Wood-based composites (WBCs) are an important sector of the US economy. For a WBC product to succeed, understanding its long-term durability, including seasonal variations in temperature and humidity, is critical. Durability is especially important WBCs because they are predominantly made from wood, which is a biological, hygroscopic material that is...
In this thesis, we expand the scope of a previously introduced Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method to solve the slab-geometry discrete ordinates (S$_N$) neutron transport equations. Specifically, we extend the method to energy-dependent (multi-group) fixed source problems involving heterogeneous media and more general boundary conditions - vacuum and incident flux...
This is a comparative analysis of groundwater conflict and surface water conflict in Idaho from 1950-2019. The work looks at Idaho's exceptional experience with water and demonstrates that water conflict in Idaho is different than in other PNW states. The work outlines that Idaho's water conflict is almost solely focused...
Communication in purposeful human activity systems plays a critical role in the design, management, and change management of these systems. However, its impact on and integrated nature in purposeful human activity systems is not well understood from a holistic viewpoint. In addition, a formal definition and methodology for identifying signs...
Impedance measurements are increasingly demanded in modern CMOS sensing systems as impedance is the most common electrical signal obtained from sensors, delivering physical, chemical and biomedical quantity changes. Impedance sensing for wide interested frequency, broad dynamic range, and various sensor interfaces has numerous challenges, especially targeted in CMOS miniaturization with...
When people talk about the one-child policy in China, it always relates to topics like human rights violations or the population control dilemma. The one-child policy was published in the 1980s, around the same time as the Economic Reform, and these twin policies brought Chinese society tremendous changes. This paper...
Throughput-oriented processors, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), have been increasingly used to accelerate general purpose computing, including machine learning models that are being utilized in numerous disciplines. Thousands of concurrently running threads in a GPU demand a highly efficient memory subsystem for data supply in GPUs. In this dissertation,...
The United States of America and the world are faced with three massive intertwining challenges at this time: COVID-19, racial inequity, and climate change. As a species, humans must come together and collectively address these challenges to preserve our humanity and make our world a more just and livable place...