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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Temporal Resolution Of Cell Death Signaling Events Induced By Cold Atmospheric Plasma And Electroporation In Human Cancer Cells, Danielle M. Krug, Prasoon K. Diwakar, Ahmed Hassanein Aug 2017

Temporal Resolution Of Cell Death Signaling Events Induced By Cold Atmospheric Plasma And Electroporation In Human Cancer Cells, Danielle M. Krug, Prasoon K. Diwakar, Ahmed Hassanein

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Cancer treatment resistance and their invasive and expensive nature is propelling research towards developing alternate approaches to eradicate cancer in patients. Non-thermal, i.e., cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and electroporation (EP) applied to the surface of cancerous tissue are new methods that are minimally invasive, safe, and selective. These approaches, both independently and synergistically, have been shown to deplete cancer cell populations, but the signaling mechanisms of death and their timelines of action are still widely unknown. To better understand the timeframe of signaling events occurring upon treatment, human cancer cell lines were treated with CAP, EP, and combined CAP with …


The Response Of Schwann Cells To Weak Dc Electric Fields, Alexander T. Lai, Jianming Li Aug 2017

The Response Of Schwann Cells To Weak Dc Electric Fields, Alexander T. Lai, Jianming Li

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Schwann cells are glial cells that serve the vital role of supporting neurons in the peripheral nervous system. While their primary function is to provide insulation (myelin) for axons, they also help regenerate injured axons by digesting severed axons and providing scaffolding to guide the regeneration process. This specific role of Schwann cells makes them highly important cellular targets following nerve injury. Although some efforts have been made to encourage Schwann cell migration after nerve damage, the use of electric fields to control cell responses remain unexplored; therefore, this experiment serves to characterize the behavior of Schwann cells to weak …


Metabolic Comparison Of Wild-Type And Transgenic Synechocystis Pcc 6803 Cyanobacteria, Ian A. Mcluckey, John A. Morgan, Joel Yu King Hing Aug 2017

Metabolic Comparison Of Wild-Type And Transgenic Synechocystis Pcc 6803 Cyanobacteria, Ian A. Mcluckey, John A. Morgan, Joel Yu King Hing

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Calvin-Benson (CBB) cycle is an essential part of nature. This phenomenon allows carbon molecules in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be converted into useful energy in the form of sugars. Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms capable of utilizing energy from sunlight to drive this cycle and are also readily engineered. In hopes of improving this cycle, we compared a wild-type version of the Synechocystis PCC6803 cyanobacteria to an engineered version overexpressing the enzyme FBA (fructose-biphosphate aldolase), called 70 glpX, to deduce how the overexpressing strain is able to be more photosynthetically efficient. To do this, comparative metabolomics were done …


Fret Biosensors: Engineering Fluorescent Proteins As Biological Tools For Studying Parkinson’S Disease, Nathan J. Leroy, Jacob R. Norley, Saranya Radhakrishnan, Mathew Tantama Aug 2017

Fret Biosensors: Engineering Fluorescent Proteins As Biological Tools For Studying Parkinson’S Disease, Nathan J. Leroy, Jacob R. Norley, Saranya Radhakrishnan, Mathew Tantama

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease with over 200,000 new cases each year. In general, the cause of the disease is unknown, but oxidative stress inside of neurons has been associated with the disease’s pathology for some time. Currently, techniques to study the onset of PD inside of neurons are limited. This makes treatments and causes difficult to discover. One solution to this has been fluorescent protein biosensors. In short, these proteins can be engineered to glow when a certain state is achieved inside a cell. The present research discusses the engineering of a genetically-encoded fluorescent protein (FP) …


Full-Water Column Turbulence Parameterization Of Stratified Waters In Southern Lake Michigan, Kyla A. Prendergast, Cary D. Troy, David Cannon Aug 2017

Full-Water Column Turbulence Parameterization Of Stratified Waters In Southern Lake Michigan, Kyla A. Prendergast, Cary D. Troy, David Cannon

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Full water column mean flow and turbulence structure was characterized at two stratified locations in Lake Michigan (a. Muskegon, MI; b. Michigan City, IN) in order to better understand the filtration potential of invasive quagga mussels. Invasive quagga mussels in Lake Michigan are filter feeders and can dramatically alter clarity as well as the biological/chemical characteristics of the water column. This filtering capacity is highly contingent on turbulence characteristics throughout the water column, which is poorly understood in the Great Lakes. Using velocity, temperature, and turbulence data collected from these locations, the structure of the water column turbulence was modeled …


Effect Of Particle Interactions On Powder Flow Behavior, Ivana A. Penagos, Carolina P. Mora, Teresa Carvajal Aug 2017

Effect Of Particle Interactions On Powder Flow Behavior, Ivana A. Penagos, Carolina P. Mora, Teresa Carvajal

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The study of powder flow behavior is essential for the development of processing technologies in many industries. In fact, powders have a major function in diverse types of manufacturing, such as pharmaceuticals, foods, chemicals, materials, minerals and cosmetics. This leads to an increasing demand for the development of reliable methods to assess powder flow problems in industry. This research intends to provide a general insight into how surface interactions and particle properties may alter powder flowability. The materials used for this study were lactose, starch, milk powder, cocoa and chocolate. These vary in their interparticle forces as well as on …


Co-Modulation Masking Release Begins In The Auditory Periphery, Kareem R. Hussein, Agudemu Borjigan, Mark Sayles Aug 2017

Co-Modulation Masking Release Begins In The Auditory Periphery, Kareem R. Hussein, Agudemu Borjigan, Mark Sayles

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Understanding speech in noisy environments can be difficult, especially for people with hearing loss. The background noise can cover up the sounds of interest. Normally, the auditory system works to alleviate this problem by tagging and then cancelling the noise. Our experiments are aimed at understanding the mechanism of this noise cancellation process. We hypothesize that non-linear signal processing in the mammalian cochlea (the most peripheral part of the auditory system) is the basis of noise cancellation. To test this hypothesis, we measured the responses of auditory-nerve fibers (ANFs) to sounds embedded in background noise with different statistical properties. ANFs …


How Strongly Do Oysters Stick?, Nicolás M. Morato, Andrés M. Tibabuzo, Jonathan J. Wilker Aug 2017

How Strongly Do Oysters Stick?, Nicolás M. Morato, Andrés M. Tibabuzo, Jonathan J. Wilker

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Biological adhesives are a type of interfacial material that has incredible potential to generate new biomimetic compounds that can replace current strong, but toxic, adhesives. Therefore, a study of the chemical composition and mechanical properties of those bio-adhesives is necessary. However, in the case of oysters, despite known chemical characterization of the adult’s adhesive, there are almost no studies on its mechanical properties. Furthermore, there is no available information on the adhesive properties of spat (oysters in their larvae state). Herein, we present the first mechanical characterization of the spat adhesive, measuring its adhesion strength by hydrodynamic determination using a …


A Spatial Stochastic Model Of Ampar Trafficking And Subunit Dynamics, Tyler Vandyk, Matthew C. Pharris, Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem Aug 2017

A Spatial Stochastic Model Of Ampar Trafficking And Subunit Dynamics, Tyler Vandyk, Matthew C. Pharris, Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In excitatory neurons, the ability of a synaptic connection to strengthen or weaken is known as synaptic plasticity and is thought to be the cellular basis for learning and memory. Understanding the mechanism of synaptic plasticity is an important step towards understanding and developing treatment methods for learning and memory disorders. A key molecular process in synaptic plasticity for mammalian glutamatergic neurons is the exocytosis (delivery to the synapse) of AMPA-type glutamate receptors (AMPARs). While the protein signaling pathways responsible for exocytosis have long been investigated with experimental methods, it remains unreasonable to study the system in its full complexity …


Bacterial Motility And Its Role In Biofilm Formation, Clayton J. Culp, Arezoo M. Ardekani, Adib Ahmadzadegan Aug 2017

Bacterial Motility And Its Role In Biofilm Formation, Clayton J. Culp, Arezoo M. Ardekani, Adib Ahmadzadegan

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Bacterial biofilms are known to cause millions of dollars in damage in the medical industry per year via infection of central venous catheters, urinary catheters, and mechanical heart valves. Unfortunately, there are some characteristics of biofilm formation that are yet to be fully understood. Recently much work has been done to investigate the motility characteristics of bacteria with hopes of better understanding the phenomena of biofilm formation. Still, one of the least understood stages is bacterial attachment or adhesion, a process designed to anchor bacteria in an advantageous environment. Providing a better understanding of bacterial motility near solid interfaces will …


The Effects Of Compaction On Reconstitution Characteristics Of Dairy Powder, Michelle P. Dixon, Rose Prabin Kingsly Ambrose, Dhananjay Ashok Pai Aug 2017

The Effects Of Compaction On Reconstitution Characteristics Of Dairy Powder, Michelle P. Dixon, Rose Prabin Kingsly Ambrose, Dhananjay Ashok Pai

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Milk powders are becoming more ubiquitous within the food industry, and they offer consumers a convenient form for direct intake of dairy. The costs associated with dairy are reduced when products are converted to powder, which markedly increases shelf life at ambient temperatures. Creating compacts from powders further improves cost efficiency by reducing volume. However, milk powders typically possess poor rehydration properties, such as a slow dispersion rate and low solubility, and powder compaction additionally prolongs rehydration time, reducing consumer acceptability. Previous studies have shown that modifying dairy products before or during the drying process can improve rehydration properties, but …


Predictive Power And Validity Of Connectome Predictive Modeling: A Replication And Extension, Michael Wang, Joaquin Goni, Enrico Amico Aug 2017

Predictive Power And Validity Of Connectome Predictive Modeling: A Replication And Extension, Michael Wang, Joaquin Goni, Enrico Amico

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Neuroimaging, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is a rapidly growing research area and has applications ranging from disease classification to understanding neural development. With new advancements in imaging technology, researchers must employ new techniques to accommodate the influx of high resolution data sets. Here, we replicate a new technique: connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM), which constructs a linear predictive model of brain connectivity and behavior. CPM’s advantages over classic machine learning techniques include its relative ease of implementation and transparency compared to “black box” opaqueness and complexity. Is this method efficient, powerful, and reliable in the prediction of behavioral measures …


Analysis Of The Flow Behaviors Of Corn Meal During Extrusion, Daniel N. Hauersperger, Martin R. Okos, Troy Tonner Aug 2017

Analysis Of The Flow Behaviors Of Corn Meal During Extrusion, Daniel N. Hauersperger, Martin R. Okos, Troy Tonner

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Food extrusion can be used to make many products we consume today, including pasta, cereals and more. The ability to predict the characteristics of the final product from an extruder using raw material characteristics and operating conditions is vital to the extrusion process. In order to answer this need, the flow behavior of corn meal was measured in a lab viscometer (off-line) and compared to the flow behaviors from an extruder (in-line) at three different moisture contents (32.5%, 35%, 37.5% wet basis). The extruder and product are heated through the friction of the corn meal passing through the barrel not …


Establishing A Lung Model For Evaluation Of Engineered Lung Microbiome Therapies, Kathryn F. Atherton, Stephen Miloro, Jenna Rickus Aug 2017

Establishing A Lung Model For Evaluation Of Engineered Lung Microbiome Therapies, Kathryn F. Atherton, Stephen Miloro, Jenna Rickus

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Benzene, a toxin and carcinogen found in air polluted by cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and industrial processes, is associated with the development of leukemia and lymphoma. Other than avoiding exposure, there is no current method to deter the effects of benzene. One potential strategy to prevent these effects is to engineer the bacteria of the human lung microbiome to degrade benzene. To evaluate this novel approach, we must verify that the bacteria remain viable within the lung microenvironment. To do so, lungs were harvested from rats and swabbed to determine the contents of the original lung microbiome. Then green fluorescent …