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ABSTRACT
Academic literature and industry benchmarking reports were reviewed to determine the way facilities benchmarking reports were perceived in the healthcare industry. Interviews were conducted through a Delphi panel of industry professionals who met experience and other credential requirements. Two separate rounds of interviewing were conducted where each candidate was asked the same questions to determine the current views of benchmarking reports and associated data in the healthcare industry. The questions asked in the second round were developed from the answers to the first-round questions. The research showed the panel preferred changes in the data collection methods as well as changes in the way the data is presented. The need for these changes was unanimous among the members of the panel. The main recommendations among the group were:
1. An interactive method such as a member portal with the ability to customize, run scenarios, and save data is the preferred method.
2. Facilities Management (FM) teams are often not included in the data collection of the benchmark reports. Including FM groups would allow more accuracy and more detailed data resulting in more accurate and in-depth reports.
3. More consistency and “apples to apples” comparisons need to be provided in the reports. More categories and variables need to be added to the reports to offer more in depth comparisons and assessments between buildings. Identifiers to help the users compare the physical condition of their facility to others needs to be included. Suggestions are as follows:
a. Facility Condition Index (FCI)- easily available to all participants and allows an idea of the comparison of upkeep and maintenance of their facility to that of others.
b. An indicator on whether the comparison buildings are Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) accredited.
4. Gross Square Footage (GSF) is not an accurate assessment on its own. Too many variables are left unidentified to offer an accurate assessment with this method alone.
Academic literature and industry benchmarking reports were reviewed to determine the way facilities benchmarking reports were perceived in the healthcare industry. Interviews were conducted through a Delphi panel of industry professionals who met experience and other credential requirements. Two separate rounds of interviewing were conducted where each candidate was asked the same questions to determine the current views of benchmarking reports and associated data in the healthcare industry. The questions asked in the second round were developed from the answers to the first-round questions. The research showed the panel preferred changes in the data collection methods as well as changes in the way the data is presented. The need for these changes was unanimous among the members of the panel. The main recommendations among the group were:
1. An interactive method such as a member portal with the ability to customize, run scenarios, and save data is the preferred method.
2. Facilities Management (FM) teams are often not included in the data collection of the benchmark reports. Including FM groups would allow more accuracy and more detailed data resulting in more accurate and in-depth reports.
3. More consistency and “apples to apples” comparisons need to be provided in the reports. More categories and variables need to be added to the reports to offer more in depth comparisons and assessments between buildings. Identifiers to help the users compare the physical condition of their facility to others needs to be included. Suggestions are as follows:
a. Facility Condition Index (FCI)- easily available to all participants and allows an idea of the comparison of upkeep and maintenance of their facility to that of others.
b. An indicator on whether the comparison buildings are Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) accredited.
4. Gross Square Footage (GSF) is not an accurate assessment on its own. Too many variables are left unidentified to offer an accurate assessment with this method alone.
ContributorsChalmers, Jeffrey (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Smithwick, Jake (Committee member) / Hurtado, Kristen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
In the current photovoltaic (PV) industry, the O&M (operations and maintenance) personnel in the field primarily utilize three approaches to identify the underperforming or defective modules in a string: i) EL (electroluminescence) imaging of all the modules in the string; ii) IR (infrared) thermal imaging of all the modules in the string; and, iii) current-voltage (I-V) curve tracing of all the modules in the string. In the first and second approaches, the EL images are used to detect the modules with broken cells, and the IR images are used to detect the modules with hotspot cells, respectively. These two methods may identify the modules with defective cells only semi-qualitatively, but not accurately and quantitatively. The third method, I-V curve tracing, is a quantitative method to identify the underperforming modules in a string, but it is an extremely time consuming, labor-intensive, and highly ambient conditions dependent method. Since the I-V curves of individual modules in a string are obtained by disconnecting them individually at different irradiance levels, module operating temperatures, angle of incidences (AOI) and air-masses/spectra, all these measured curves are required to be translated to a single reporting condition (SRC) of a single irradiance, single temperature, single AOI and single spectrum. These translations are not only time consuming but are also prone to inaccuracy due to inherent issues in the translation models. Therefore, the current challenges in using the traditional I-V tracers are related to: i) obtaining I-V curves simultaneously of all the modules and substrings in a string at a single irradiance, operating temperature, irradiance spectrum and angle of incidence due to changing weather parameters and sun positions during the measurements, ii) safety of field personnel when disconnecting and reconnecting of cables in high voltage systems (especially field aged connectors), and iii) enormous time and hardship for the test personnel in harsh outdoor climatic conditions. In this thesis work, a non-contact I-V (NCIV) curve tracing tool has been integrated and implemented to address the above mentioned three challenges of the traditional I-V tracers.
This work compares I-V curves obtained using a traditional I-V curve tracer with the I-V curves obtained using a NCIV curve tracer for the string, substring and individual modules of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) technologies. The NCIV curve tracer equipment used in this study was integrated using three commercially available components: non-contact voltmeters (NCV) with voltage probes to measure the voltages of substrings/modules in a string, a hall sensor to measure the string current and a DAS (data acquisition system) for simultaneous collection of the voltage data obtained from the NCVs and the current data obtained from the hall sensor. This study demonstrates the concept and accuracy of the NCIV curve tracer by comparing the I-V curves obtained using a traditional capacitor-based tracer and the NCIV curve tracer in a three-module string of c-Si modules and of CdTe modules under natural sunlight with uniform light conditions on all the modules in the string and with partially shading one or more of the modules in the string to simulate and quantitatively detect the underperforming module(s) in a string.
This work compares I-V curves obtained using a traditional I-V curve tracer with the I-V curves obtained using a NCIV curve tracer for the string, substring and individual modules of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) technologies. The NCIV curve tracer equipment used in this study was integrated using three commercially available components: non-contact voltmeters (NCV) with voltage probes to measure the voltages of substrings/modules in a string, a hall sensor to measure the string current and a DAS (data acquisition system) for simultaneous collection of the voltage data obtained from the NCVs and the current data obtained from the hall sensor. This study demonstrates the concept and accuracy of the NCIV curve tracer by comparing the I-V curves obtained using a traditional capacitor-based tracer and the NCIV curve tracer in a three-module string of c-Si modules and of CdTe modules under natural sunlight with uniform light conditions on all the modules in the string and with partially shading one or more of the modules in the string to simulate and quantitatively detect the underperforming module(s) in a string.
ContributorsMurali, Sanjay (Author) / Tamizhmani, Govindasamy (Thesis advisor) / Srinivasan, Devarajan (Committee member) / Rogers, Bradley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This dissertation focuses on the structural and optical properties of III-V semiconductor materials. Transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy are used to study at the nanometer scale, the structural properties of defects, interfaces, and surfaces. A correlation with optical properties has been performed using cathodoluminescence.
The dissertation consists of four parts. The first part focuses on InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a GaInP matrix for applications into intermediate band solar cells. The CuPt ordering of the group-III elements in Ga0.5In0.5P has been found to vary during growth of InAs QDs capped with GaAs. The degree of ordering depends on the deposition time of the QDs and on the thickness of the capping layer. The results indicate that disordered GaInP occurs in the presence of excess indium at the growth front.
The second part focuses on the effects of low-angle off-axis GaN substrate orientation and growth rates on the surface morphology of Mg-doped GaN epilayers. Mg doping produces periodic steps and a tendency to cover pinholes associated with threading dislocations. With increasing miscut angle, the steps are observed to increase in height from single to double basal planes, with the coexistence of surfaces with different inclinations. The structural properties are correlated with the electronic properties of GaN epilayers, indicating step bunching reduces the p-type doping efficiency. It is also found that the slower growth rates can enhance step-flow growth and suppress step bunching.
The third part focuses on the effects of inductively-coupled plasma etching on GaN epilayers. The results show that ion energy rather than ion density plays the key role in the etching process, in terms of structural and optical properties of the GaN films. Cathodoluminescence depth-profiling indicates that the band-edge emission of etched GaN is significantly quenched.
The fourth part focuses on growth of Mg-doped GaN on trench patterns. Anisotropic growth and nonuniform acceptor incorporation in p-GaN films have been observed. The results indicate that growth along the sidewall has a faster growth rate and therefore a lower acceptor incorporation efficiency, compared to the region grown on the basal plane.
The dissertation consists of four parts. The first part focuses on InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a GaInP matrix for applications into intermediate band solar cells. The CuPt ordering of the group-III elements in Ga0.5In0.5P has been found to vary during growth of InAs QDs capped with GaAs. The degree of ordering depends on the deposition time of the QDs and on the thickness of the capping layer. The results indicate that disordered GaInP occurs in the presence of excess indium at the growth front.
The second part focuses on the effects of low-angle off-axis GaN substrate orientation and growth rates on the surface morphology of Mg-doped GaN epilayers. Mg doping produces periodic steps and a tendency to cover pinholes associated with threading dislocations. With increasing miscut angle, the steps are observed to increase in height from single to double basal planes, with the coexistence of surfaces with different inclinations. The structural properties are correlated with the electronic properties of GaN epilayers, indicating step bunching reduces the p-type doping efficiency. It is also found that the slower growth rates can enhance step-flow growth and suppress step bunching.
The third part focuses on the effects of inductively-coupled plasma etching on GaN epilayers. The results show that ion energy rather than ion density plays the key role in the etching process, in terms of structural and optical properties of the GaN films. Cathodoluminescence depth-profiling indicates that the band-edge emission of etched GaN is significantly quenched.
The fourth part focuses on growth of Mg-doped GaN on trench patterns. Anisotropic growth and nonuniform acceptor incorporation in p-GaN films have been observed. The results indicate that growth along the sidewall has a faster growth rate and therefore a lower acceptor incorporation efficiency, compared to the region grown on the basal plane.
ContributorsSU, PO-YI (Author) / Ponce, Fernando A. (Thesis advisor) / Smith, David J. (Committee member) / Crozier, Peter A. (Committee member) / Zhao, Yuji (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
A framework to obtain the failure surface of a unidirectional composite which can be used as an input for Generalized Tabulated Failure Criterion in MAT_213 – an orthotropic elasto-plastic material model implemented in LS-DYNA, a commercial finite element program, is discussed in this research. A finite element model consisting of the fiber and the matrix is generated using the Virtual Testing Software System (VTSS) developed at Arizona State University (ASU). The framework is illustrated using the T800-F3900 unidirectional composite material manufactured by Toray Composites. The T800S fiber is modeled using MAT_213. The F3900 matrix phase is modeled using MAT_187-SAMP1. The response of the virtual tests in 1-direction tension, 1-direction compression, 2-direction tension, 2-direction compression and 2-1 plane shear are verified against the results obtained from experiments performed under quasi-static and room temperature conditions (QS-RT). Finally, a roadmap to generate the failure surface using virtual test is proposed.
ContributorsParakhiya, Yatin (Author) / Rajan, Subramaniam D. (Thesis advisor) / Mobahser, Barzin (Committee member) / Hoover, Christian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The manufacturing process for electronic systems involves many players, from chip/board design and fabrication to firmware design and installation.
In today's global supply chain, any of these steps are prone to interference from rogue players, creating a security risk.
Manufactured devices need to be verified to perform only their intended operations since it is not economically feasible to control the supply chain and use only trusted facilities.
It is becoming increasingly necessary to trust but verify the received devices both at production and in the field.
Unauthorized hardware or firmware modifications, known as Trojans,
can steal information, drain the battery, or damage battery-driven embedded systems and lightweight Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Since Trojans may be triggered in the field at an unknown instance,
it is essential to detect their presence at run-time.
However, it isn't easy to run sophisticated detection algorithms on these devices
due to limited computational power and energy, and in some cases, lack of accessibility.
Since finding a trusted sample is infeasible in general, the proposed technique is based on self-referencing to remove any effect of environmental or device-to-device variations in the frequency domain.
In particular, the self-referencing is achieved by exploiting the band-limited nature of Trojan activity using signal detection theory.
When the device enters the test mode, a predefined test application is run on the device
repetitively for a known period. The periodicity ensures that the spectral electromagnetic power of the test application concentrates at known frequencies, leaving the remaining frequencies within the operating bandwidth at the noise level. Any deviations from the noise level for these unoccupied frequency locations indicate the presence of unknown (unauthorized) activity. Hence, the malicious activity can differentiate without using a golden reference or any knowledge of the Trojan activity attributes.
The proposed technique's effectiveness is demonstrated through experiments with collecting and processing side-channel signals, such as involuntarily electromagnetic emissions and power consumption, of a wearable electronics prototype and commercial system-on-chip under a variety of practical scenarios.
In today's global supply chain, any of these steps are prone to interference from rogue players, creating a security risk.
Manufactured devices need to be verified to perform only their intended operations since it is not economically feasible to control the supply chain and use only trusted facilities.
It is becoming increasingly necessary to trust but verify the received devices both at production and in the field.
Unauthorized hardware or firmware modifications, known as Trojans,
can steal information, drain the battery, or damage battery-driven embedded systems and lightweight Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Since Trojans may be triggered in the field at an unknown instance,
it is essential to detect their presence at run-time.
However, it isn't easy to run sophisticated detection algorithms on these devices
due to limited computational power and energy, and in some cases, lack of accessibility.
Since finding a trusted sample is infeasible in general, the proposed technique is based on self-referencing to remove any effect of environmental or device-to-device variations in the frequency domain.
In particular, the self-referencing is achieved by exploiting the band-limited nature of Trojan activity using signal detection theory.
When the device enters the test mode, a predefined test application is run on the device
repetitively for a known period. The periodicity ensures that the spectral electromagnetic power of the test application concentrates at known frequencies, leaving the remaining frequencies within the operating bandwidth at the noise level. Any deviations from the noise level for these unoccupied frequency locations indicate the presence of unknown (unauthorized) activity. Hence, the malicious activity can differentiate without using a golden reference or any knowledge of the Trojan activity attributes.
The proposed technique's effectiveness is demonstrated through experiments with collecting and processing side-channel signals, such as involuntarily electromagnetic emissions and power consumption, of a wearable electronics prototype and commercial system-on-chip under a variety of practical scenarios.
ContributorsKarabacak, Fatih (Author) / Ozev, Sule (Thesis advisor) / Ogras, Umit Y. (Thesis advisor) / Christen, Jennifer Blain (Committee member) / Kitchen, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This graduate thesis explains and discusses the background, methods, limitations, and future work of developing a low-budget, variable-length, Arduino-based robotics professional development program (PDP) for middle school or high school classrooms. This graduate thesis builds on prior undergraduate thesis work and conclusions. The main conclusions from the undergraduate thesis work focused on reaching a larger teacher population along with providing a more robust robot design and construction. The end goal of this graduate thesis is to develop a PDP that reaches multiple teachers, involves a more robust robot design, and lasts beyond this developmental year. There have been many similar research studies and PDPs that have been tested and analyzed but do not fit the requirements of this graduate thesis. These programs provide some guidance in the creation of a new PDP. The overall method of the graduate thesis comes in four main phases: 1) setup, 2) pre-PDP phase, 3) PDP phase, and 4) post PDP phase. The setup focused primarily on funding, IRB approval, research, timeline development, and research question creation. The pre-PDP phase focused primarily on the development of new tailored-to-teacher content, a more robust robot design, and recruitment of participants. The PDP phase primarily focused on how the teachers perform and participate in the PDP. Lastly, the post PDP phase involved data analysis along with a resource development plan. The last post-PDP step is to consolidate all of the findings in a clear, concise, and coherent format for future work.
Contributorslerner, jonah (Author) / Carberry, Adam (Thesis advisor) / Walters, Molina (Committee member) / Jordan, Shawn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The presence of huge amounts of waste heat and the constant demand for electric energy makes this an appreciable research topic, yet at present there is no commercially viable technology to harness the inherent energy resource provided by the temperature differential between the inside and outside of buildings. In a newly developed technology, electricity is generated from the temperature gradient between building walls through a Seebeck effect. A 3D-printed triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structure is sandwiched in copper electrodes with copper (I) sulphate (Cu2SO4) electrolyte to mimic a thermogalvanic cell. Previous studies mainly concentrated on mechanical properties and the electric power generation ability of these structures; however, the goal of this study is to estimate the thermal resistance of the 3D-printed TPMS experimentally. This investigation elucidates their thermal resistances which in turn helps to appreciate the power output associated in the thermogalvanic structure. Schwarz P, Gyroid, IWP, and Split P geometries were considered for the experiment with electrolyte in the thermogalvanic brick. Among these TPMS structures, Split P was found more thermally resistive than the others with a thermal resistance of 0.012 m2 K W-1. The thermal resistances of Schwarz D and Gyroid structures were also assessed experimentally without electrolyte and the results are compared to numerical predictions in a previous Mater's thesis.
ContributorsDasinor, Emmanuel (Author) / Phelan, Patrick (Thesis advisor) / Milcarek, Ryan (Committee member) / Bhate, Dhruv (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The problem of modeling and controlling the distribution of a multi-agent system has recently evolved into an interdisciplinary effort. When the agent population is very large, i.e., at least on the order of hundreds of agents, it is important that techniques for analyzing and controlling the system scale well with the number of agents. One scalable approach to characterizing the behavior of a multi-agent system is possible when the agents' states evolve over time according to a Markov process. In this case, the density of agents over space and time is governed by a set of difference or differential equations known as a {\it mean-field model}, whose parameters determine the stochastic control policies of the individual agents. These models often have the advantage of being easier to analyze than the individual agent dynamics. Mean-field models have been used to describe the behavior of chemical reaction networks, biological collectives such as social insect colonies, and more recently, swarms of robots that, like natural swarms, consist of hundreds or thousands of agents that are individually limited in capability but can coordinate to achieve a particular collective goal.
This dissertation presents a control-theoretic analysis of mean-field models for which the agent dynamics are governed by either a continuous-time Markov chain on an arbitrary state space, or a discrete-time Markov chain on a continuous state space. Three main problems are investigated. First, the problem of stabilization is addressed, that is, the design of transition probabilities/rates of the Markov process (the agent control parameters) that make a target distribution, satisfying certain conditions, invariant. Such a control approach could be used to achieve desired multi-agent distributions for spatial coverage and task allocation. However, the convergence of the multi-agent distribution to the designed equilibrium does not imply the convergence of the individual agents to fixed states. To prevent the agents from continuing to transition between states once the target distribution is reached, and thus potentially waste energy, the second problem addressed within this dissertation is the construction of feedback control laws that prevent agents from transitioning once the equilibrium distribution is reached. The third problem addressed is the computation of optimized transition probabilities/rates that maximize the speed at which the system converges to the target distribution.
This dissertation presents a control-theoretic analysis of mean-field models for which the agent dynamics are governed by either a continuous-time Markov chain on an arbitrary state space, or a discrete-time Markov chain on a continuous state space. Three main problems are investigated. First, the problem of stabilization is addressed, that is, the design of transition probabilities/rates of the Markov process (the agent control parameters) that make a target distribution, satisfying certain conditions, invariant. Such a control approach could be used to achieve desired multi-agent distributions for spatial coverage and task allocation. However, the convergence of the multi-agent distribution to the designed equilibrium does not imply the convergence of the individual agents to fixed states. To prevent the agents from continuing to transition between states once the target distribution is reached, and thus potentially waste energy, the second problem addressed within this dissertation is the construction of feedback control laws that prevent agents from transitioning once the equilibrium distribution is reached. The third problem addressed is the computation of optimized transition probabilities/rates that maximize the speed at which the system converges to the target distribution.
ContributorsBiswal, Shiba (Author) / Berman, Spring (Thesis advisor) / Fainekos, Georgios (Committee member) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Committee member) / Mignolet, Marc (Committee member) / Peet, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Energy is one of the wheels on which the modern world runs. Therefore, standards and limits have been devised to maintain the stability and reliability of the power grid. This research shows a simple methodology for increasing the amount of Inverter-based Renewable Generation (IRG), which is also known as Inverter-based Resources (IBR), for that considers the voltage and frequency limits specified by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) Transmission Planning (TPL) criteria, and the tie line power flow limits between the area-under-study and its neighbors under contingency conditions. A WECC power flow and dynamic file is analyzed and modified in this research to demonstrate the performance of the methodology. GE's Positive Sequence Load Flow (PSLF) software is used to conduct this research and Python was used to analyze the output data.
The thesis explains in detail how the system with 11% of IRG operated before conducting any adjustments (addition of IRG) and what procedures were modified to make the system run correctly. The adjustments made to the dynamic models are also explained in depth to give a clearer picture of how each adjustment affects the system performance. A list of proposed IRG units along with their locations were provided by SRP, a power utility in Arizona, which were to be integrated into the power flow and dynamic files. In the process of finding the maximum IRG penetration threshold, three sensitivities were also considered, namely, momentary cessation due to low voltages, transmission vs. distribution connected solar generation, and stalling of induction motors. Finally, the thesis discusses how the system reacts to the aforementioned modifications, and how IRG penetration threshold gets adjusted with regards to the different sensitivities applied to the system.
The thesis explains in detail how the system with 11% of IRG operated before conducting any adjustments (addition of IRG) and what procedures were modified to make the system run correctly. The adjustments made to the dynamic models are also explained in depth to give a clearer picture of how each adjustment affects the system performance. A list of proposed IRG units along with their locations were provided by SRP, a power utility in Arizona, which were to be integrated into the power flow and dynamic files. In the process of finding the maximum IRG penetration threshold, three sensitivities were also considered, namely, momentary cessation due to low voltages, transmission vs. distribution connected solar generation, and stalling of induction motors. Finally, the thesis discusses how the system reacts to the aforementioned modifications, and how IRG penetration threshold gets adjusted with regards to the different sensitivities applied to the system.
ContributorsAlbhrani, Hashem A M H S (Author) / Pal, Anamitra (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Photocatalytic activity of titanium dioxide (titania or TiO2) offers enormous potential in solving energy and environmental problems. Immobilization of titania nanoparticles on inert substrates is an effective way of utilizing its photocatalytic activity since nanoparticles enable high mass-transport, and immobilization avoids post-treatment separation. For competitive photocatalytic performance, the morphology of the substrate can be engineered to enhance mass-transport and light accessibility. In this work, two types of fiber architectures (i.e., dispersed polymer/titania phase or D-phase, and multi-phase polymer-core/composite-shell fibers or M-phase) were explored as effective substrate solutions for anchoring titania. These fibers were fabricated using a low-cost and scalable fiber spinning technique. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) was selected as the substrate material due to its ultraviolet (UV) transparency and stability against oxidative radicals. The work systematically investigates the influence of the fiber porosity on mass-transport and UV light scattering. The properties of the fabricated fiber systems were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), UV-vis spectrophotometry (UV-vis), and mechanical analysis. The photocatalytic performance was characterized by monitoring the decomposition of methylene blue (MB) under UV (i.e., 365 nm) light. Fabrication of photocatalytic support structures was observed to be an optimization problem where porosity improved mass transport but reduced UV accessibility. The D-phase fibers demonstrated the highest MB degradation rate (i.e., 0.116 min-1) due to high porosity (i.e., 33.2 m2/g). The M-phase fibers reported a better degradation rate compared to a D-phase fibers due to higher UV accessibility efficiency.
ContributorsKanth, Namrata (Author) / Song, Kenan (Thesis advisor) / Tongay, Sefaattin (Thesis advisor) / Kannan, Arunachala Mada (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020