM.  The objective of the test was to identify the contribution of the drogues to CM damping and provide additional information to quantify wake effects and the interactions between the CM and parachutes.  The drogue parachute force vector was shown to be highly dependent on the CM wake characteristics.  Based on these wind tunnel test data, the Apollo Legacy Chute Damping model was determined to be a sufficient approximation of the parachute dynamics in relationship to the CM dynamics for preliminary entry vehicle system design.  More wake effects should be included to better model the system. These results are being used to improve simulation model fidelity of CM flight with drogues deployed, which has been identified by the project as key to a successful Orion Critical Design Review. / Master of Science

Blunt carotid artery injury (BCAI), resulting primarily from automobile accidents, is a major contributor to the high mortality and morbidity rates associated with carotid artery dissection. More work is needed to characterize carotid artery injury mechanisms, quantify stages of damage, and elucidate failure modalities as a result of this type of injury. The present study examines the structure and mechanics of the carotid artery in the circumferential and axial directions by employing uniaxial tensile testing, high speed videography, interruption testing, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), histological analysis, real-time environmental SEM assessment, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Results are as follows: (i) the carotid artery exhibits anisotropic, viscoelastic behavior; (ii) intimal failure precedes ultimate tissue failure, and the layers in order of increasing strength are intima, adventitia, and media; (iii) tissue damage accumulates as strain level increases, and failure occurs as a result of void nucleation, void growth, and void coalescence.

A hollow viscus injury is an uncommon but potentially dangerous intra-abdominal injury that can result from blunt abdominal trauma. It can be misdiagnosed in patient, particularly when the patient has other concerning findings. Also, diagnosis can be increasingly difficult in a patient with a pre-existing ventral hernia and chronic abdominal pain. In this case we present a 66-year-old women, with a history of a large ventral hernia and chronic abdominal pain, who presented to the emergency department after a motor vehicle crash (MVC). Patient denied abdominal tenderness at the time of presentation and the initial computed tomography (CT) did not demonstrate any abnormal findings within the abdomen. Patient later began experiencing increased abdominal pain and presented with a small bowel perforation within the hernia that required a bowel resection and hernia repair. A review of the literature reveals that not only are hollow viscus injuries rare but there appears to be few documented cases of viscus injuries occurring within a existing ventral hernia.

No description available.

This dissertation explores a portion of the life, travels, and political activities of nineteenth century British traveler and Arabist, Lady Anne Blunt. Lady Anne held independent and, by the standards of the time, radical ideas about the need to respect Arab culture and to deal with the Arabs as equals. With an encompassing knowledge of the region, she challenged prevailing assumptions and exerted influence in high British political circles. Lady Anne's aristocratic heritage as the granddaughter of celebrated poet Lord Byron, helped her gain access to the political circles that were gaining power in the Arab world Lady Anne's journeys, through much of the Mediterranean region, North Africa, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and Persia, became the basis for her broad knowledge of the Arab world. She pursued an intimate knowledge of Bedouin life in Arabia, the town Arab culture of Syria and Mesopotamia, and the politics of nationalism in Egypt. Lady Anne developed an important worldview, egalitarian in its outlook, with a consistent, even cosmopolitan, set of social and moral parameters that knew no skin color or race. Lady Anne's well-known husband, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, developed a reputation as an anti-imperialist, political activist, and political writer. Anne was her husband's partner in marriage, politics, and travel, and her numerous journals provide a record of their journeys and political activities offering an original new look at her virtually unknown work, while bringing new perspective to his. This dissertation focuses primarily on Lady Anne's most politically active decade, 1880-1890, along with biographical details that influenced her political persona. Lady Anne Blunt and her husband made a substantial contribution to the Egyptian National Party, the defense of Egyptian revolutionaries after their defeat, and the restoration of nationalistic pride in Egypt during the British occupation. Lady Anne's influence reached beyond Egypt as well, as she partnered with indigenous inhabitants for justice and liberty in the so-called jewels in the imperial crown.

Impact induced injury to the human head is a major cause of death and disability; this has driven considerable research in this field. Despite this, the methods by which the brain is damaged following non-penetrative (blunt) impact, where the skull remains intact, are not well understood. The mechanisms which give rise to brain trauma as a result of blunt head impact are frequently explored using indirect methods, such as finite element simulation. Finite element models are often created manually, but the complex anatomy of the head and its internal structures makes the manual creation of a model with a high level of geometric accuracy intractable. Generally, approximate models are created, thereby introducing large simplifications and user subjectivity. Previous work purports that blunt head impacts of short duration give rise to large dynamic transients of both positive and negative pressure in the brain. Here, three finite element models of the human head, of increasing biofidelity, were employed to investigate this phenomenon. A novel approach to generating finite element models of arbitrary complexity directly from three-dimensional image data was exploited in the development of these models, and eventually a highly realistic model of the whole head and neck was constructed and validated against a widely used experimental benchmark. The head models were subjected to a variety of simulated impacts, ranging from comparatively long duration to very short duration collisions. The dynamic intracranial pressure response, characterised by large transients of both positive and negative pressure in the brain, was observed following short duration impacts in all three of the models used in this study. The dynamic intracranial response was also recorded following short duration impacts of high energy, involving large impact forces, which were deemed to be realistic representations of actual impact scenarios. With the aid of an approximate analytical solution, analysis of the simulations revealed that the dynamic response is caused by localised skull deflection, which induces flexural waves in the skull. The implications of these magnified pressures are discussed, with particular regard to the potential for intracranial cavitation.

<p>DNA nanotechnology has provided programming construction of various nanostructures at nanometer-level precision over the last three decades. DNA self-assembly is usually implemented by annealing process in bulk solution. In recent several years, a new method thrives by fabricating two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures on solid surfaces. My researches mainly focus on this field, surface-assisted DNA assembly driven by base stacking. I have developed methods to fabricate DNA 2D networks via isothermal assembly on mica surfaces. I have further explored the applications to realize quasicrystal fabrication and nanoparticles (NPs) patterning.</p><p><br></p> <p>In this dissertation, I have developed a strategy to assemble DNA structures with 1 or 2 pair(s) of blunt ends. Such weak interactions cannot hold DNA motifs together in solution. However, with DNA-surface attractions, DNA motifs can assemble into large nanostructures on solid surface. Further studies reveal that the DNA-surface attractions can be controlled by the variety and concentration of cation in the bulk solution. Moreover, DNA nanostructures can be fabricated at very low motif concentrations, at which traditional solution assembly cannot render large nanostructures. Finally, assembly time course is also studied to reveal a superfast process for surface-assisted method compared with solution assembly.</p><p><br></p> <p>Based on this approach, I have extended my research scope from 1D to 2D structures assembled from various DNA motifs. In my studies, I have successfully realized conformational change regulated by DNA-surface interaction and steric effect. By introduction of DNA duplex “bridges” and unpaired nucleotide (nt) spacers, we can control the flexibility/rigidity of DNA nanomotifs, which helps to fabricate more delicate dodecagonal quasicrystals. The key point is to design the length of spacers. For 6-point-star motif, a rigid structure is required so that only 1-nt spacers are added. On the other hand, 3-nt spacers are incorporated to enable an inter-branch angle change from 60° to 90° for a more flexible 5-point-star motif. By tuning the ratio of 5 and 6 -point-star motifs in solution, we can obtain 2D networks from snub square tiling, dodecagonal tiling, a mixture of dodecagonal tiling and triangular tiling, and triangular tiling.</p><p><br></p> Finally, I have explored the applications of my assembly method for patterning NPs. Tetragonal and hexagonal DNA 2D networks have been fabricated on mica surfaces and served as templates. Then modify the surfaces with positively-charged “glues”, <i>e.g.</i> poly-L-lysine (PLL) or Ni²⁺. After that, various NPs have been patterned into designated lattices, including individual DNA nanomotifs, gold NPs (AuNPs), proteins, and silica complexes. Observed NP lattices and fast Fourier Transform (FFT) patterns have demonstrated the DNA networks’ patterning effect on NPs.

Rib fractures are present in 25 percent of all trauma-related deaths, making the mechanism and pattern of rib fractures an important area of trauma research (Lien et al. 2009). Rib fractures are important to consider when researching trauma because they can cause serious complications contributing to an individual's mortality. This retrospective research study focuses on rib fracture patterns in fatal motor vehicle accidents (MVAs). The sample consists of 105 MVA victims--68 males and 37 females. Data was collected at the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office in Tampa, Florida. The study investigates motor-vehicle-related deaths from 2011 to 2013 to establish rib fracture patterns in association with several variables. Fractures of the manubrium and sternum are included in the analyses since the ribs articulate in several places with the manubrium and sternum and they are frequently injured in MVAs. First, this research study investigates the rib fracture patterns that exist in correlation to soft tissue organ injury. Injuries to the heart, lungs, liver, diaphragm, and spleen were analyzed based on their direct contact with the ribcage. The results show that several significant relationships exist, including that lung injury is about 12 times more likely to occur when a fracture is present in the left middle ribs and 4 times more likely to occur when there is a fracture on the manubrium. Heart injury is found to be 9 times more likely to occur when the sternum is fractured and the liver is found to be 4 times more likely when the right middle ribs are fractured and 0.3 times more likely when the right high ribs are fractured. Second, this study examines rib fracture patterns controlling for seatbelt use, airbag deployment, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) administration. Each of these variables is tested to determine their influence in causing injury and the fracture patterns resulting from accidents. For drivers, specifically, it is also tested if fracture patterns can predict seatbelt use. The results show a significant relationship between fracture of the left low ribs and seatbelt use. In drivers, it is 5 times more likely that the individual was wearing a seatbelt if the left low ribs are fractured. Lastly, a significant relationship was found for fractures of the manubrium and CPR administration. Finally, this research study aims to predict the number of ribs fractured by an individuals' age. Progressive mineralization of the skeleton and other age-related changes increase the risk of fracture in elderly individuals. The results of this study indicate a significant, positive correlation between age and the total number of rib fractures sustained in MVAs, supporting the presumption that elderly are at a higher risk for rib fractures.

This study surveyed school-based speech language pathologists regarding their expectations for children returning to school after suffering a traumatic brain injury. Limited literature exists discussing the coordination procedures that should occur between hospital and school personnel. The survey was developed based on the existing literature and was sent to school-based speech language pathologists in the state of Indiana. A total of 38% of the surveys were completed and returned. Results of the surveys found that many of the coordination procedures in the literature were not consistently being followed. Participants who reported having experience with this population in the schools seemed more aware of the procedures that should be followed, based on their answers to the survey questions. It can be concluded, based on the results of the surveys, that increased knowledge and experience of school personnel about the effects, implications, and needs of students with traumatic brain injury would benefit children returning to the school environment after sustaining this type of injury. / Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1954. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 249-258).