Human-robot teams involve humans and robots collaborating to achieve tasks under various environmental conditions. Successful teaming requires robots to adapt autonomously in real-time to a human teammate's state. An important element of such adaptation is the ability for the robot to infer the tasks performed by their human teammates. Human-robot...
Modern product design drives the boundaries of innovation by encompassing complex Design-for-X objectives, and the inclusion of multidimensional stakeholders. This growing complexity in product design has left design teams unequipped, as classical design theory is bounded by designer experience, expertise, and cognition. One novel approach to tackling product complexity is...
A growing body of literature exists on how human population growth and changes in climatic factors influence the availability of water (Elliot et al. 2014, Prudhomme et al. 2014). These studies typically conclude that climate change is expected to have negative consequences on water availability, an effect that is magnified...
The atomic solid state energy (SSE) scale is introduced as a tool for inorganic materials design. The SSE scale is obtained by assessing an average electron affinity (EA) (for a cation) or an average ionization potential (IP) (for an anion) for each atom using data from compounds having that specific...
Grapes (e.g. Vitis vinifera L.) are one of the more important fruit crops from an economic standpoint with world market values over 550 million US dollars in 2007 and 2008, second to apples (United States Department of Agriculture). While a satisfactory level of ripeness is of primary concern, the quality...
This thesis details my investigation of some pharmaceuticals and natural products on the transport of drugs which are substrates of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), such as cyclosporin A (CSA) and digoxin by using Caco-2 and MDCKII-MDR1 drug transport models. Three objectives were performed to address this goal. The first objective was to...
Aromatic hydrocarbons represent a large class of environmental contaminants that have a broad range of structures, physicochemical properties, and toxicities. Arising from the burning of organic matter, particularly fossil fuels, they are both widespread and abundant in all environmental compartments. Both monoaromatic hydrocarbons (BTEX) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are...
The likelihood of a Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake is estimated between 37 to 42% in the next 50 years, leading to strong shaking, liquefaction, landsliding, and other seismic ground failure resulting in major impacts to critical lifelines such as the western power grid. Electrical power is essential for continued...
In this dissertation we consider two application specific flow and transport models in porous media at multiple scales: 1) methane gas transport models for hydrate formation and dissociation in the subsurface under two-phase conditions, and 2) coupled flow and biomass-nutrient model for biofilm growth in complex geometries with biofilm, and...
Despite the advance of biomedical science, infectious diseases remain one of the number one killers in the world. They claim the lives of millions of people annually, particularly in underdeveloped and developing countries. In fact, more than 32% of the health burden in Africa is caused by infectious diseases, e.g.,...