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Title: A cluster analysis comparison of garden activities in classical Chinese gardens and American gardens
Creator: Wang, Xiaoyi (Graduate of Michigan State University)
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Activities that occurred in Chinese classical gardens and American gardens are an important part of their traditional culture. The purpose of this study is to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese classical gardens and American gardens. Six classical Chinese gardens in China and five American gardens in the United States were selected to test. Eighty-five possible activities were selected based on site visits and from historical documents. A method named principal component...
Show moreActivities that occurred in Chinese classical gardens and American gardens are an important part of their traditional culture. The purpose of this study is to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese classical gardens and American gardens. Six classical Chinese gardens in China and five American gardens in the United States were selected to test. Eighty-five possible activities were selected based on site visits and from historical documents. A method named principal component analysis with plots was applied to this research. After applying the variables into the software SAS, a number of eigenvalues were generated, and the first three eigenvalues representing almost 75% of the variance were used for further analysis. The result shows a distinctive difference between Chinese garden and American garden. The first principal component indicates the major element that differ the Chinese garden and American garden, with activities occurred only in Chinese gardens such as literati gathering, writing calligraphy, and examine antiques; and activities occurred only in American gardens such as barbecuing, making bonfires, and playing ball games. The second and third principal components explained the difference between Chinese gardens, which varies primarily because of the garden owner's lifestyle.
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Title: A design of a revetment wall for erosion control on Red Cedar river
Creator: Holgate, Joseph
Date: 1948
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: A formal approach to providing assurance to dynamically adaptive software
Creator: Zhang, Ji
Date: 2007
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: A method for employing qualitative data in the development of spatial agent-based models
Creator: Molen, Nicholas
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Developers of agent-based models of socioecological systems are in a power-laden relationship with those they presume to model. It has often been the case that these developers do not inform their model with any sort of rich cultural data, and instead rely upon established methods from areas such as economics, laboratory psychology, and machine learning. While these methods can be effective, ignoring the perspective of the humans being represented in an ABM risks validation of that model for...
Show moreDevelopers of agent-based models of socioecological systems are in a power-laden relationship with those they presume to model. It has often been the case that these developers do not inform their model with any sort of rich cultural data, and instead rely upon established methods from areas such as economics, laboratory psychology, and machine learning. While these methods can be effective, ignoring the perspective of the humans being represented in an ABM risks validation of that model for the wrong reasons and a marginalization of the humans represented in the model. Qualitative data collection methods, such as the collection of narratives, can aid not only in the elucidation of cultural ecological complexity, but also in the anchoring of an ABM to the political and ecological perspectives presented. While qualitative methods might lead to ABMs with higher fidelity to their real-world counterparts without as many power issues, making use of qualitative data during model development can be quite challenging, and no clear general methods exist. This thesis proposes a method to utilize long-form key informant narratives in the development of spatial agent-based models by linking the textual analysis of source documents to multiple modeling steps utilizing mental mapping and Object-Process Methodology extended for Multi-Agent-Systems (OPM/MAS). To test this method, narratives from migrants during the American Dust Bowl were analyzed and used to construct grounded models. The resulting model of a migrant agent is simple, easily understood and implemented, and its components can be linked directly to elements in the source narratives.
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Title: A methodology for material design applied to porous media with flow
Creator: Bandyopadhyay, Deep
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: A study of Pakistani decorative textile design motifs adapted for use in western-style contemporary homes
Creator: Wasi, Surraya
Date: 1962
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: A unique approach to frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar design
Creator: Charvat, Gregory Louis
Date: 2003
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Advances in oscillometric blood pressure measurement
Creator: Chandrasekhar, Anand
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: High blood pressure (BP) is a major cardiovascular risk factor that is treatable, yet hypertensionawareness and control rates are low. Ubiquitous BP monitoring technology could improve hypertensionmanagement, but existing devices require an inflatable cuff and are not compatible withsuch anytime, anywhere measurement of BP. Oscillometry is the blood pressure (BP) measurementprinciple of most automatic cuff devices. We extended the oscillometric principle, which is usedby most automatic cuff...
Show moreHigh blood pressure (BP) is a major cardiovascular risk factor that is treatable, yet hypertensionawareness and control rates are low. Ubiquitous BP monitoring technology could improve hypertensionmanagement, but existing devices require an inflatable cuff and are not compatible withsuch anytime, anywhere measurement of BP. Oscillometry is the blood pressure (BP) measurementprinciple of most automatic cuff devices. We extended the oscillometric principle, which is usedby most automatic cuff devices, to develop a couple of instruments to measure cuff-less BP usinga smartphone-based device and standalone iPhone application. As the user presses her/his fingeragainst the smartphone, the external pressure of the underlying artery is steadily increased while thephone measures the applied pressure and resulting variable amplitude blood volume oscillations.A smartphone application provides visual feedback to guide the amount of pressure applied overtime via the finger pressing and computes systolic and diastolic BP from the measurements.We prospectively tested the smartphone-based device for real-time BP monitoring in humansubjects to evaluate usability (n = 30) and accuracy against a standard automatic cuff-based device(n = 32). We likewise tested a finger cuff device, which uses the volume-clamp method of BPdetection. About 90% of the users learned the finger actuation required by the smartphone-baseddevice after one or two practice trials. The device yielded bias and precision errors of 3.3 and 8.8mmHg for systolic BP and [Special character(s) omitted]5:6 and 7:7 mmHg for diastolic BP over a 40 to 50 mmHg range of BP.These errors were comparable to the finger cuff device. Cuff-less and calibration-free monitoringof systolic and diastolic BP may be feasible via a smartphone. In addition, we tested the iPhoneapplication. The application yielded bias and precision errors of -4.0 and 11.4 mmHg for systolicBP and -9.4 and 9.7 mmHg for diastolic BP (n = 18). These errors were near the finger cuff deviceerrors. This proof-of-concept study surprisingly indicates that cuff-less and calibration-free BPmonitoring may be feasible with many existing and forthcoming smartphones.These devices use empirical algorithms, already descried in the literature, to estimate bloodpressure. Hence, the next objective was to establish formulas to explain three popular empiricalalgorithms- the maximum amplitude, derivative, and fixed ratio algorithms. A mathematicalmodel of the oscillogram was developed and analyzed to derive parametric formulas for explainingeach algorithm. Exemplary parameter values were obtained by fitting the model to measuredoscillograms. The model and formulas were validated by showing that their predictions correspondto measurements. The formula for the maximum amplitude algorithm indicates that it yields aweighted average of systolic and diastolic BP (0.45 and 0.55 weighting) instead of commonlyassumed mean BP. The formulas for the derivative algorithm indicate that it can accurately estimatesystolic and diastolic BP (<1.5 mmHg error), if oscillogram measurement noise can be obviated.The formulas for the fixed ratio algorithm indicate that it can yield inaccurate BP estimates, becausethe ratios change substantially (over a 0.5-0.6 range) with arterial compliance and pulse pressureand error in the assumed ratio translates to BP error via large amplification (>40). The establishedformulas allow for easy and complete interpretation of perhaps the three most popular oscillometricBP estimation algorithms in the literature while providing new insights. The model and formulasmay also be of some value towards improving the accuracy of automatic cuff BP measurementdevices.
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Title: Alternative segmentation schemes for the design of traffic maps
Creator: Stevens, Joshua E.
Date: 2011
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Drivers in urban environments constantly face the problem of congestion. As a geographic hindrance that is growing rapidly in both frequency and severity, congestion represents a major burden to drivers and transportation systems alike. At the same time, recent advancements in technology have given cartographers unprecedented access to high-quality, real-time traffic data that is readily employed in traffic maps from various sources. Previous research has demonstrated that providing drivers...
Show moreDrivers in urban environments constantly face the problem of congestion. As a geographic hindrance that is growing rapidly in both frequency and severity, congestion represents a major burden to drivers and transportation systems alike. At the same time, recent advancements in technology have given cartographers unprecedented access to high-quality, real-time traffic data that is readily employed in traffic maps from various sources. Previous research has demonstrated that providing drivers with relevant, time-based information reduces environmental uncertainty, yielding benefits to individuals as well as the transportation network as a whole. Unfortunately, many of the available traffic maps are variations of a single design approach which is replete with ambiguity that hinders the task of travel time estimation. This is largely due to the irregular segmentation of the transportation network used in conventional traffic map design. To address this issue, two prototype designs are proposed that present regular, fixed segmentation schemes. The first approach employs segments that have a fixed length of distance, removing the users' need to estimate incomplete distances along the route. The second approach represents travel time directly by fixing segment length to a unit of travel time. Results of a user-based experiment strongly favor the regularly-segmented approaches for the purpose of travel time estimation and suggest that conventional traffic map designs are not adequate for this task. Traffic maps utilizing the fixed-minute segmentation were greatly preferred by users and were associated with significant improvements in travel time estimation.
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Title: Analysis and design of reliable and stable link-layer protocols for wireless communication
Creator: Soltani, Sohraab
Date: 2009
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Assessing bikeway design alternatives : DALMAC route centeral Michigan case study
Creator: Li, Yinliang
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The objective of this thesis is to explore the differences and possibilities of bikeway design implemented with different treatments by examining the DALMAC bicycle camping tour. In the following steps, the thesis conducted series of analysis to select the final route by assessing three segments (Site A, Site B, and Site C) as study sites from DALMAC (b = 3). The investigation studied treatment including: 1) Existing Treatment, 2) Balance Treatment, 3) Extremely Safe Treatment, 4) Extremely...
Show moreThe objective of this thesis is to explore the differences and possibilities of bikeway design implemented with different treatments by examining the DALMAC bicycle camping tour. In the following steps, the thesis conducted series of analysis to select the final route by assessing three segments (Site A, Site B, and Site C) as study sites from DALMAC (b = 3). The investigation studied treatment including: 1) Existing Treatment, 2) Balance Treatment, 3) Extremely Safe Treatment, 4) Extremely Enjoyable Treatment, and 5) Extremely Environmental Treatment (k = 5). In order to test the differences among treatments statistically through Freidman Test of variances, there is a scoring criteria consisting of 30 questions. As a result, this data indicated that at least one treatment yield different values among all treatments (p ≤ 0.005 or p ≤ 0.001). Furthermore, among all treatments across 3 sites, the Extremely Enjoyable Treatment statistically performed best (p ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, this thesis investigated the potential values of bicycle enjoyment for a specific segment of DALMAC route.
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Title: BTAudio (Bluetooth Audio Program) and quite talk profile
Creator: Chen, Jun
Date: 2003
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Cognitive and motivational impacts of learning game design on middle school children
Creator: Akcaoglu, Mete
Date: 2013
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In today`s complex and fast-evolving world, problem solving is an important skill to possess. For young children to be successful at their future careers, they need to have the skill and the will to solve complex problems that are beyond the well-defined problems that they learn to solve at schools. One promising approach to teach complex problem solving skills is using visual programming and game design software. Theoretically and anecdotally, extant research enlightened us...
Show moreIn today`s complex and fast-evolving world, problem solving is an important skill to possess. For young children to be successful at their future careers, they need to have the skill and the will to solve complex problems that are beyond the well-defined problems that they learn to solve at schools. One promising approach to teach complex problem solving skills is using visual programming and game design software. Theoretically and anecdotally, extant research enlightened us about the cognitive and motivational potential of these software. Due to lack of empirical evidence, however, we are far from knowing if these claims are warranted. In this quasi-experimental study, I investigated the cognitive (i.e., problem solving) and motivational (i.e., interest and value) impacts of participating at the Game Design and Learning Courses (GDL) on middle school children (n = 49), who designed games following a curriculum based on problem solving skills. Compared to students in a control group (n =24), students who attended the GDL courses showed significantly higher gains in general and specific (i.e., system analysis and design, decision-making, troubleshooting) problem solving skills. Because the survey data seriously violated statistical assumptions underlying the analyses, I could not study the motivational impacts of the GDL courses further. Nevertheless, the GDL intervention bears implications for educators and theory.
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Title: Compact, low-power microelectronic instrumentation for wearable electrochemical sensor arrays in health hazard monitoring
Creator: Li, Haitao
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Biological and chemical hazards threaten human health and are of growing world concern. Wearable sensors offer the potential to monitor local exposure of individual users while enabling distribution across a global scale. However, achieving this goal is challenged by the lack of autonomous high performance sensors with the power and size features required for wearable implementation. Wearable sensors need sensing techniques having high-performance in power, sensitivity, and selectivity for...
Show moreBiological and chemical hazards threaten human health and are of growing world concern. Wearable sensors offer the potential to monitor local exposure of individual users while enabling distribution across a global scale. However, achieving this goal is challenged by the lack of autonomous high performance sensors with the power and size features required for wearable implementation. Wearable sensors need sensing techniques having high-performance in power, sensitivity, and selectivity for biological and chemical hazards within a small volume. The autonomous operation of wearable sensors demands electronics to intelligently analyze, store, and transmit the data and generate alerts, within the strict constraints of power, and size. Electrochemical sensors have many characteristics that meet the challenging performance requirements of wearable sensors. However, the electrochemical instrumentation circuits are too heavy, bulky, expensive and consume too much power for wearable applications. Modern complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology provides an ultra-small, low-cost, low-power and high-performance solution for wearable sensors. This dissertation investigates CMOS circuit design for wearable electrochemical sensor arrays in health hazard monitoring. Multiple electrochemical modes provide orthogonal data to sensor array algorithms to improve sensor sensitivity and selectivity. A unique multi-mode resource-sharing instrumentation circuit was developed to integrate amperometric and impedance sensing abilities, and share electronics components among recording channels, with reduced size, cost, and power. A wearable sensor array can measure multiple hazardous targets in a wide range of concentrations. To address the wide dynamic range of such a sensor array, a new CMOS amperometric circuit that combines digital modulation of input currents and a semi-synchronous incremental Σ∆ ADC was developed. The new circuit simultaneously achieves a combination of wide dynamic range (164 dB), high sensitivity (100 fA), high power efficiency (241 μW) and compact size (50 readout channels on a 3×3 mm2 chip) that is not available in any existing instrumentation circuits. While the circuits above addressed key challenges in gas sensors, electrochemical biosensors offer a different set of challenges. In particular, miniaturized biosensors based on nanopore interfaces, including ion channel proteins, have great potential for high-throughput biological study and wearable biosensing. However, they require electrochemical instrumentation circuits that are compact, low power, and highly sensitive, high bandwidth. To address this need, a shared-segment interleaved amperometric readout circuit was developed, and measurement results show it has superior performance in terms of power and area compared to other known current sensing circuits for the same biological targets. This circuit achieves 7.2 pArms noise in a 11.5 kHz bandwidth, over 90 nA bidirectional input current range with only 21 μW power consumption, and allowing over 400 channels to be integrated on a single chip. The combined results of this research overcome many challenges for the development of wearable electrochemical sensor array in health hazard monitoring applications.
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Title: Context sensitive design : a non-transportation example in Michigan
Creator: Wang, Yun
Date: 2012
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In recent decades, the conflict between environmental degradation and development of human society is has been exacerbated. This situation engages planners and designers to minimize the negative human impact, protect and create a healthy ecosystem, reclaim degraded environments while also encouraging a healthy business and cultural climate. Context sensitive design is a philosophy which can help foster such an approach accommodating environmental issues and striking a balance between...
Show moreIn recent decades, the conflict between environmental degradation and development of human society is has been exacerbated. This situation engages planners and designers to minimize the negative human impact, protect and create a healthy ecosystem, reclaim degraded environments while also encouraging a healthy business and cultural climate. Context sensitive design is a philosophy which can help foster such an approach accommodating environmental issues and striking a balance between stakeholders to create an environmental friendly project. In this study, I applied a Context Sensitive Design philosophy for a Ski Resort project in Michigan. I evaluated and compare the Context Sensitive Design project outcomes with three other design solutions/treatments: a Housing Unit design using Le Corbusier's theory for structures, a Forested Woodland Community and an Abandoned Surface Mine condition. To compare the project treatments, I employed a visual quality equation, two habitat models, surface water runoff, and a vegetation diversity index. The statistical results indicated that the Forested Woodland Community was significantly better than the Abandoned Surface Mine condition, but the other treatments were not significantly different from each other.
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Title: Design and engineering of novel starch-based foam and film products
Creator: Nabar, Yogaraj Umesh
Date: 2004
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Design and evaluation of a health care needs assessment tool for adults with cerebral palsy and mental retardation
Creator: Clark, Nuala Catherine
Date: 1991
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Design and simulation of a microwave powered microplasma system for local area materials processing
Creator: Narendra, Jeffri Julliarsa
Date: 2010
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: A microwave powered microplasma source is developed and tested for materials processing on spatially localized areas. A small diameter stream of plasma (less than 2 mm in diameter) is created by focusing microwave energy inside a discharge tube. The discharge then flows out the end of the tube onto the surface being processed delivering ions and reactive radicals. The diameter of the plasma stream from the tube to the material being processed can be controlled by an aperture mounted at the...
Show moreA microwave powered microplasma source is developed and tested for materials processing on spatially localized areas. A small diameter stream of plasma (less than 2 mm in diameter) is created by focusing microwave energy inside a discharge tube. The discharge then flows out the end of the tube onto the surface being processed delivering ions and reactive radicals. The diameter of the plasma stream from the tube to the material being processed can be controlled by an aperture mounted at the end of the tube. The spot size of the localized plasma stream ranges from 2 mm down to 10's micrometers depending on the aperture size. The discharge is created by using 2.45 GHz microwave energy that is coupled into the discharge using a small foreshortened cylindrical cavity that has a hollow inner conductor and a small capacitive gap at the end of the cavity. A processing gas mixture is fed through a 2 mm inner diameter quartz tube which is located inside the hollow inner conductor of the cavity. This tube is exposed to a high electric field at the small gap end of the cavity thus generating a surface wave plasma. The length of the surface wave discharge in the tube can be extended by increasing the microwave power to the discharge so that the plasma reaches the aperture. The operating pressures range from 0.5 Torr to 100 Torr and the microwave power utilized ranges from a few Watts to 10's Watts. Several properties of the discharge including plasma power density, electron density and electron temperature are measured. The power densities of argon and Ar/O₂ plasma discharges vary from 10's to over 450 W/cm3. The plasma density and electron temperature of argon discharges are measured using a double Langmuir probe placed in the materials processing area. The plasma densities are in the range of 1011 - 1013 cm-3.Computational modeling of the plasma discharge and the microwave excitation of the discharge is performed using a finite element analysis. The goal of the modeling study is to complement and understand the design, development and operation of the microwave powered microplasmas. A self-consistent model of the foreshortened cylindrical cavity and plasma discharge is presented with results compared to experimental measurements. The microplasma system is incorporated into a micromanufacturing system that integrates the plasma source with an atomic force microscope for surface measurements and nanomanipulation of the surface. Selected applications of the micromachining system demonstrated include using the microplasma as a spatially localized etcher, free radical source, and ultraviolet light source. Silicon and ultrananocrystalline (UNCD) diamond etching is performed using Ar/SF₆ and Ar/O₂ discharges, respectively, with etching rates of 0.2 - 2 μm/min and 0.6 - 2 μm/hr. Localized removal of photoresist is done by using the microplasma as a free radical source and photoresist is exposed to ultraviolet light from the microplasma source to create spatially localized patterns.
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Title: Design criteria for the treatment of milking facility wastewater in a cold weather vertical flow wetland
Creator: Campbell, Emily Loraine
Date: 2014
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The wastewater produced by Michigan milking facilities is harmful to the environment and costly to treat. A field demonstration of a subsurface treatment wetland in mid-Michigan has had continual success and has proven the capacity of constructed wetlands to effectively and affordably treat milking facility wastewater in colder climates. However, the wetland's design was inefficient and over-sized. Data from two lab-scale wetlands were collected and analyzed in order to create sizing and...
Show moreThe wastewater produced by Michigan milking facilities is harmful to the environment and costly to treat. A field demonstration of a subsurface treatment wetland in mid-Michigan has had continual success and has proven the capacity of constructed wetlands to effectively and affordably treat milking facility wastewater in colder climates. However, the wetland's design was inefficient and over-sized. Data from two lab-scale wetlands were collected and analyzed in order to create sizing and design criteria for a cost-effective design.As a result, design and sizing criteria were created for two types of wash water: manure contaminated and manure free. Several types of nutrients were monitored, including phosphorus, organic matter, total nitrogen, ammonia, nitrate, and pH. Since nitrogen levels in the manure contaminated wash water was three times larger than that in the manure free wash water, different designs were needed, though both designs were successful at treatment of COD and nitrogen. Phosphorus treatment was adequate, but temporary, as the wetland media lost capacity with time. Clogging potential was also taken into consideration. Although the change in hydraulic conductivity was indiscernible in the lab wetlands, the field site, which has been in operation over five years, was examined and no sign of clogging was found in sampling.
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Title: Design of a centrifugal pump for liquid fuel pumping application
Creator: Cao, David Thiepxuan
Date: 2002
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

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