Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Purdue University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 2551 - 2580 of 6329

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Rapid Drying Concrete, Purdue Ect Team Aug 2015

Rapid Drying Concrete, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

One of the essential problems that are faced during construction is the drying of concrete and the presence of moisture which affects floor coverings that need to be placed. The rapid-drying characteristic in Aridusâ concrete allows for the quick reduction of moisture vapor that travels through the concrete pores of the concrete.


Ap Alternatives Modular Solar Racking, Purdue Ect Team Aug 2015

Ap Alternatives Modular Solar Racking, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Solar panels have been used to generate and supply electricity in various applications such as residential and commercial buildings. Therefore, a need for a quicker approach to installation as well as the need to reduce workmanship to speed up the process is needed. Solar racks are developed through the use of automated equipment to “preassemble the racking hardware, pre-install the solar modules, and drive helical anchors into the ground rapidly”. So instead of installing one panel at a time, AP Alternatives has created a new method that uses machines to make the process easier. This new automation of the installation …


3d Printing For Bricks, Purdue Ect Team Aug 2015

3d Printing For Bricks, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Building Bytes, by Brian Peters, is a project that uses desktop 3D printers to print bricks for architecture. Instead of using an expensive custom-made printer, it uses a normal standard 3D printer which is available for everyone and makes it more accessible and also easier for fabrication.


An Implantable Device To Regulate Urination Through Deep Brain Stimulation, Jesse E. Bucksot, Muhammad A. Arafat, Pedro Irazoqui Aug 2015

An Implantable Device To Regulate Urination Through Deep Brain Stimulation, Jesse E. Bucksot, Muhammad A. Arafat, Pedro Irazoqui

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Urinary Incontinence (UI) is a disease in which patients lose control of their bladder. It is particularly common in elderly women having a prevalence of as much as 30% to 50% [1]. Many of these patients are left without successful treatment. A recent study has shown a new option for treatment that consists of deep brain stimulation (DBS) at a site known as the periaqueductal gray (PAG) [2, 3]. To test the effectiveness of this treatment, chronic stimulation of the PAG should be used in animals to see if it can reliably prevent micturition in the long term. A device …


Grain Boundary Migration Of Nio-Mgo Alloys, Xin Li Phuah, David Lowing, John Blendell Aug 2015

Grain Boundary Migration Of Nio-Mgo Alloys, Xin Li Phuah, David Lowing, John Blendell

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Grain boundary engineering offers enhanced control of microstructure development during processing, leading to improved final material properties. However, using the effects of the interfacial energy anisotropy on grain boundary mobility to control microstructure development is not well understood. The NiO-MgO system is studied as it has complete solid solubility and a transition in the faceting behavior with composition due to changes in the interfacial energy anisotropy. NiO-MgO powders were produced through the amorphous citrate process and modifications to the process were made to reduce particle and agglomerate size. The powders were pressed and sintered in various conditions to produce fine …


Simulating Low-Frequency Sonic Pulsations To Achieve Thrombolysis, Joseph C. Muskat, Matthew C. Pharris, Charles F. Babbs Aug 2015

Simulating Low-Frequency Sonic Pulsations To Achieve Thrombolysis, Joseph C. Muskat, Matthew C. Pharris, Charles F. Babbs

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Cardiovascular thrombosis may result in critical ischemia to a range of anatomical regions, constituting a leading cause of death in the United States. Current invasive treatments for such arterial blockages often yield blood clot recurrence, resulting in repeated hospitalization of patients. This research aims to show how internally introduced pressure oscillations may be used to initiate thrombolysis. We present a novel computational model for determining the resonant frequency and corresponding deformation of an idealized thrombus. Sinusoidal pressure differences across the thrombus induce axial displacements of frequency dependent amplitude. The maximum peak displacement occurs at a resonant frequency of 73 Hz …


Synthesis And Characterization Of 2d Atomic Layers, Adam Charnas, Gang Qiu, Peide Ye Aug 2015

Synthesis And Characterization Of 2d Atomic Layers, Adam Charnas, Gang Qiu, Peide Ye

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

As electronic devices have continued to become smaller, a pressing need has developed for new technologies in order to surpass current size constraints. As such, 2-dimensional materials have become a topic of great interest in experimental device research. Monolayer black phosphorus, or phosphorene, is one such 2D material which shows significant potential as a p-type semiconductor. Phosphorene exhibits a number of unique and desirable electrical properties such as a layer-dependent band gap, high carrier mobility, and anisotropic conductivity. An investigation into optimal growth of black phosphorus, the precursor material to phosphorene, as well as characterization of phosphorene-based devices will be …


Securemems: Selective Deposition Of Energetic Materials, Trevor J. Fleck, Josiah R. Thomas, Lillian F. Miles, Allison K. Murray, Zane A. Roberts, Raghav Ramachandran, I Emre Gunduz, Steven F. Son, George T. Chiu, Jeffrey F. Rhoads Aug 2015

Securemems: Selective Deposition Of Energetic Materials, Trevor J. Fleck, Josiah R. Thomas, Lillian F. Miles, Allison K. Murray, Zane A. Roberts, Raghav Ramachandran, I Emre Gunduz, Steven F. Son, George T. Chiu, Jeffrey F. Rhoads

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

There exists a pressing operational need to secure and control access to high-valued electromechanical systems, and in some cases render them inoperable. Developing a reliable method for depositing energetic materials will allow for the near-seamless integration of electromechanical systems and energetic material, and, in turn, provide the pathway for security and selective destruction that is needed. In this work, piezoelectric inkjet printing was used to selectively deposit energetic materials. Nanothermites, comprising of nanoscale aluminum and nanoscale copper oxide suspended in dimethyl-formamide (DMF), were printed onto silicon wafers, which enabled both thermal and thrust measurements of the decomposing energetic material. Various …


Cold Atmospheric Plasma: An Inside Look Through Optical Diagnostics For Biomedical Applications, Liesl Krause, Ahmed Hassanein, Prasoon Diwakar Aug 2015

Cold Atmospheric Plasma: An Inside Look Through Optical Diagnostics For Biomedical Applications, Liesl Krause, Ahmed Hassanein, Prasoon Diwakar

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

An emerging technology for medical applications is cold atmospheric plasma (CAP). CAP is generated using various gasses in a “pen” to create room temperature plasma and then carry the effluents and species. Success has been shown when cold atmospheric plasma is applied to oncology treatments, accelerated wound healing, pathogen disinfection, and various material-changing effects. However, the mechanisms behind these effects are still speculative. This study uses multiple diagnostic techniques including fast photography, two wavelength emission spectroscopy and optical emission spectroscopy to characterize the plasma properties and eventually further test the plasma’s interaction with biological samples. The plume dynamics are observed …


Vast2015 Challenge Two: Event Analysis From Communication Data, Mahesh Babu Gorantla, William Hatton, Jieqiong Zhao, Abish Malik, David S. Ebert Aug 2015

Vast2015 Challenge Two: Event Analysis From Communication Data, Mahesh Babu Gorantla, William Hatton, Jieqiong Zhao, Abish Malik, David S. Ebert

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Social Media is a very good example of a large communication network. Typically, most data generated by social media are embedded with spatiotemporal stamps which hold crucial information than can help law enforcement agencies analyze the intensity of a calamity or chaos. Currently, not much research is done in designing a visual analytics system that incorporates clustering methods to analyze communication patterns. This research seeks to develop an analysis tool that represents such diverse data sets in user-friendly visual forms, to provide insights into the data that will improve the efficiency of event analysis. To analyze this data we have …


Improvement Of Diesel Engines At High Speeds Via Flexible Valve Actuation And Cylinder Deactivation, Dina M. Caicedo Parra, Gregory M. Shaver, Aswin Ramesh Aug 2015

Improvement Of Diesel Engines At High Speeds Via Flexible Valve Actuation And Cylinder Deactivation, Dina M. Caicedo Parra, Gregory M. Shaver, Aswin Ramesh

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In the U.S fuel consumption is expected to increase over 20% from 2010 to 2020 especially in the heavy duty segment. As a consequence of the increase in production of heavy and light duty vehicles, regulations and stricter policies are being applied to the emissions of pollutants, including NOx, and soot. This study outlines strategies for using cylinder deactivation and intake valve closure (IVC) modulation to improve fuel economy and increase the rate at which NOx/soot-mitigating aftertreatment devices reach working temperatures. Effects of opening and squeezing variable geometry turbine (VGT) turbocharger were also analyzed. From the results it was observed …


Characterizing Strain Accumulation, Residual Stress, And Microstructure Of Additive Manufactured Materials, Hannah K. Woods, Todd A. Book, Catalina Parada, Michael D. Sangid Aug 2015

Characterizing Strain Accumulation, Residual Stress, And Microstructure Of Additive Manufactured Materials, Hannah K. Woods, Todd A. Book, Catalina Parada, Michael D. Sangid

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly evolving fabrication technology beneficial for its cost-saving potential to produce complex, low-volume shapes. However, AM materials are currently limited to nonstructural applications due to variability in their structural integrity, particularly their fatigue lives. IN718, Ti64, and Al10MgSi specimens manufactured by Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) were characterized based on variation of post-processing techniques and build direction. To understand the impact of each variable, surface roughness, hardness, residual stresses, microstructure, and strain accumulation in response to Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) were studied. The use of Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) provided grain orientation and grain size …


Gpu/Cpu Performance Of Image Processing Tasks For Use In The Cam 2 System, Jonathan Cottom, Yung-Hsiang Lu, Young-Sol Koh Aug 2015

Gpu/Cpu Performance Of Image Processing Tasks For Use In The Cam 2 System, Jonathan Cottom, Yung-Hsiang Lu, Young-Sol Koh

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Over the past several years, graphics processing units (GPU) have increasingly been viewed as the future of image processing engines. Currently, the Continuous Analysis of Many CAMeras (CAM2) project performs its processing on CPUs, which will potentially be more costly as the system scales to service more users. This study seeks to analyze the performance gains of GPU processing and evaluate the advantage of supporting GPU-accelerated analysis for CAM2 users. The platform for comparing the CPU and GPU performance has been the NVIDIA Jetson TK1. The target hardware implementation is an Amazon cloud instance, where final cost …


Powder Compaction Simulation, Yuqi Fang, Caroline Baker, Marcial Gonzalez Aug 2015

Powder Compaction Simulation, Yuqi Fang, Caroline Baker, Marcial Gonzalez

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Powders are one of most manipulated materials in many industries such as food, pharmaceutical, energy and metallurgical industries. An important process for the powders is the compaction into solids with small porosity or high relative density. However, powders exhibit complex behavior during this process. After rearrangement and jamming of the powder bed, many types of deformation mechanisms dominate the compaction of granular materials, including elastic and plastic deformation of each individual particle. Therefore, having a better understanding of macroscale and microscale properties of powder beds and single particles during the compaction process is necessary. In addition, to reduce cost and …


An Investigation Of The Applicability Of Sugar And Wax Valves For Rapid Molecular Diagnostics, Rui Shen, Jacqueline C. Linnes Aug 2015

An Investigation Of The Applicability Of Sugar And Wax Valves For Rapid Molecular Diagnostics, Rui Shen, Jacqueline C. Linnes

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Paper-based Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) of nucleic acids is a low-cost molecular diagnostic method to detect biological pathogens and has been successfully combined with lateral flow devices. This invention is a low-cost visual detection technique of various disease. However, existing assays require multiple user-activated steps and are relatively complicated to use at the point of care due to steps like the heating process. This project aimed to investigate an ideal valve for integrating LAMP onto the lateral flow assay. An ideal valve needs to be able to stop the fluid flow for 20-60 minutes under 65 degree to complete the …


Experimental Design And Construction For Critical Velocity Measurement In Spin-Orbit Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates, Ting-Wei Hsu, Yong P. Chen Aug 2015

Experimental Design And Construction For Critical Velocity Measurement In Spin-Orbit Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates, Ting-Wei Hsu, Yong P. Chen

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Quantum simulation using ultra-cold atoms, such as Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs), offers a very flexible and well controlled environment to simulate physics in different systems. For example, to simulate the effects of spin orbit coupling (SOC) on electrons in solid state systems, we can make a SOC BEC which mimics the behavior of SOC electrons. The goal of this project is to see how the superfluid property of BECs change in the presence of SOC. In particular, we plan to measure the critical velocity of an 87Rb BEC with and without SOC by stirring it with a laser. This laser needs …


Wireless Power Transfer To A Small, Remote Control Boat, Mark M. Oscai, Michael D. Sinanis, Abbas Semnani, Dimitrios Peroulis Aug 2015

Wireless Power Transfer To A Small, Remote Control Boat, Mark M. Oscai, Michael D. Sinanis, Abbas Semnani, Dimitrios Peroulis

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Over the past few decades, researchers have explored and implemented methods of wireless power transmission to operate devices that traditionally have been powered using plug-in power supplies and batteries. It is with this objective in mind that we built a boat, which is powered wirelessly from a field of harvestable energy. This project sought to develop a wirelessly powered remote control boat to be a proof of concept for the idea of wireless power transfer. Our criteria for success is that the boat should receive sufficient power to run anywhere in a 2.5 meter squared area. Having defined the field …


Phase Transforming Cellular Materials (Pxcms) Design And Assembly, Nadia N. Aljabi, Pablo Zavattieri, David Restrepo Aug 2015

Phase Transforming Cellular Materials (Pxcms) Design And Assembly, Nadia N. Aljabi, Pablo Zavattieri, David Restrepo

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

We introduce a new class of phase transforming cellular materials (PXCMs) based on locally bistable or metastable unit cells that form periodic microstructures, where the thermomechanical behavior of each unit cell exhibits snap-through type behavior. We propose to explore the capabilities of these new materials to improve structural resistance to damage caused by natural hazards including PXCM in structural members. The main benefits of this material are that it can absorb energy and is reusable. During the first part of this work, a fabrication method for PXCMs based on the assembly material slotted stripes was explored. The 1D unit cell …


Indentation Probing Of In Vitro Bovine Articular Cartilage: Effects On Chondrocyte Viability And Tissue Biomechanics, Pablo F. Argote, Alan Poon, Xin Xu Ph.D, Corey P. Neu Ph.D. Aug 2015

Indentation Probing Of In Vitro Bovine Articular Cartilage: Effects On Chondrocyte Viability And Tissue Biomechanics, Pablo F. Argote, Alan Poon, Xin Xu Ph.D, Corey P. Neu Ph.D.

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Osteoarthritis (OA) consists of a degenerative disease on articular cartilage, which is prone to excessive mechanical loading and frictional resistance that leads to the wear and tear of the tissue. These factors result in the progressive and incurable disease that affects millions of people worldwide. The goal is to characterize chondrocyte viability and the in vitro biomechanical properties of articular cartilage in two confined indentation studies. One study looks at the chondrocyte viability over seven days. The second compares the immediate effects of strain rates on chondrocyte viability and tissue biomechanics. Bovine cartilage explants are harvested, cultured, and then 40% …


Thermodynamic Analysis Of Phenylpropanoid Pathway In Arabidopsis Thanliana, Patrick J. Ioerger, Rohit Jaini, John A. Morgan Aug 2015

Thermodynamic Analysis Of Phenylpropanoid Pathway In Arabidopsis Thanliana, Patrick J. Ioerger, Rohit Jaini, John A. Morgan

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Biofuels represent a renewable alternative to traditional fossil fuels. As dependence on fossil fuels rise so does the importance of improving the production of alternative fuels. Lignin poses one obstacle in the development of such alternative fuels. Its presence strengthens cell walls and hinders degradation of polysaccharides into monosaccharides, increasing cost and time while decreasing efficiency of the process. Lignin is composed of three monolignols, each of which is produced through the Phenylpropanoid pathway; a series of chemical reactions. This work aims to determine which reactions in the pathway are least thermodynamically favorable and thus most limiting. From metabolic mapping …


Role Of Soil Parameters On Loading Of Buried Structures, Xiao Zhang, Mark D. Bowman, Rafael R. Armendariz Briones Aug 2015

Role Of Soil Parameters On Loading Of Buried Structures, Xiao Zhang, Mark D. Bowman, Rafael R. Armendariz Briones

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Load rating is the process to evaluate and explore the structural capacity of bridges as much as possible within safety range. As a balance between economy and safety, proper load ratings save money and keep public safe. Knowing the contribution and interaction of each different soil parameter on the loading can significantly reduce the amount of work when load rating those structures. However, for buried structures without plans, such contribution or interaction is never known. This parametric study explores how much each soil parameter of three types of soils can affect the loading of buried structures without plans. An existing …


Bioengineered Cell Niche For Skeletal Muscle Regeneration, Nicole M. Whittern, Naagarajan Narayanan, Chunhui Jiang, Owen Jones, Jay Gilbert, Michael Whittern, Shihuan Kuang, Meng Deng Aug 2015

Bioengineered Cell Niche For Skeletal Muscle Regeneration, Nicole M. Whittern, Naagarajan Narayanan, Chunhui Jiang, Owen Jones, Jay Gilbert, Michael Whittern, Shihuan Kuang, Meng Deng

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Skeletal muscles can self-repair minor strains, lacerations, and contusions; however, in cases of volumetric muscle lossand muscle degenerative diseases, tissue fails to regenerate. Current cell-based therapies, such as myoblast transplantation, have significant drawbacks of low survival rates and engraftment efficacy, mainly due to the absence of supportive cell microenvironment. Scaffolds that mimic the natural cell microenvironment provide a robust platform to support cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. Electrospinning is a versatile technology platform used for fabricating the fiber scaffold that mimics the extracellular matrix. Thus, we aim to reconstitute the cell microenvironment through development of aligned fiber scaffolds by …


Straining Definitions, William Pollalis, Santiago Pujol Aug 2015

Straining Definitions, William Pollalis, Santiago Pujol

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The concept of strain is ubiquitous in engineering textbooks. It is defined early in engineering education as change in length divided by initial length, and is used to quantify deformations due to things like stresses and temperature changes. The concept itself is quite straightforward and represents homogenous materials well, but homogenous materials are rarely present in engineering design. Composite materials such reinforced concrete cannot be simply defined, as their properties are heavily influenced by their non-uniformity. For example, there are large deformations around tensile cracks in reinforced concrete, where the reinforcement withstands all the tensile stress, and little deformation in …


Refinement And Validation Of A Real-Time Airborne System For Remotely Sensing Ocean Surface Using Communication Satellite Signals, Benjamin R. Nold, Han Zhang, James L. Garrison Aug 2015

Refinement And Validation Of A Real-Time Airborne System For Remotely Sensing Ocean Surface Using Communication Satellite Signals, Benjamin R. Nold, Han Zhang, James L. Garrison

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The ability to remotely sense ocean wave heights and wind speed by measuring the reflected Radio Frequency (RF) signals from the ocean’s surface has been demonstrated in previous research projects. The recording systems for these research projects collected and stored unmodified RF signals and then analyzed the data through post-processing. Several disadvantages to this approach include large requirements for data storage and lengthy post-processing time. To assist in the creation of a suitable platform for an airplane-based application, a new system was designed which features real-time processing of the RF signals. This system captures two RF signals in the 2.4 …


Assessment Of Critical Technologies For Gas Turbine Engines Using Numerical Tools, Vinicius Pessoa Mapelli, Guillermo Paniagua, Jorge Sousa Aug 2015

Assessment Of Critical Technologies For Gas Turbine Engines Using Numerical Tools, Vinicius Pessoa Mapelli, Guillermo Paniagua, Jorge Sousa

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In 2014 gas turbine engine has reached a market value of 82.5 billion dollars, of which 59.5% are related to aircraft propulsion. The continuous market expansion attracts more and more the interest of researchers and industries towards the development of accurate numerical techniques to model thermodynamically the entire engine. This practice allows a performance and optimization analysis before the actual experimental testing, reducing the time and required investment in the design of a new engine. In this paper, a recently developed open source numerical tool named “Toolbox for the Modeling and Analysis of Thermodynamic Systems” (T-MATS) is used to assess …


Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings In Kathmandu, Nepal, Prateek Pratap Shah, Santiago Pujol Aug 2015

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings In Kathmandu, Nepal, Prateek Pratap Shah, Santiago Pujol

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In seismically active cities like Kathmandu, there often exists a need to assess the seismic vulnerability of a large number of poorly designed buildings within a short period of time. Traditional analysis techniques do not work because they require building data that are either inaccurate or unavailable. One alternative to traditional analysis techniques is to use simple correlations like the Priority Index. This index uses basic building information such as floor area, column area, and wall area to estimate the seismic vulnerability of a building. Following the 2015 Nepal earthquake, 146 low-rise reinforced concrete buildings were surveyed in Kathmandu, Nepal. …


Efficient Exploration Of Quantified Uncertainty In Granular Crystals, Juan C. Lopez Ramirez, Marcial Gonzalez, Ilias Bilionis, Rohit K. Tripathy Aug 2015

Efficient Exploration Of Quantified Uncertainty In Granular Crystals, Juan C. Lopez Ramirez, Marcial Gonzalez, Ilias Bilionis, Rohit K. Tripathy

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Granular crystals present unique nonlinear properties that support standing waves. These depend on precompression and impurities. Thus, they can be used for different applications such as impact and shock dissipation. There are different models which rely on reasonable approximations and assumptions. While experimental results show good agreement with theory, there are experimental errors that are not easily explained and are usually attributed to the approximations made and phenomena that are not accounted for. This might be the result of not quantifying the uncertainty, since variables like the grain size, position, mass and Young modulus, of each particle, are uncertain. Building …


Angiotensin Ii-Induced Hypertension In Apolipoprotein E-Deficient Rats, Sydney N. Gorman, Craig J. Goergen, A Nicole Blaize Aug 2015

Angiotensin Ii-Induced Hypertension In Apolipoprotein E-Deficient Rats, Sydney N. Gorman, Craig J. Goergen, A Nicole Blaize

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are characterized by a weakened vessel wall and a diameter 50% greater than normal. AAA are usually asymptomatic until they are near rupturing, which can be fatal if not treated immediately. Apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE) mice are commonly used as a model to study aneurysm growth. Our lab has created a similar model using rats, which are more similar to humans. This study focuses on the analysis of blood pressures collected from ApoE rats for comparison with a known mouse model. Five ApoE rats (1 female, 4 males) received subcutaneous implants of osmotic mini pumps that released …


The Effects Of Vagus Nerve Stimulation On Neuroinflammation In Epilepsy, Elizabeth A. St. Clair, Gabriel O Albors, Pedro Irazoqui Dr., Amy Brewster Aug 2015

The Effects Of Vagus Nerve Stimulation On Neuroinflammation In Epilepsy, Elizabeth A. St. Clair, Gabriel O Albors, Pedro Irazoqui Dr., Amy Brewster

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by chronic, unexplainable seizures. Recurring epileptic seizures are associated with long-term structural damage and cognitive deficits, and can even lead to sudden, unexplainable death. Approximately 30% of epilepsy cases are not responsive to medication. Epileptic seizures often induce inflammation in the brain and may increase the frequency of future seizures, resulting in a detrimental cycle. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a non-pharmaceutical treatment method for epilepsy that has been shown to reduce inflammation in peripheral pathways. The role of VNS in the modulation of neuroinflammation has yet to be demonstrated experimentally. To explore this, …


Long-Term Tillage System Impacts On Soil Erodibility, Julianne R. Chechanover, Dennis C. Flanagan Aug 2015

Long-Term Tillage System Impacts On Soil Erodibility, Julianne R. Chechanover, Dennis C. Flanagan

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Conservation tillage practices, such as no-till agriculture, have the potential of reducing the erodibility of a soil compared to conventional agricultural practices. This research sought to determine whether long-term agricultural practices affect the baseline erodibility properties of a soil. Two soils from Throckmorton-Purdue Agricultural Center in Tippecanoe County, Indiana were used during this experiment. One soil was treated with a long-term conventional tillage (fall chisel, spring disk) system and the other soil was treated with a long-term no-till system. The soils’ interrill erodibility, and rill erodibility and critical hydraulic shear stress were measured under a rainfall simulator using soil boxes …