Transitioning energy systems from a reliance on fossil fuels to low carbon energy sources is an essential solution for climate change mitigation. However, the industrial sector, which is directly responsible for more than a quarter of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, continues to use fossil fuels for energy and feedstocks....
This dissertation aims to develop innovative analytical methods that integrate engineering, marketing, and social science disciplines to incorporate heterogeneous consumer preferences into product design using network-based customer preference modeling. Both companies and designers frequently face difficulties in understanding and addressing customer preferences, which can result in product failure and loss...
Nanomaterials present an exciting landscape of innovation at length scales below 100 nm, wherein controllable synthesis and materials metrology have led to tunable structure-property relationships and next-generation products. The disruptive field of nanotechnology is poised to capitalize upon the exotic chemistry and physics of these nanomaterials to enable more efficient...
In this document, I demonstrate that: 1) Linear basis functions cannot outperform nonlinear ones to represent hand kinematics 2) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA on the dimensionality reduction of hand kinematics, 3) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA in human gait representation and recurrent nonlinear autoencoders can seamlessly express the temporal dynamics, 4)...
In the face of a changing climate caused by anthropomorphic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, major governments have committed to the reduction of CO2 and other emissions over time, requiring increased reliance on forms of carbon-free renewable energy. The inherent intermittency of renewable electricity sources creates a...
The goal of this thesis is to develop an experimental setup to evaluate and analyze the effect of crack-parallel stress on the fracture response of materials. In standard fracture test configurations, the crack-parallel normal stress is negligible. However, a new type of experiment, briefly named the gap test, revealed that...
The successful isolation of graphene marked the advent of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Their atomically thin structures enable unprecedented electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, which have triggered significant research interests in the past decade. For instance, they are promising candidates for the fabrication of flexible electronics, biological sensors, battery electrodes, and...
Future large-scale quantum networks will likely require more efficient on-chip devices for quantum key distribution (QKD) systems that can exploit CMOS manufacturing techniques. QKD systems on chip have been produced in a number of material platforms including silicon, indium phosphide, and a range of hybrid structures. Advanced industrial silicon-electronics manufacturing...
Next generation cellular networks are expected to support a massive data traffic volume and satisfy a vast number of users that have latency-critical quality-of-service expectations. Towards serving this demand, it is envisaged that the interference management problem will be the main bottleneck due to the likeliness of a heavily interfering...
Over the past decade, wearables have become pervasive in our lives. Healthcare wearables like a smartwatch continuously monitor personal health status and provide personalized feedback to motivate progress towards medically recommended goals. While present set of on-body electronics empowers users to visualize health status outside of clinic spaces, its traditionally...
