ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- Genre: Masters Thesis
Description
Coccidioidomycosis, also known as Valley Fever, is a disease caused by the dimorphic soil-dwelling fungus, Coccidioides sp. Coccidioidomycosis is difficult to diagnose because symptoms are similar to community-acquired pneumonia. Current diagnostic tests rely on antibody responses, but immune responses can be delayed and aberrant, resulting in false negative diagnoses. Unlike serology, detection of coccidioidal proteins or other fungal components in blood could distinguish valley fever from other pulmonary infections and provide a definitive diagnosis. Using mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) we examined the plasma peptidome from patients with serologically confirmed coccidioidomycosis. Mass spectra were searched using the protein database from the Coccidioides species, generated and annotated by the Broad Institute. 15 of 20 patients with serologically confirmed coccidioidomycosis demonstrated the presence of a peptide in plasma, "PGLDSKSLACTFSQV" (PGLD). The peptide is derived from an open reading frame from a "conserved hypothetical protein" annotated with 2 exons, and to date, found only in the C. posadasii strain Silviera RMSCC 3488 genomic sequence. In this thesis work, cDNA sequence analysis from polyadenylated RNA confirms the peptide sequence and genomic location of the peptide, but does not indicate that the intron in the gene prediction of C. posadasii strain Silviera RMSCC 3488 is present. A monoclonal antibody generated against the peptide bound to a 16kDa protein in T27K coccidioidal lysate. Detecting components of the fungus plasma could be a useful diagnostic tool, especially when serology does not provide a definitive diagnosis.
ContributorsDuffy, Stacy Leigh (Author) / Lake, Douglas (Thesis advisor) / Magee, Dewey Mitch (Committee member) / Antwi, Kwasi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Increasing the efficiency of Doppler processing and backend processing in medical ultrasound systems
Description
Ultrasound imaging is one of the major medical imaging modalities. It is cheap, non-invasive and has low power consumption. Doppler processing is an important part of many ultrasound imaging systems. It is used to provide blood velocity information and is built on top of B-mode systems. We investigate the performance of two velocity estimation schemes used in Doppler processing systems, namely, directional velocity estimation (DVE) and conventional velocity estimation (CVE). We find that DVE provides better estimation performance and is the only functioning method when the beam to flow angle is large. Unfortunately, DVE is computationally expensive and also requires divisions and square root operations that are hard to implement. We propose two approximation techniques to replace these computations. The simulation results on cyst images show that the proposed approximations do not affect the estimation performance. We also study backend processing which includes envelope detection, log compression and scan conversion. Three different envelope detection methods are compared. Among them, FIR based Hilbert Transform is considered the best choice when phase information is not needed, while quadrature demodulation is a better choice if phase information is necessary. Bilinear and Gaussian interpolation are considered for scan conversion. Through simulations of a cyst image, we show that bilinear interpolation provides comparable contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) performance with Gaussian interpolation and has lower computational complexity. Thus, bilinear interpolation is chosen for our system.
ContributorsWei, Siyuan (Author) / Chakrabarti, Chaitali (Thesis advisor) / Frakes, David (Committee member) / Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Modified and artificial water sources can be used as a management tool for game and non-game wildlife species. State, federal, and private agencies allocate significant resources to install and maintain artificial water sources (AWS) annually. Capture mark recapture methods were used to sample small mammal communities in the vicinity of five AWS and five paired control sites (treatments) in the surrounding Sonoran desert from October 2011 to May 2012. I measured plant species richness, density, and percent cover in the spring of 2012. A Multi-response Permutation Procedure was used to identify differences in small mammal community abundance, biomass, and species richness by season and treatment. I used Principle Component Analysis to reduce 11 habitat characteristics to five habitat factors. I related rodent occurrence to habitat characteristics using multiple and logistic regression. A total of 370 individual mammals representing three genera and eight species of rodents were captured across 4800 trap nights. Desert pocket mouse (Chaetodipus penicillatus) was the most common species in both seasons and treatments. Whereas rodent community abundance, biomass, and richness were similar between seasons, community variables of AWS were greater than CS. Rodent diversity was similar between treatments. Desert pocket mouse abundance and biomass were twice as high at AWS when compared to controls. Biomass of white-throated woodrat (Neotoma albigula) was five times greater at AWS. Habitat characteristics were similar between treatments. Neither presence of water nor distance to water explained substantial habitat variation. Occurrence of rodent species was associated with habitat characteristics. Desert rodent communities are adapted for arid environments (i.e. Heteromyids) and are not dependent on "free water". Higher abundances of desert pocket mouse at AWS were most likely related to increased disturbance and debris and not the presence of water. The results of this study and previous studies suggest that more investigation is needed and that short term studies may not be able to detect interactions (if any) between AWS and desert small mammal communities.
ContributorsSwitalski, Aaron (Author) / Bateman, Heather L (Thesis advisor) / Miller, William (Committee member) / Alford, Eddie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The ability to design high performance buildings has acquired great importance in recent years due to numerous federal, societal and environmental initiatives. However, this endeavor is much more demanding in terms of designer expertise and time. It requires a whole new level of synergy between automated performance prediction with the human capabilities to perceive, evaluate and ultimately select a suitable solution. While performance prediction can be highly automated through the use of computers, performance evaluation cannot, unless it is with respect to a single criterion. The need to address multi-criteria requirements makes it more valuable for a designer to know the "latitude" or "degrees of freedom" he has in changing certain design variables while achieving preset criteria such as energy performance, life cycle cost, environmental impacts etc. This requirement can be met by a decision support framework based on near-optimal "satisficing" as opposed to purely optimal decision making techniques. Currently, such a comprehensive design framework is lacking, which is the basis for undertaking this research. The primary objective of this research is to facilitate a complementary relationship between designers and computers for Multi-Criterion Decision Making (MCDM) during high performance building design. It is based on the application of Monte Carlo approaches to create a database of solutions using deterministic whole building energy simulations, along with data mining methods to rank variable importance and reduce the multi-dimensionality of the problem. A novel interactive visualization approach is then proposed which uses regression based models to create dynamic interplays of how varying these important variables affect the multiple criteria, while providing a visual range or band of variation of the different design parameters. The MCDM process has been incorporated into an alternative methodology for high performance building design referred to as Visual Analytics based Decision Support Methodology [VADSM]. VADSM is envisioned to be most useful during the conceptual and early design performance modeling stages by providing a set of potential solutions that can be analyzed further for final design selection. The proposed methodology can be used for new building design synthesis as well as evaluation of retrofits and operational deficiencies in existing buildings.
ContributorsDutta, Ranojoy (Author) / Reddy, T Agami (Thesis advisor) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Addison, Marlin S. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, commercial buildings represent about 40% of the United State's energy consumption of which office buildings consume a major portion. Gauging the extent to which an individual building consumes energy in excess of its peers is the first step in initiating energy efficiency improvement. Energy Benchmarking offers initial building energy performance assessment without rigorous evaluation. Energy benchmarking tools based on the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) database are investigated in this thesis. This study proposes a new benchmarking methodology based on decision trees, where a relationship between the energy use intensities (EUI) and building parameters (continuous and categorical) is developed for different building types. This methodology was applied to medium office and school building types contained in the CBECS database. The Random Forest technique was used to find the most influential parameters that impact building energy use intensities. Subsequently, correlations which were significant were identified between EUIs and CBECS variables. Other than floor area, some of the important variables were number of workers, location, number of PCs and main cooling equipment. The coefficient of variation was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the new model. The customization technique proposed in this thesis was compared with another benchmarking model that is widely used by building owners and designers namely, the ENERGY STAR's Portfolio Manager. This tool relies on the standard Linear Regression methods which is only able to handle continuous variables. The model proposed uses data mining technique and was found to perform slightly better than the Portfolio Manager. The broader impacts of the new benchmarking methodology proposed is that it allows for identifying important categorical variables, and then incorporating them in a local, as against a global, model framework for EUI pertinent to the building type. The ability to identify and rank the important variables is of great importance in practical implementation of the benchmarking tools which rely on query-based building and HVAC variable filters specified by the user.
ContributorsKaskhedikar, Apoorva Prakash (Author) / Reddy, T. Agami (Thesis advisor) / Bryan, Harvey (Committee member) / Runger, George C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Natural resource depletion and environmental degradation are the stark realities of the times we live in. As awareness about these issues increases globally, industries and businesses are becoming interested in understanding and minimizing the ecological footprints of their activities. Evaluating the environmental impacts of products and processes has become a key issue, and the first step towards addressing and eventually curbing climate change. Additionally, companies are finding it beneficial and are interested in going beyond compliance using pollution prevention strategies and environmental management systems to improve their environmental performance. Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) is an evaluative method to assess the environmental impacts associated with a products' life-cycle from cradle-to-grave (i.e. from raw material extraction through to material processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and finally, disposal or recycling). This study focuses on evaluating building envelopes on the basis of their life-cycle analysis. In order to facilitate this analysis, a small-scale office building, the University Services Building (USB), with a built-up area of 148,101 ft2 situated on ASU campus in Tempe, Arizona was studied. The building's exterior envelope is the highlight of this study. The current exterior envelope is made of tilt-up concrete construction, a type of construction in which the concrete elements are constructed horizontally and tilted up, after they are cured, using cranes and are braced until other structural elements are secured. This building envelope is compared to five other building envelope systems (i.e. concrete block, insulated concrete form, cast-in-place concrete, steel studs and curtain wall constructions) evaluating them on the basis of least environmental impact. The research methodology involved developing energy models, simulating them and generating changes in energy consumption due to the above mentioned envelope types. Energy consumption data, along with various other details, such as building floor area, areas of walls, columns, beams etc. and their material types were imported into Life-Cycle Assessment software called ATHENA impact estimator for buildings. Using this four-stepped LCA methodology, the results showed that the Steel Stud envelope performed the best and less environmental impact compared to other envelope types. This research methodology can be applied to other building typologies.
ContributorsRamachandran, Sriranjani (Author) / Bryan, Harvey (Thesis advisor) / Reddy T, Agami (Committee member) / White, Philip (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
ABSTRACT 1. Aposematic signals advertise prey distastefulness or metabolic unprofitability to potential predators and have evolved independently in many prey groups over the course of evolutionary history as a means of protection from predation. Most aposematic signals investigated to date exhibit highly chromatic patterning; however, relatives in these toxic groups with patterns of very low chroma have been largely overlooked. 2. We propose that bright displays with low chroma arose in toxic prey species because they were more effective at deterring predation than were their chromatic counterparts, especially when viewed in relatively low light environments such as forest understories. 3. We analyzed the reflectance and radiance of color patches on the wings of 90 tropical butterfly species that belong to groups with documented toxicity that vary in their habitat preferences to test this prediction: Warning signal chroma and perceived chromaticity are expected to be higher and brightness lower in species that fly in open environments when compared to those that fly in forested environments. 4. Analyses of the reflectance and radiance of warning color patches and predator visual modeling support this prediction. Moreover, phylogenetic tests, which correct for statistical non-independence due to phylogenetic relatedness of test species, also support the hypothesis of an evolutionary correlation between perceived chromaticity of aposematic signals and the flight habits of the butterflies that exhibit these signals.
ContributorsDouglas, Jonathan Marion (Author) / Rutowski, Ronald L (Thesis advisor) / Gadau, Juergen (Committee member) / McGraw, Kevin J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Residential energy consumption accounts for 22% of the total energy use in the United States. The consumer's perception of energy usage and conservation are very inaccurate which is leading to growing number of individuals who try to seek out ways to use energy more wisely. Hence behavioral change in consumers with respect to energy use, by providing energy use feedback may be important in reducing home energy consumption. Real-time energy information feedback delivered via technology along with feedback interventions has been reported to produce up to 20 percent declines in residential energy consumption through past research and pilot studies. There are, however, large differences in the estimates of the effect of these different types of feedback on energy use. As part of the Energize Phoenix Program, (a U.S. Department of Energy funded program), a Dashboard Study was conducted by the Arizona State University to estimate the impact of real-time, home-energy displays in conjunction with other feedback interventions on the residential rate of energy consumption in Phoenix, while also creating awareness and encouragement to households to reduce energy consumption. The research evaluates the effectiveness of these feedback initiatives. In the following six months of field experiment, a selected number of low-income multi-family apartments in Phoenix, were divided in three groups of feedback interventions, where one group received residential energy use related education and information, the second group received the same education as well as was equipped with the in-home feedback device and the third was given the same education, the feedback device and added budgeting information. Results of the experiment at the end of the six months did not lend a consistent support to the results from literature and past pilot studies. The data revealed a statistically insignificant reduction in energy consumption for the experiment group overall and inconsistent results for individual households when compared to a randomly selected control sample. However, as per the participant survey results, the study proved effective to foster awareness among participating residents of their own patterns of residential electricity consumption and understanding of residential energy use related savings.
ContributorsRungta, Shaily (Author) / Bryan, Harvey (Thesis advisor) / Reddy, Agami (Committee member) / Webster, Aleksasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Random peptide microarrays are a powerful tool for both the treatment and diagnostics of infectious diseases. On the treatment side, selected random peptides on the microarray have either binding or lytic potency against certain pathogens cells, thus they can be synthesized into new antimicrobial agents, denoted as synbodies (synthetic antibodies). On the diagnostic side, serum containing specific infection-related antibodies create unique and distinct "pathogen-immunosignatures" on the random peptide microarray distinct from the healthy control serum, and this different mode of binding can be used as a more precise measurement than traditional ELISA tests. My thesis project is separated into these two parts: the first part falls into the treatment side and the second one focuses on the diagnostic side. My first chapter shows that a substitution amino acid peptide library helps to improve the activity of a recently reported synthetic antimicrobial peptide selected by the random peptide microarray. By substituting one or two amino acids of the original lead peptide, the new substitutes show changed hemolytic effects against mouse red blood cells and changed potency against two pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Two new substitutes are then combined together to form the synbody, which shows a significantly antimicrobial potency against Staphylococcus aureus (<0.5uM). In the second chapter, I explore the possibility of using the 10K Ver.2 random peptide microarray to monitor the humoral immune response of dengue. Over 2.5 billion people (40% of the world's population) live in dengue transmitting areas. However, currently there is no efficient dengue treatment or vaccine. Here, with limited dengue patient serum samples, we show that the immunosignature has the potential to not only distinguish the dengue infection from non-infected people, but also the primary dengue infection from the secondary dengue infections, dengue infection from West Nile Virus (WNV) infection, and even between different dengue serotypes. By further bioinformatic analysis, we demonstrate that the significant peptides selected to distinguish dengue infected and normal samples may indicate the epitopes responsible for the immune response.
ContributorsWang, Xiao (Author) / Johnston, Stephen Albert (Thesis advisor) / Blattman, Joseph (Committee member) / Arntzen, Charles (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Biological diversity is threatened by increasing anthropogenic modification of natural environments and increasing demands on natural resources. Sonoran desert tortoises (Gopherus morafkai) currently have Candidate status under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) based on health and habitat threats. To ensure this animal persists in the midst of multiple threats requires an understanding of the life history and ecology of each population. I looked at one physiological and one behavioral aspect of a population of tortoises at the Sugarloaf Mountain (SL) study site in central Arizona, USA. I used 21 years of capture-recapture records to estimate growth parameters of the entire population. I investigated habitat selection of juvenile tortoises by selecting 117 locations of 11 tortoises that had been tracked by radio-telemetry one to three times weekly for two years, selecting locations from both summer active season and during winter hibernation. I compared 22 microhabitat variables of tortoise locations to random SL locations to determine habitat use and availability. Male tortoises at SL reach a greater asymptotic length than females, and males and females appear to grow at the same rate. Juvenile tortoises at the SL site use steep rocky hillsides with high proportions of sand and annual vegetation, few succulents, and enclosed shelters in summer. They use enclosed shelters on steep slopes for winter hibernation. An understanding of these features can allow managers to quantify Sonoran desert tortoise habitat needs and life history characteristics and to understand the impact of land use policies.
ContributorsBridges, Andrew (Author) / Bateman, Heather L (Thesis advisor) / Miller, William (Committee member) / Ulrich, Jon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012