Digital Commons Network^™

Water Hyacinth And Primrose: Invasive Plants In The California Delta, Carolina Nava, T’Keyah Hamilton, Christopher Potter

STAR Program Research Presentations

Water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has three main uses: it serves as a habitat for the fish, irrigation, and a small amount of the water is distributed to the city. The presence of water hyacinth and primrose, two invasive plants, kills fish by depleting the oxygen in the water, they also interfere with shipping and clog the water channels. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies that include chemical, mechanical and bio-control have been used to eliminate water hyacinth and primrose at the delta. During this research, we obtained and analyzed pictures at the Delta and used their geospatial (longitude and …

Effective Communication To 4th Graders About Vector Borne Diseases, Ricardo Wells, Rebecca Haacker, Lorena Luna

STAR Program Research Presentations

This summer I have worked on a vital research project that is important to overall public health. This project has also afforded me the opportunity to develop a lesson plan around this research to be used in an elementary classroom setting. The first part of this research experience has centered around studying how the general public learns best through classroom activities and exhibits. I have expanded my understanding of how people learn by reading several books, articles, and shadowing teachers educators here at NCAR. This preliminary research was important so that I can communicate effectively with 4th grade students. The …

Using Satellite Remotely Sensed Data To Improve Understanding Of The Coupled Dynamics Between Terrestrial Water And Ecosystems Under The Recent California Drought, Nick B. Rubio, Jorge Stimans, Guo-Yue Niu

STAR Program Research Presentations

Over the past decade, California has experienced a serious drought. Using the National Center for Atmospheric Research Command Language (NCL), we first analyzed the changes in temperature and the water budgets including precipitation, river runoff, evapotranspiration, and terrestrial water storage (TWS), and snow cover over California. Results show that there were decreasing trends in precipitation and runoff, more apparently in snow cover and TWS, and an increasing trend in temperature over California from 2002-2015, indicating a “hot” drought. In addition, we analyzed the satellite data of leaf area index (LAI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to investigate how ecosystems …

Bio-Oil Characterization Via Uv-Vis Spectroscopy: Phenols And Aromatic Content, Emily S. Bladorn, Asanga B. Padmaperuma, Mariefel Olarte

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing techniques to characterize (show what’s in it) bio-fuels. For bio-fuels to replace fossil fuels, full characterization is necessary for analyzing the pyrolysis product produced when you make bio-oil to determining quality of the fuel. In this work, we asked the question “can UV-Vis absorbance methods be used to characterize bio-oils.” To determine that we studied a direct method and a functionalized method to determine total aromatic and phenolic content. Preliminary results indicated that spectroscopic methods can be used to analyze bio-oils.

Increasing Food Production In Drylands Using Agrivoltaics, Stephanie J. Lane, Greg Barron-Gafford, Joe Smith, Evelin Escobedo, Moses Thompson, Isaiah Barnett-Moreno, Daniel Blackett

STAR Program Research Presentations

In the desert, native plants respond to the hottest part of the day by either closing their stomata, which would stop photosynthesis, or by simply reducing their photosynthesis rates due to heat stress. Soil water resources are also impacted due to significant evaporation. If plants have more shade during the day, will they photosynthesize more in the afternoon than plants without shade? Will these plants with shade transpire less, and thus need to be watered less? This study takes a look at plants which have grown under a photovoltaics array (a new agriculture practice called agrivoltaics) as well as plants …

Flow Sensor Integration For Precision Dispensing Of Visco-Elastic Biomaterials, Robert V. Opel, William “Rick” Hynes, Monica Moya

STAR Program Research Presentations

Bioprinting is a manufacturing process that constructs devices from the bottom up by layering biomaterials in precise patterns. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, bioprinting is performed using extrusion 3D printing, a process that uses pressure to drive the biomaterials through a syringe and on to a printing stage. These biomaterials are typically gel solutions with cells growing within. One drawback of these gels is that they are visco-elastic and non-Newtonian. This means that the mechanical properties of the gels change depending on the applied pressure. This variance in mechanical properties makes it harder to control the flow of these materials …

Invasive Species In The Delta: Segmentation And Classification Of Water Hyacinth And Primrose, T’Keyah Hamilton, Carolina Nava, Christopher Potter, Vanessa Genovese

STAR Program Research Presentations

Because of its great beauty, Eichhornia crassipes (Water Hyacinth), originally from South America, has been introduced to 4 continents. Furthermore, because of its genetic make-up, high versatility and resiliency, this plant has become a frightening invasive, affecting boating and shipping, farming, water quality and fishermen livelihood wherever it thrives. However, Water Hyacinth (WH) is only 1 of over 84 invasives in the California Delta, which is where we focused our study. We took photographs along the Delta in treated and non-treated areas, and used an ENVI segmentation tool to find the best parameters for discriminating Water Hyacinth and Primrose. Once …

Efficacy Of Stem Education And Outreach Programs At Biosphere 2, Ericka M. Gutierrez Estrada, Kevin Bonine

STAR Program Research Presentations

Biosphere 2, owned and operated by the University of Arizona, has two primary missions: earth systems research and education. This study comprises a program evaluation of the efficacy of Biosphere 2’s education and outreach programs. The two related programs evaluated are the Summer Science Academy (SSA) programs for middle school and high school students and the Outreach Scholars (OS) program for college-level participants. For the middle school and high school groups, the questions this study seeks to answer are: How does the Summer Science Academy program influence students’ attitude on being scientists? Are students able to better understand the steps …

Certifying Batteries For Techedsat Satellites And Adept Before Sending Them Onto The International Space Station, Alex T. Quyenvo

STAR Program Research Presentations

The technological and Educational Nanosatellites or TechEdSat Satellites TechEdSat is a series of CubeSats built by students of San Jose University and student interns of University of Idaho in working with NASA Ames. Since October 2012, NASA has launched a total of 5 TechEdSats. The latest is TechEdSat 5 in March 2017. Adaptable Deployable Entry and Placement Technology or ADEPT develops a low ballistic coefficient aeroshell technology that can reduce heat and g-loading during entry. It also enables missions with breakthrough capabilities for long term Mars human exploration. ADEPT enables 10x reduction in peak entry heating and deceleration loads. Batteries …

Comparative Analysis Of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (Poss) Using Tof-Sims, Danielle Baur, Xiao-Ying Yu

STAR Program Research Presentations

Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane, often referred to as POSS, is an important type of nanostructured chemical compound because of its properties which bridge the gap between ceramic and organic materials. POSS has a variety of applications as an additive, a plastic, as well as a preceramic. Some more detailed examples of these categories are thermal modifiers when used as an additive, medical material when used as a plastic, and cladding or electronic coating when used as a preceramic. The two main valuable features of POSS chemical technology are how large the molecule building block is and what the intermediate composition is …

Testing For Variation In Leptasterias Spp. Prey Preference Across Different Populations And Microhabitats, Adam S. Tricomo, C. Sarah Cohen

STAR Program Research Presentations

Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) has affected many asteroid populations on the Pacific Northwest coast in recent years. Because sea stars are keystone predators, the absence of them can severely alter the structure of intertidal communities. As populations diminish, it is important to understand what the preferred prey of sea stars is and how prey preference may affect distribution and abundance of sea stars. This laboratory study examined the prey preference of Leptasterias populations from Friday Harbor, Washington, Humboldt County, California, and Pigeon Point, California. The purpose of the study was to 1) determine if sea stars have a preferred …

Case Study: Modernization Of The Walker River Irrigation District, Stuart Styles, Robert C. Bryan, Sierra Layous

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

The Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) and Walker River Irrigation District (WRID) collaborated on the modernization of WRID with support from the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of Interior in Carson City, Nevada. This paper presents an update to the USCID case study that was presented in 2014 on the initial proposed plan for improving water gauges throughout WRID. There has been phased implementation of the initial proposed plan as well as modification and expansion of that plan. The initial scope of work for system improvements was developed by ITRC in 2009 following field investigations and engineering analyses of …

Chena Geothermal Area: A Low Temperature Case Study, Stephanie Dwyer, Katherine Young

STAR Program Research Presentations

Traditional choices for geothermal power plant implementation are areas that have a high temperature and flowing water below the surface. Wells can be drilled down into the rock to harness the steam produced by the hot water and spin a turbine to produce electricity. The problem is that only about 10 percent of Earth’s land area has water circulating under the surface. Only a portion of those areas are hot enough to produce the necessary amount of steam. There are three different types of geothermal power plants that can be used depending on the situation. Chena Geothermal Area, located in …

The Effect Of High Pressure Hydrogen On Volatiles In Polymers Buna-N And Viton A, Deandre Minor, Bernice Mills, Nalini C. Menon

STAR Program Research Presentations

Thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) was used to monitor the outgassing as a function of temperature for polymers in the range of 30°C to 200°C. Mass spectra were taken while samples were heated in vacuum at 1°C per minute to the maximum temperature and held there for a dwell time of three hours. Samples of Buna-N and Viton A not exposed (ne), and exposed to high pressure (100MPa) helium and hydrogen (He/H2), and argon and hydrogen (Ar/H2) were studied. During these experiments Buna-N(ne) lost ~8% of its weight, Buna-N(Ar/H2) lost 18% of its weight, and Buna-N(HeH2) lost ~8% of its weight. …

Optimization Of A Single Particle Soot Photometer For Metallic Particle Detection And Differentiation, Melanie C. Thatcher, Kara Lamb

STAR Program Research Presentations

Metallic particles can be detrimental when present in the atmosphere, because they could contribute to global climate change through direct atmospheric absorption and reduction of snow albedo. There have also been links between the presence of iron-oxide particles in the brain and Alzheimer’s diseaseA, suggesting metallic particles as a potentially important air pollutant that is not currently well-characterized. The ability to detect these particles in real time will help further our understanding of them. Single particle soot photometers (SP2) are primarily used to measure black carbon, but can be modified to measure and characterize metallic particles, as indicated in a …

The Detection Of Iridium Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, Amelia C. Teare, Matthew L. Burnette, Steve D. Chambreau, G L. Vaghjiani

STAR Program Research Presentations

Although one thinks of a thruster as utilizing both a fuel and an oxidizer, as well as an ignition source to release molecular energy, thrusters exist that combine the fuel and oxidizer in a single fluid. These monopropellant thrusters can utilize either an ignition source or a catalyst to release the molecular energy stored within the propellant. Monopropellant thrusters are especially attractive for space flight systems because they only require a single propellant line which reduces systems weight and complexity. Some monopropellant thrusters, including legacy hydrazine thrusters, and newer thrusters using hydrazine replacements, that utilize a heterogeneous catalyst have experienced …

Characterizing Sediment From Riverton, Wy, Natalie A. Wright, Emily L. Cardarelli, Christopher A. Francis, John R. Bargar

STAR Program Research Presentations

Riverton, Wyoming is home to the seventh-largest Native American Reservation by area and a former uranium processing facility. Milling activities at this site have left the sediments and groundwater with elevated concentrations of uranium that occasionally disrupt water quality to the 12,000 residents of the reservation. The floodplain becomes seasonally wet and sometimes flooded from snowmelt that can be amplified by El Niño events. As a result, the sediments of this area experience periodic droughts and floods. There is concern that a decreased water stage can have major impacts on the geochemical makeup of this ecosystem as 1) a decreased …

Analyzing The Atmospheric Conditions That Caused Two Unexpected Tornado Events, Daniel J. Gonzalez, Scott Landolt, Jennifer Shepard

STAR Program Research Presentations

On May 25, 2016 and July 7, 2016, two individual tornadic storms occurred near Chapman, Kansas and Eureka, Kansas. Neither of these tornadic storms was forecast to occur by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center (SPC). In this research project, data from several online sources were analyzed to identify the atmospheric conditions around the times and near the concerned areas where the tornadoes spawned. Identifying and understanding the causes of these tornadoes will help future meteorologists better predict possible tornadoes in the future. Data was obtained from meteorological maps of surface pressure, temperature, dew-point temperature, wind …

Automatic Music Transcription With Convolutional Neural Networks Using Intuitive Filter Shapes, Jonathan Sleep

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the challenge of automatic music transcription with a combination of digital signal processing and machine learning methods. Automatic music transcription is important for musicians who can't do it themselves or find it tedious. We start with an existing model, designed by Sigtia, Benetos and Dixon, and develop it in a number of original ways. We find that by using convolutional neural networks with filter shapes more tailored for spectrogram data, we see better and faster transcription results when evaluating the new model on a dataset of classical piano music. We also find that employing better practices shows …

Process Management And Design Layout Of High Throughput Screening, Anthony Vasquez, Kyle Dupuy

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Calibr is a pharmaceutical company in San Diego and growing very quickly rate and need help redesigning their lab layout and in doing so reducing their cycle times and down times in machines. In addition to this, they do not currently have an accurate measurement of how long their processes take in an overall cycle. The objective of this project is to provide Calibr with a redesigned layout to accommodate new equipment as well as a software tool that can output Gantt charts for their planning of their testing. Our approach to this project first included mapping out the facilities …

Testing And Development Of The Data Acquisition For The Alice Experiment Fast Interaction Trigger Detector At The Cern Large Hadron Collider, Matthew A. Salinas, Austin E. Guard, Jennifer L. Klay

STAR Program Research Presentations

The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collides charged nuclei of atoms to replicate the beginning of the universe: high-energy density environments of quarks, gluons, and leptons. The resulting particles released from the collisions provide insight to the behavior of the universe millionths of a second after the Big Bang. Capturing information about the particles released from the collisions require extreme precision that is provided by a project the ALICE team is collaborating on called the Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT). The FIT upgrades will replace the current triggers at the ALICE experiment, enabling selection of the most interesting collisions/ events that …

The Impact Of Restoration Treatments On The Germination Of Quercus Pacifica On Santa Rosa Island, Dulce M. Lopez, Kathryn Mceachern, Ken Niessen

STAR Program Research Presentations

Santa Rosa Island (SRI), part of Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Santa Barbara, is home to thousands of native and endemic flora and fauna. While full of unique island endemics, Santa Rosa Island has an extensive ranching history. A sheep and cattle ranching business was operated from the mid-1800s until 1998 and a deer and elk hunting operation ran until 2011. Together these operations led to extensive ecological degradation of the island ecosystem as a result of the grazing caused by ungulates. In December of 2015, the Cloud Forest Restoration Project began with the goal of restoring …

Using Curcumin Nano-Lipid Particles In A Therapeutic Approach, Kayla Douglas, Angela Evans, Wei He, Mathew Coleman

STAR Program Research Presentations

Curcumin (Curcuma longa) is a plant-based polyphenol known to have several medicinal properties. Although several promising effects of using curcumin in clinical trials have been observed, its overall medicinal qualities are still limited due to low bioavailability. In order to increase the bioavailability, we are embedding curcumin within Nano-Lipid Particles (both curcumin telodendrimer discs and curcumin tNLPs). Telodendrimer nanolipoprotein particles (tNLPs) are discoidal self-assemblies containing lipids and apolipoproteins which can be used as a vehicle to carry proteins and other small molecules to the cell. Telodendrimer NLPs have been used to increase the bioavailability of drugs, and provide an ideal …

Analyzing Catalyst Bed Degradation In Monopropellant Thrusters, Jillian Kimzey

STAR Program Research Presentations

Recently there has been a push toward green monopropellants in rocket thrusters. The leading green monopropellant is AF-M315E. Its high stability, low toxicity, and ability to be stored for long periods of time in low temperatures without freezing gives it an advantage over the current hydrazine systems. Because testing the new monopropellant on thrusters would create an enormous cost, the Air Force Research Laboratories has created micro-reactors to simulate thruster firing. A 10 second lifespan micro-reactor has been completed and was used to test the reactivity between fuel and catalyst. Now there is an effort to complete a 10 min …

Harming (Respectfully) Some To Benefit Others: Animal Rights And The Moral Imperative Of Trap-Neuter-Release Programs, Cheryl E. Abbate

Between the Species

Because spaying/neutering animals involves the harming of some animals in order to prevent harm to others, some ethicists, like David Boonin, argue that the philosophy of animal rights is committed to the view that spaying/neutering animals violates the respect principle and that Trap Neuter Release (TNR) programs are thus impermissible. In response, I demonstrate that the philosophy of animal rights holds that, under certain conditions, it is justified, and sometimes even obligatory, to cause harm to some animals (human or nonhuman) in order to prevent greater harm to others. As I will argue, causing lesser harm to some animals in …

Executive Committee - Meeting Minutes, 9/19/2017, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Executive Committee, Agenda - 9/19/2017, Academic Senate

Academic Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

Does Breastfeeding Shape Food Preferences? Links To Obesity, Alison K. Ventura

Kinesiology and Public Health

The first 2 years of life have been recognized as a critical window for obesity prevention efforts. This period is characterized by rapid growth and development and, in a relatively short period of time, a child transitions from a purely milk-based diet to a more varied solid-food diet. Much learning about food and eating occurs during this critical window, and it is well-documented that early feeding and dietary exposures predict later food preferences, eating behaviors, and dietary patterns. The focus of this review will be on the earliest feeding experiences - breast- and formula-feeding - and the unique role of …

Associations Between Bottle-Feeding Intensity And Maternal Encouragement Of Bottle-Emptying, Alison K. Ventura, Patsy Garcia, Andrew A. Schaffner

Kinesiology and Public Health

Objective: To explore longitudinal associations between bottle-feeding and maternal encouragement of infant bottle-emptying during the first 6 months of infancy.

Design: Mothers completed questionnaires during the third trimester of pregnancy, then monthly during the first 6 months postpartum. Questionnaires assessed family demographics, maternal and infant weight status, infant feeding patterns and maternal encouragement of infant bottle-emptying.

Setting: The Infant Feeding Practices Study 2, conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Subjects: Mothers (n 1776).

Results: Repeated-measures regression was used to explore associations between bottle-feeding intensity (BFI; defined as the percentage …