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Five immunocompetent C57BL/6-cBrd/cBrd/Cr (albino C57BL/6) mice were injected with GL261-luc2 cells, a cell line sharing characteristics of human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The mice were imaged using magnetic resonance (MR) at five separate time points to characterize growth and development of the tumor. After 25 days, the final tumor volumes of the mice varied from 12 mm3 to 62 mm3, even though mice were inoculated from the same tumor cell line under carefully controlled conditions. We generated hypotheses to explore large variances in final tumor size and tested them with our simple reaction-diffusion model in both a 3-dimensional (3D) finite difference method and a 2-dimensional (2D) level set method. The parameters obtained from a best-fit procedure, designed to yield simulated tumors as close as possible to the observed ones, vary by an order of magnitude between the three mice analyzed in detail. These differences may reflect morphological and biological variability in tumor growth, as well as errors in the mathematical model, perhaps from an oversimplification of the tumor dynamics or nonidentifiability of parameters. Our results generate parameters that match other experimental in vitro and in vivo measurements. Additionally, we calculate wave speed, which matches with other rat and human measurements.
ContributorsRutter, Erica (Author) / Stepien, Tracy (Author) / Anderies, Barrett (Author) / Plasencia, Jonathan (Author) / Woolf, Eric C. (Author) / Scheck, Adrienne C. (Author) / Turner, Gregory H. (Author) / Liu, Qingwei (Author) / Frakes, David (Author) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Author) / Kuang, Yang (Author) / Preul, Mark C. (Author) / Kostelich, Eric (Author) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2017-05-31
Description
This thesis examines Care Not Cash, a welfare reform measure that replaced traditional cash General Assistance program payments for homeless persons in San Francisco with in-kind social services. Unlike most welfare reform measures, proponents framed Care Not Cash as a progressive policy, aimed at expanding social services and government care for this vulnerable population. Drawing on primary and secondary documents, as well as interviews with homelessness policy experts, this thesis examines the historical and political success of Care Not Cash, and explores the potential need for implementation of a similar program in Phoenix, Arizona.
ContributorsMcCutcheon, Zachary Ryan (Author) / Lucio, Joanna (Thesis director) / Williams, David (Committee member) / Bretts-Jamison, Jake (Committee member) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Productivity in the construction industry is an essential measure of production efficiency and economic progress, quantified by craft laborers' time spent directly adding value to a project. In order to better understand craft labor productivity as an aspect of lean construction, an activity analysis was conducted at the Arizona State University Palo Verde Main engineering dormitory construction site in December of 2016. The objective of this analysis on craft labor productivity in construction projects was to gather data regarding the efficiency of craft labor workers, make conclusions about the effects of time of day and other site-specific factors on labor productivity, as well as suggest improvements to implement in the construction process. Analysis suggests that supporting tasks, such as traveling or materials handling, constitute the majority of craft labors' efforts on the job site with the highest percentages occurring at the beginning and end of the work day. Direct work and delays were approximately equal at about 20% each hour with the highest peak occurring at lunchtime between 10:00 am and 11:00 am. The top suggestion to improve construction productivity would be to perform an extensive site utilization analysis due to the confined nature of this job site. Despite the limitations of an activity analysis to provide a complete prospective of all the factors that can affect craft labor productivity as well as the small number of days of data acquisition, this analysis provides a basic overview of the productivity at the Palo Verde Main construction site. Through this research, construction managers can more effectively generate site plans and schedules to increase labor productivity.
ContributorsFord, Emily Lucile (Author) / Grau, David (Thesis director) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The overall energy consumption around the United States has not been reduced even with the advancement of technology over the past decades. Deficiencies exist between design and actual energy performances. Energy Infrastructure Systems (EIS) are impacted when the amount of energy production cannot be accurately and efficiently forecasted. Inaccurate engineering assumptions can result when there is a lack of understanding on how energy systems can operate in real-world applications. Energy systems are complex, which results in unknown system behaviors, due to an unknown structural system model. Currently, there exists a lack of data mining techniques in reverse engineering, which are needed to develop efficient structural system models. In this project, a new type of reverse engineering algorithm has been applied to a year's worth of energy data collected from an ASU research building called MacroTechnology Works, to identify the structural system model. Developing and understanding structural system models is the first step in creating accurate predictive analytics for energy production. The associative network of the building's data will be highlighted to accurately depict the structural model. This structural model will enhance energy infrastructure systems' energy efficiency, reduce energy waste, and narrow the gaps between energy infrastructure design, planning, operation and management (DPOM).
ContributorsCamarena, Raquel Jimenez (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Ye, Nong (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Building construction, design and maintenance is a sector of engineering where improved efficiency will have immense impacts on resource consumption and environmental health. This research closely examines the Leadership in Environment and Energy Design (LEED) rating system and the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). The IgCC is a model code, written with the same structure as many building codes. It is a standard that can be enforced if a city's government decides to adopt it. When IgCC is enforced, the buildings either meet all of the requirements set forth in the document or it fails to meet the code standards. The LEED Rating System, on the other hand, is not a building code. LEED certified buildings are built according to the standards of their local jurisdiction and in addition to that, building owners can chose to pursue a LEED certification. This is a rating system that awards points based on the sustainable measures achieved by a building. A comparison of these green building systems highlights their accomplishments in terms of reduced electricity usage, usage of low-impact materials, indoor environmental quality and other innovative features. It was determined that in general IgCC is more holistic, stringent approach to green building. At the same time the LEED rating system a wider variety of green building options. In addition, building data from LEED certified buildings was complied and analyzed to understand important trends. Both of these methods are progressing towards low-impact, efficient infrastructure and a side-by-side comparison, as done in this research, shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of each method, allowing for future improvements.
ContributorsCampbell, Kaleigh Ruth (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Parrish, Kristen (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This paper describes the research done to quantify the relationship between external air temperature and energy consumption and internal air temperature and energy consumption. The study was conducted on a LEED Gold certified building, College Avenue Commons, located on Arizona State University's Tempe campus. It includes information on the background of previous studies in the area, some that agree with the research hypotheses and some that take a different path. Real-time data was collected hourly for energy consumption and external air temperature. Intermittent internal air temperature was collected by undergraduate researcher, Charles Banke. Regression analysis was used to prove two research hypotheses. The authors found no correlation between external air temperature and energy consumption, nor did they find a relationship between internal air temperature and energy consumption. This paper also includes recommendations for future work to improve the study.
ContributorsBanke, Charles Michael (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Parrish, Kristen (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Chinese Construction Industry has grown to be one of the largest construction markets in the world within the last 10 years. The size of the Chinese Construction Industry is on par with many developed nations, despite it being a developing country. Despite its rapid growth, the productivity and profitability of the Chinese Construction Industry is low compared to similar sized construction industries (United States, United Kingdom, etc.). In addition to the low efficiency of the Chinese Construction Industry, there is minimal documentation available showing the performance of the Chinese Construction Industry (projects completed on time, on budget, and customer satisfaction ratings).
The purpose of this research is to investigate potential solutions that could address the poor efficiency and performance of the Chinese Construction Industry. This research is divided into three phases; first, a literature review to identify countries that have similar construction industries to the Chinese Construction Industry. The second phase is to compare the risks and identify solutions that are proposed to increase the performance of similar construction industries and the Chinese Construction Industry. The third phase is to create a survey from the literature-based information to validate the concepts with the Chinese Construction Industry professionals and stakeholders.
The purpose of this research is to investigate potential solutions that could address the poor efficiency and performance of the Chinese Construction Industry. This research is divided into three phases; first, a literature review to identify countries that have similar construction industries to the Chinese Construction Industry. The second phase is to compare the risks and identify solutions that are proposed to increase the performance of similar construction industries and the Chinese Construction Industry. The third phase is to create a survey from the literature-based information to validate the concepts with the Chinese Construction Industry professionals and stakeholders.
ContributorsChen, Yutian (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis advisor) / Kashiwagi, Dean T. (Committee member) / Badger, Willliam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Although Saudi Arabia is moving towards a sustainable future, Existing residential buildings in the country are extremely unsustainable. Therefore, there is a necessity for greening the existing residential building. Mostadam green rating systems was developed by the Saudi ministry of housing in 2019 to address the long-term sustainability vision in residential buildings in the country. By setting Mostadam requirements as an objective of the retrofit process, it will ensure that the building achieve sustainability. However, Mostadam is new and there is a lack of knowledge of implementing its requirements on existing buildings. The aim of this research is to develop a framework to green existing residential buildings in Saudi Arabia to achieve Mostadam energy and water minimum requirements. The framework was developed based on an extensive keyword-based search and an analysis of 92 relevant research. The process starts with assessing the building against the minimum requirements of energy and water of Mostadam. After that, optimization phase is conducted. Building information modelling is used in the optimization phase. Energy and water efficiency optimization measures are identified from the analysed literature. Revit is used in the base model authoring and Green building studio cloud is used to simulate the energy and water efficiency measures. Then, payback period is calculated for all the efficiency measured to assess the decision making. A case study of a villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is provided. result shows that the implemented efficiency measures led to an increment of 37.5% in annual energy savings and 26.1% in the annual water savings. Results shows that the application of the proposed framework supports evaluating energy and water efficiency measures to implement it on the buildings to achieve Mostadam minimum energy and water requirements. Recommendations were made for future work to bridge the knowledge gap.
ContributorsMohamed, Sara Murad (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Hurtado, Kristen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
As the construction industry in Saudi Arabia was on its way to thriving again. Their growth was due to the unprecedented volume of planned projects such as large-scale and unique projects. Suddenly, the world was faced with one of the most disrupting events in the last century which had a devastating impact on the construction industry specifically. This paper explores mainly the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on construction projects in Saudi Arabia. Particularly, this paper explores how the pandemic and its related events contributed to the projects' schedule disturbances. This is because most of the projects rely on manpower and supply chains which were heavily disrupted due to the protective measures. For that, a study was conducted to evaluate the impact on the construction projects in Saudi Arabia, to what extent the schedule projects were affected, and what were the main reasons for the schedule delays. The research relied on a field survey and schedule analysis for 12 projects which resulted in identifying several causes of delays and the delayed durations that the projects in Saudi Arabia were facing. This research allows those in construction fields to identify the main causes of delays in order to avoid or minimize the impact of these issues on future projects.
ContributorsObeid, Muhammad Hasan Hani (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Committee member) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Transorbital surgery has gained recent notoriety due to its incorporation into endoscopic skull base surgery. The body of published literature on the field is cadaveric and observation. The pre-clinical studies are focused on the use of the endoscope only. Furthermore the methodology utilised in the published literature is inconsistent and does not embody the optimal principles of scientific experimentation. This body of work evaluates a minimally invasive novel surgical corridor - the transorbital approach - its validity in neurosurgical practice, as well as both qualitatively and quantitatively assessing available technological advances in a robust experimental fashion. While the endoscope is an established means of visualisation used in clinical transorbital surgery, the microscope has never been assessed with respect to the transorbital approach. This question is investigated here and the anatomical and surgical benefits and limitations of microscopic visualisation demonstrated. The comparative studies provide increased knowledge on specifics pertinent to neurosurgeons and other skull base specialists when planning pre-operatively, such as pathology location, involved anatomical structures, instrument maneuvrability and the advantages and disadvantages of the distinct visualisation technologies. This is all with the intention of selecting the most suitable surgical approach and technology, specific to the patient, pathology and anatomy, so as to perform the best surgical procedure. The research findings illustrated in this body of work are diverse, reproducible and applicable. The transorbital surgical corridor has substantive potential for access to the anterior cranial fossa and specific surgical target structures. The neuroquantitative metrics investigated confirm the utility and benefits specific to the respective visualisation technologies i.e. the endoscope and microscope. The most appropriate setting wherein the approach should be used is also discussed. The transorbital corridor has impressive potential, can utilise all available technological advances, promotes multi-disciplinary co-operation and learning amongst clinicians and ultimately, is a means of improving operative patient care.
ContributorsHoulihan, Lena Mary (Author) / Preul, Mark C. (Thesis advisor) / Vernon, Brent (Thesis advisor) / O' Sullivan, Michael G.J. (Committee member) / Lawton, Michael T. (Committee member) / Santarelli, Griffin (Committee member) / Smith, Brian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021