Engineering Commons^™

A Simple Formula To Calculate Azimuth Without A Two-Argument Arctangent Function, Thomas H. Meyer, Jacob Conshick

Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Articles

Calculating azimuths from planimetric coordinates is complicated when the available implementations of inverse trigonometric functions have ranges spanning only 180° instead of 360° as azimuth requires. A tangent half-angle formula is used to derive a formula with only one special case (due South) that computes azimuth for the whole circle.

Lower-Extremity Joint Kinematics And Muscle Activations During Semi-Reclined Cycling At Different Workloads In Healthy Individuals, Kamyar Momeni, Pouran D. Faghri, Martinus Evans

Open Access Author Fund Awardees' Articles

Background

A better understanding of lower-extremity muscles’ activation patterns and joint kinematics during different workloads could help rehabilitation professionals with prescribing more effective exercise regimen for elderly and those with compromised muscles. We examined the relative contribution, as well as activation and co-activation patterns, of lower-extremity muscles during semi-reclined cycling at different workloads during a constant cadence.

Methods

Fifteen healthy novice cyclists participated at three 90-second cycling trials with randomly assigned workloads of 0, 50, and 100 W, at a constant cadence of 60 rpm. During all trials, electromyograms were recorded from four lower-extremity muscles: rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris …

Mechanism Of Insulin Aggregation: Applied To Alzheimer's Disease, Milos Atz

Honors Scholar Theses

Alzheimer’s disease, a debilitating neurodegenerative illness, is caused by the irreversible aggregation of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain. In Alzheimer’s brains, the protein can become disfigured, causing it to aggregate into long, insoluble fibers that deposit on brain tissue. Studying the aggregation mechanisms of amyloid proteins can lead to a deeper understanding of the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and possibly point towards a potential cure or treatment for the disease. Heat induced aggregation of insulin provides a model system to study the aggregation of amyloidogenic proteins. This study investigates the early stages of heat induced insulin aggregation using dynamic light …

Greenscreen: Software To Improve Campus Water And Energy Use, Andrew T. Silva

University Scholar Projects

Water and energy are intrinsically linked together. Energy is required to produce clean water and water is used heavily to generate energy. These two resources are constantly held in check, as they are vital to the sustained operation of towns, cities, and campuses. At the University of Connecticut (UConn), the consumption of water and energy is reduced by an efficient power plant and a brand new water reclamation facility. To reach beyond these accolades, it is essential that a deeper understanding of campus water usage is developed. Linking this knowledge with information about the energy consumption of UConn facilities will …

A First-Principles Examination Of Dopants In Hfo2, Daniel Cunningham

Honors Scholar Theses

A systematic first-principles study using density functional theory was performed on dopants in HfO2, a material with great importance as a high-k dielectric. Sixteen dopants were tested, most of which came from the fourth period of the periodic table (K-Ge, Al and Si). The relative stability of the monoclinic, tetragonal, and cubic phases were calculated for HfO2 with each dopant in order to determine which dopants tend to stabilize which phases. It was found that the most important factor in determining relative phase stability of doped HfO2 was the ionic radius of the dopant, where dopants smaller than Hf tend …

Modeling The Adaptive Immune Response To Mutation-Generated Antigens, Rory J. Geyer

University Scholar Projects

Somatic mutations may drive tumorigenesis or lead to new, immunogenic epitopes (neoantigens). The immune system is thought to represses neoplastic growths through the recognition of neoantigens presented only by tumor cells. To study mutations as well as the immune response to mutation-generated antigens, we have created a conditional knockin mouse line with a gene encoding, 5’ to 3’, yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), ovalbumin (which is processed to the immunologically recognizable peptide, SIINFEKL), and cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), or, YFP-ovalbumin-CFP. A frame shift mutation has been created at the 5’ end of the ovalbumin gene, hence YFP should always be expressed, …

Modeling The Adaptive Immune Response To Mutation-Generated Antigens, Rory J. Geyer

Honors Scholar Theses

Somatic mutations may drive tumorigenesis or lead to new, immunogenic epitopes (neoantigens). The immune system is thought to represses neoplastic growths through the recognition of neoantigens presented only by tumor cells. To study mutations as well as the immune response to mutation-generated antigens, we have created a conditional knockin mouse line with a gene encoding, 5’ to 3’, yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), ovalbumin (which is processed to the immunologically recognizable peptide, SIINFEKL), and cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), or, YFP-ovalbumin-CFP. A frame shift mutation has been created at the 5’ end of the ovalbumin gene, hence YFP should always be expressed, …

Membrane Compatibility With Switchable Polarity Draw Solutions For Use In Forward Osmosis Applications, Benjamin Joseph Coscia

Honors Scholar Theses

Water scarcity is problem being faced worldwide and present in every continent. Close to one-fifth of the world’s population has difficulty acquiring safe water, and the problem is worsening as populations continue to grow in poorer countries. As the availability of unimpaired freshwater sources dwindle, water sources, such as the oceans and saline ground waters, must be tapped. However, desalination technologies are very expensive due to a high energy requirement. Forward osmosis (FO) is a process which may be able to replace or become integrated with existing desalination technologies like reverse osmosis. FO relies on an osmotic agent, or draw …

Optimizing Polymer Fluorescence For Explosives Detection, Rose K. Cersonsky

Honors Scholar Theses

Pyrene is commonly used for explosives detection, as when mixed with polystyrene, the fluorescence intensity of the resulting film can be used as an indicator of the presence of nitro-aromatic, nitro-ether, or nitro-amine explosives. Previous studieshave tested a three-component system including pyrene, polystyrene, and a salt, tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate (TBAHP). From these previous studies, it has been seen that vapor pressure of the preparation area is a governing factor in the formation of excimers, which are instrumental in achieving and maintaining fluorescence intensity. In this study, three parameters – solution concentration, film thickness, and molecular weight of polystyrene are examined to …