Engineering Commons^™

Development Of Anti-Cancer Small Molecules To Inhibit The Base Excision Repair (Ber) Pathway By Binding Apyrimidinic/Apurinic (Ap) Sites In Dna, Ellen S. Ledford, Robert M. Tackett, Elizabeth M. Thomas

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Two of the main treatments available to patients with cancer are radiation and chemotherapy which both rely on the ability to induce DNA damage. One reason cancer deaths perpetrate is due to cancer resistance towards current cancer therapies. The Base Excision Repair (BER) pathway is involved in therapeutic resistance by utilizing DNA glycosylases that recognize and remove the damaged DNA base to leave the aldehyde. Apyrimidinic/Apurinic (AP) enzyme 1, APE1, then recognizes the aldehyde to trigger DNA repair. Alkoxyamines function to competitively covalently bind the aldehyde generated from the AP site. Once the aldehyde is covalently bonded with the alkoxyamine, …

Seasonal Abundance And Sex Ratio Of Earwigflies (Merope Tuber) In Eastern Kentucky, Abigal Fagan, Sean O'Keefe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The earwigfly is a rarely seen insect in the family of scorpionflies. There are three species total, one in Brazil, one in Australia, and the third (Merope tuber), widespread throughout the eastern United states. In a 1984 study, Chris Maier collected 69 earwigflies between 1977 and 1982 from New England. Most of these were collected in July using sticky traps. He collected 43 females and 26 males (sex ratio 2.4:1). In a 2014 study, Skvarla, Hartshorn, and Dowling collected 77 earwigflies from Arkansas, mostly in August using malaise traps, pan traps, Lindgren funnels, and pitfall traps. They collected 58 females …

Pressure Injuries In A Clinical Setting: A Quality Improvement Project, Colby Pugh, Kayla Blain, Chloe Patrick, Clarissa Baker, Mackenzie Hopkins, Jarrett Elam, Suzi White

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The purpose of this quality improvement project is to develop a teaching tool aimed at decreasing the incidence rate of pressure injuries in the clinical setting specifically those in intensive care settings. Pressure injuries are a common preventable hospitalacquired complication. The occurrence of pressure injuries is higher in an ICU setting than in a non-ICU setting with 30% and 27.6% respectively during a one-year time period. The development of a teaching tool to be distributed to nurses' stations, staff workrooms, and nurse managers seeks to improve ICU staff nurses' education on the topic of pressure injures at a large urban …

What Majors Are Chosen By Undergraduate Students Leaving Accounting? A Review Of The Literature, Sarah E. Lager, Kimberly Fatten

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Undergraduate accounting retention research has focused primarily on why students choose an accounting major, but less is known about what programs students go to when they exit an accounting major.

Data Quality Analysis Of 200 Gev Center Of Mass Energy P-Au Collisions From Star, Keaghan Knight, Kevin Adkins

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

In proton collisions, fragmentation functions describe the probability that a given parton in the initial state creates a particular hadron in the final state. Understanding fragmentation is essential for a theoretical description of measured asymmetries that provide a glimpse of the proton's spin structure. Proton-gold collisions from the STAR detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory will provide a complementary result, using reconstructed jets, to the global data which comes mostly from electron-positron annihilation experiments. A first step in extracting fragmentation functions is to perform a quality analysis (QA) of the data. This poster shows a look at the data and our …

Funding Achievement In Kentucky, Brett Blair, James Masterson

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

It is no surprise that the proper education of a population ranks high on the list of important accomplishments within a society. After all, a population’s education can affect its ability to perform at a high capacity. The education of Kentucky’s children is no different. Recent years have seen large disparities in the resources available to each school in Kentucky, which could have effects on the educational output of regions in the state. Though research has been conducted on concepts such as school funding, educational quality, and education reform, this research tends to be lacking in specificity and consistency. (DeYoung, …

Quantifying Ant Populations To Measure Biodiversity In Morehead, Ky, Alyssa Turner, Jude Hall, Tayla Lee, Charles Lydeard, Sean O'Keefe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

To effectively conduct conservation efforts, we can use biodiversity to assess the condition of our environment. Biodiversity has been commonly defined as the variety and variability among living organisms within an area. When our ecosystems are at their best, they clean water, purify air, maintain soil, regulate climate, recycle nutrients, and provide food. Everything within an ecosystem is interdependent, so biodiversity is an important factor and indicator of environmental health. Indicators help us to measure and monitor pressures or threats in land and water use, habitat loss or invasive species, the state of species and ecosystems, the conservation response, and …

Economic Feasibility Of Rainwater Harvesting:A Case Study At Morehead State University, Riley Q. Williams, Vijay Subramaniam

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) was primarily considered as a source for freshwater supply or a conservation practice for over coming water shortages in drought prone areas. By retaining storm-water run-off for on site use, harvesting systems reduce the runoff volumes and pollutant masses entering waterways. Consequently, using roof-top RWH as a best management practice has been encouraged by many state and local governments. Some of the most interesting aspects of RWH are the methods of capture, storage, and the use of this natural resource at the place it occurs.

Combating Nursing Burnout: A Quality Improvement Project, Heather Randolph, Maddy Mcelfresh, Addie Short, Cailey Dahlquist, Jenna Bartley, Suzi White

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Nursing burnout costs the health care industry roughly 14 billion dollars a year. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased burnout rates. Many nurses feel overworked and underappreciated; this has caused a negative impact as it is influencing the rates of burnout among hospital staffing globally. Over half a million registered nurses have already left their profession nationwide due to stress and workload (Bruyneel, Smith, Tack, & Pirson, 2021). Burnout has diminished staff, depleted resources, and decreased quality of care.

Predicting Cryptocurrency Price Change Direction From Supply-Side Factors Via Machine Learning Methods, David Mayo, Heba Elgazzar

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Cryptocurrency prices are highly variable. Predicting changes in cryptocurrency price is a hugely important topic to investors and researchers, with much existing research on demand-side factors. The goal of this research project is to design and implement machine learning models to predict future cryptocurrency price change direction based primarily on supply-side factors. Different unsupervised machine learning techniques are used to build the predictive models. These techniques include K Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Naïve Bayesian Classifier, and Random Forest Classifier. A dataset of 10 daily supply-side metrics for three prominent cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and …

Genes Repressed After Dna Damage In Acinetobacter Baumannii Are Co-Regulated By Umudab And Ddrr, Mollee Flannigan, Xiaohong Li, Eric Rouchka, Deborah Cook, Janeele Hare

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

UmuDAb and DdrR coregulate error-prone polymerases in the multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogen, Acinetobacter baumannii, by repressing polymerase expression until after DNA damage. New evidence indicates that these proteins may also regulate other genes that are repressed following DNA damage. We performed an in silico analysis of RNA-Seq data from wild-type, ddrR, and umuDAb mutant strains to examine the expression levels of genes repressed after DNA damage. We used two different algorithms to analyze Cuffnorm- and HTSeq normalized gene counts. This analysis revealed nineteen (CuffDiff) or twenty-nine (DESeq2) genes repressed in wild-type cells that were derepressed after DNA damage in either …

Comfort Women: The Climax That Exposed Japanese Culture, Olivia Dale, James Masterson

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

When a nation attempts to erase the history of a marginalized group, the preservation of such narratives becomes critical. The genuine culture of a nation is exposed when that which officials attempted to hide is analyzed. The comfort women scheme conducted by the Imperial Japanese Government serves as an example of this phenomenon. The comfort women system was more than sex trafficking; it was the climax of a sexist society. Japan had a long history of organized prostitution before the Second World War, but during the conflict, the demeaning actions committed against women extended beyond the nation. The Japanese government …

Analytical Method Development For The Analysis Of E-Liquids, Calista Dean, Charlotte Gabbard, Emma Schmittzehe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Electronic cigarettes are one of the most commonly used methods of nicotine delivery, especially among the adolescent population. Due to the lack of regulation in manufacturer labeling of refillable nicotine solutions (e-liquids), the actual concentration of nicotine and other additives is variable as compared to the reported values. Misreporting of nicotine content is a contributor in the development of nicotine dependency and potentially tobacco product dependency. The objective of this research is to develop reliable analytical methods to study the variations in nicotine levels in e-liquids, and to identify and quantify other potentially harmful additives in e-liquids. In this research …

Understanding The Nonlinear Dynamics Governing Vertical-Lift Vehicles With Variable-Speed, Fixed Rotors, Stephanie Vavra, Micah Busboom, Aleea Stanford, Keegan Moore

UNL Student Research Days Posters, Undergraduate

Problem: Traffic significantly limits travel in urban areas. • The NASA Urban Air Mobility Project is developing an air taxi as an alternative mean of transportation (Fig. 1).

Challenge: Operating rotors at different frequencies may cause the cabin to vibrate at high amplitudes. Such effects are currently unknown.

Objective: Understand the effect of variable speed rotors on passenger comfort.

From the reduced-order modeling simulations, it can be assumed that counteracting the rotor speed in-balances can reduce the displacement and vibrations experienced at the center of the wing. In other words, should a rotor not maintain its optimal operation speed, reducing …

Mechanical Behavior Of Materials, Joshua P. Steimel

Pacific Open Texts

This text serves to cover in more detail solid mechanics concepts and specifically the material response to stress and strain. This text spans solid mechanics concepts from stress and strain at an atomistic length scale, to linear elasticity, anisotropy, linear viscoelasticity, plasticity, dislocation generation and interactions, and fracture.

Quasi In-Situ Ebsd Analysis Of Twinning-Detwinning And Slip Behaviors In Textured Az31 Magnesium Alloy Subjected To Compressive-Tensile Loading, Yuzhi Zhu, Dewen Hou, Qizhen Li

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Twinning and detwinning behavior, together with slip behavior, are studied in a textured AZ31 magnesium alloy under compressive and tensile strains along the rolling direction (RD) after each interrupted mechanical test via quasi in-situ electron backscattered diffraction technique. The results show that twinning firstly takes place under the compressive strain along the RD. With the increasing compressive strain, {1012} tensile twins firstly nucleate, then propagate, and finally thicken. While under a reversed tensile strain along the RD, detwinning occurs. No nucleation happens during detwinning. Thus, tensile twins can detwin at lower tensile strain, followed by thinning, shortening, and vanishing. Slips …

A Low-Cost, Long-Range, And Solar-Based Iot Soil Quality Monitor, Salvador Garcia, Trina Nguyen, Julian Wong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

The project objective is to create a low-cost, long-range, and solar-based IoT soil quality monitoring system. The system must transmit packages of data gathered from separate nodes, consisting of two different types of sensors, to a centralized gateway receiver to be displayed to the user in an elegant and readable manner. The end goal of the project is to supplement produce grown by large agricultural bodies around the United States without the misuse of water resources. This report presents the need for this system, details the components of the system, and the rationale behind design choices. It serves as a …

Comparing Microplastic Amounts In Southern Freshwater Sources, Akshi Puvvada, Zora Paschel, Patrick Yu

Expo Student Presentations

2022 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

Cmos Sensor Image-Acquisition And Image- Processing Control System Architecture, Haruka Kido

Electrical Engineering Student Publications

This report demonstrates an assessment of a PCAM camera module’s OV5640 CMOS sensor image-acquisition electrical circuit network system and hardware implementation for associated FPGA-modulated image-processing techniques using Digilent’s Zybo Z7-20 development board’s FPGA (Zynq 7000 SoC). By comparison between the control system architectures of 2 proposed Active Pixel CMOS sensor electrical network configurations (both 1 Row 1-Column Select Implementations) using electrical network transfer function derivations, time responses, Root Locus Plots, Bode Plots, and their system characteristics as preliminary analyses, FPGA-modulation of the CMOS sensor through image format adjustment is developed as an example of image properties adjustment enabled by the …

In-Situ Calibrated Digital Process Twin Models For Resource Efficient Manufacturing, David Adeniji, Julius Schoop

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The chief objective of manufacturing process improvement efforts is to significantly minimize process resources such as time, cost, waste, and consumed energy while improving product quality and process productivity. This paper presents a novel physics-informed optimization approach based on artificial intelligence (AI) to generate digital process twins (DPTs). The utility of the DPT approach is demonstrated in the case of finish machining of aerospace components made from gamma titanium aluminide alloy (γ-TiAl). This particular component has been plagued with persistent quality defects, including surface and sub-surface cracks, which adversely affect resource efficiency. Previous process improvement efforts have been restricted to …

K-Means Clustering Using Gravity Distance, Ajinkya Vishwas Indulkar

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Clustering is an important topic in data modeling. K-means Clustering is a well-known partitional clustering algorithm, where a dataset is separated into groups sharing similar properties. Clustering an unbalanced dataset is a challenging problem in data modeling, where some group has a much larger number of data points than others. When a K-means clustering algorithm with Euclidean distance is applied to such data, the algorithm fails to form good clusters. The standard K-means tends to split data into smaller clusters during a clustering process evenly.

We propose a new K-means clustering algorithm to overcome the disadvantage by introducing a different …

Annual Report 2022, Brandy Mcknight, Estevan Garcia

College of Engineering and Science Annual Reports

Along with new faces, Fall Quarter always brings a sense of adventure to the College of Engineering and Science, Louisiana Tech, and Ruston. It's nice to see the buildings filled with students eager to begin a new year of studies. We've reached the point in the quarter when students and faculty have settled into a rhythm, and first-year engineering students are well on their way to fabricating their first projects. Seeing their progress and watching them become part of the Tech community is one of my favorite things about the fall. We have you to thank for that.

During the …

The Causal Fairness Field Guide: Perspectives From Social And Formal Sciences, Alycia Carey, Xintao Wu

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past several years, multiple different methods to measure the causal fairness of machine learning models have been proposed. However, despite the growing number of publications and implementations, there is still a critical lack of literature that explains the interplay of causality-based fairness notions with the social sciences of philosophy, sociology, and law. We hope to remedy this issue by accumulating and expounding upon the thoughts and discussions of causality-based fairness notions produced by both social and formal (specifically machine learning) sciences in this field guide. In addition to giving the mathematical backgrounds of several popular causality-based fair machine …

Quantitative Evaluation Of Steel Corrosion Induced Deterioration In Rubber Concrete By Integrating Ultrasonic Testing, Machine Learning And Mesoscale Simulation, Jinrui Zhang, Mengxi Zhang, Biqin Dong, Hongyan Ma

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Chloride-induced steel corrosion seriously affects the durability of reinforced concrete structures. Rubber concrete, an environmentally friendly construction material in which waste rubber is recycled as a concrete component, has demonstrated superior resistance to chloride-induced steel corrosion and the subsequent concrete deterioration. However, quantitative evaluation of the degree of deterioration in rubber concrete based on nondestructive detection is challenging due to the complexity of the material. In this paper, reinforced concrete specimens with rubber contents of 0, 10% and 20% are subjected to the electrochemically accelerated corrosion experiments and monitored by ultrasonic testing. Six machine learning models are trained by the …

Impact Of Polymer Rheology On Gel Treatment Performance Of Horizontal Wells With Severe Channeling, Jianqiao Leng, Mingzhen Wei, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Gel treatment has been a cost-effective method to control the conformance of a reservoir with severe heterogeneity problems. The water channels in such reservoirs can be classified as open fractures or high permeability porous media with pore-throat network. Many simulation studies have been conducted to discuss gel treatment performance for conformance control. However, nobody considered the polymer rheology difference in open fractures and porous media in simulation. Previous simulation studies also ignored the residual resistance factor as a function of rock permeability rather than a constant parameter. In this study, a conceptual simulation model was established to simulate the linear …

Coconut Oil Space Cooler, Hannah Covington, Alexander Fessler, Largim Zhuta

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

During summer months there is reliance on air conditioning (A/C), which is energy intensive in nature. The mass use of A/C units during peak hours taxes the energy grid significantly as a demand spike occurs during these peak hours. This demand spike requires an equal response in supply which disproportionately produces greenhouse gas emissions as reserve power plants come online to meet this demand. These reserve power plants, are relatively inefficient, and more expensive to run than base load plants. The Coconut Oil Space Cooler utilizes the latent thermal storage capabilities of phase change materials (PCMs) to provide a temporary …

Saint Joseph Hall Retrofit, Jordan Masutomi, Martin Duran

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Santa Clara University has always strived to create a healthy and safe learning environment for students and faculty. The curriculum taught at the University empowers students, faculty, and staff to build a more humane, just, and safe world. With safety at the forefront of engineering ethics it is imperative that this is not only taught in our classrooms but also showcased in our campus infrastructure. Our project seeks to conduct a seismic retrofit for Saint Joseph Hall, a building that has served the Bronco community for over 100 years. In this paper we will discuss our investigation of old campus …

Evaluating Groundwater Storage Change And Recharge Using Grace Data: A Case Study Of Aquifers In Niger, West Africa, Sergio A. Barbosa, Sarva T. Pulla, Gustavious P. Williams, Norman L. Jones, Bako Mamane, Jorge L. Sanchez

Faculty and Student Publications

Accurately assessing groundwater storage changes in Niger is critical for long-term water resource management but is difficult due to sparse field data. We present a study of groundwater storage changes and recharge in Southern Niger, computed using data from NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. We compute a groundwater storage anomaly estimate by subtracting the surface water anomaly provided by the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) model from the GRACE total water storage anomaly. We use a statistical model to fill gaps in the GRACE data. We analyze the time period from 2002 to 2021, which corresponds …

Digital Versus Analog: How Well Do Audio Plugins Compare To Their Analog Counterparts, Aidan C. Mckernan

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

In the modern era, anyone can be an audio engineer. Recording equipment and microphones have never been more accessible to the consumer thanks to the rise of computers and digital signal processing. With the introduction of USB-powered audio interfaces, amateur artists can go from unknown to internationally viral overnight from the comfort of their own bedroom. With the introduction of audio plugins that model real analog recording equipment, professional audio engineers can take their work with them wherever they go. The ubiquity of computers has allowed such hardware and software to be priced competitively while retaining the precision required in …

Remote Crop Disease Detection Using Deep Learning With Iot, Ivy Chung, Anoushka Gupta

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Theses

Agriculture is such a vital part of our society, and according to the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), plant diseases are considered one of the two main causes of decreasing food availability. This paper explores not only the methods and findings of building a CNN-based disease detection model, but that of building a deployable remote crop disease detection system incorporating IoT technology. By using transfer learning with AlexNet, we were able to predict with 89.8% accuracy tomato plant images into one of the ten pre-defined disease classes. Our proposed system tracks plant health throughout the day by using …