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Driving and Beyond
No full textTransportation is a daily necessity in our lives, and many of us rely on driving our own automobile to get where we need to go. According to the Federal Highway Administration, in 2023 there were approximately 35 million licensed drivers aged 70 and older—fewer drivers than younger age groups and a group that drives fewer miles
The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Effects on Older People
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has had wide ranging effects on people of all ages. In many respects, older people had the same experiences as younger people, but there were some aspects of the pandemic unique to the older population. While COVID-19 cases have been equal among different age groups, older people experienced a greater number of hospitalizations and deaths compared to younger people
Optimizing a Pneumatic Metal Droplet Generator for Droplet Characterization
No full textA pneumatic droplet generator can be used to characterize droplet size and impact velocity. In this study, tin is melted in a heating chamber, and a solenoid valve sends pressure pulses to eject single droplets. This project investigates three factors that influence droplet formation, size, and impact velocity: (1) vent valve opening angle, (2) high-speed valve pulse width, and (3) applied pressure to the high-speed valve. Testing is performed with a baseline configuration of an 8 ms pulse width, opening angle of 20°, and applied pressure of 7.25 psi (~10 psi) to achieve repeatable droplet generation. Testing with a smaller nozzle diameter to achieve more controlled droplet ejection is also explored. The optimization of the droplet generator can aid future research to study droplet dynamics, such as spreading and heat transfer
Auditing Criminal Justice Minimalism
No full textIf criminal justice minimalism is a shared principle among criminal law scholars, it can help to clarify the quality of our disagreements. Every normative proposal in the criminal legal literature can be held to the minimalist standard—audited, so to speak, to account for the policy author’s minimalist claims. To this end, this Essay proposes a four-step framework by which to evaluate adherence to the minimalist principle, where each step serves as a hub for pointed scholarly debate regarding the path to minimalist criminal justice
A Case of Racialized Organizations: Black-Owned Vegan Restaurants in St. Louis, Missouri
No full textHow does functioning as a racialized organization impact a restaurant’s ability to advance the goals of a social movement? This paper highlights the role organizations play in the vegan social movement. In recent years, veganism has developed into a social movement with purported health and ethics benefits, though one in which Black members are not necessarily widely represented. The research that exists on Black veganism focuses on the ideological reasonings behind why some make the decision to adopt a plant-based diet, or spell out the fact that community and culture rank as top priorities when considering what foods to eat (Greenebaum 2018). The present research shifts the study of Black vegans to focus on the institutions in which African Americans might make decisions about the foods they consume, specifically Black-owned vegan restaurants.
Through a content analysis of Black-owned vegan restaurant websites and 29 in-depth interviews with respondents who identified as either owners or patrons of Black vegan businesses, this study examines whether and how Black-owned vegan restaurants utilize the processes of agency, credentialing, unequal resource allocation, and decoupled outcomes associated with racialized organizations (Ray 2019), and whether they do so in ways that upset racial hierarchies.
Findings show that Black owned vegan restaurants utilize the processes of enhancing agency, legitimizing unequal resource distribution when possible, and decoupling outcomes to function as racialized organizations and promote the goals of the vegan movement. Black owned vegan restaurants do not function as racialized organizations regarding the tenet of credentialing whiteness; however, they credential Blackness in their operations which in turn, functions to upset racial hierarchies. Overall, Black owned vegan restaurants functioning as racialized organizations allows them to advance the goals of the vegan movement for Black communities while persisting in the tumultuous industry of food service
Investigating Droplet Segmentation With Machine Learning Tools
No full textIn the study of Marangoni condensation through thermal images, a common task is to analyze the features of a single droplet. To do this, the droplet must first be segmented from the background. While this segmentation can be done by hand for small batch sizes, scalability quickly becomes an issue. As machine learning tools have historically been strong in image segmentation, this study analyzes the efficacy of implementing a U-Net machine learning model for this specific segmentation task. Through the process, tools were developed to help in the creation of training data, and algorithms were fine tuned to the specifics of the segmentation
MEMS 4110: Remotely Deployed Banner
No full textThis project works in tangent with the Design, Build, Fly club at Washington University in St. Louis as one of the specific challenges required for the 2026 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics\u27 national competition. A banner must be stowed, deployed, and released during flight and must not interfere with the existing flight mechanics of the remote control aircraft
MEMS 4110: The Egg Peeler
No full textThe purpose of this project is to assist the customer Neon Greens in accelerating their food preparation time by designing an egg peeler device. To have a better understanding of the customer needs and expectations, the design team participated in an interview with Neon Greens to address their vision and desires for this device. For the semester-long project, the team underwent various prototype stages, including the proof of concept, the initial prototype, and the final prototype. Our final design consists of a hopper that holds a batch of eggs on top and drops two eggs at a time, one on each side of a rectangular shaped device. Once an egg is loaded into the device, a rotating threaded rod moves the egg to the other side of the box. During this transport, textured patches on the side of the device crack and peel off the eggshells. This mechanism is doubled on both sides of the device to speed up the rate of eggs being processed
MEMS 4110: ASME Waste Collection Challenge
No full textFor this project, our goal was to design and build a remote-controlled wastecollection robot that could pick up trash bins and deliver their contents to a dumpsite while staying within the strict rules of the ASME challenge. The robot had to fit inside a 50 cm cube, drive through six-inch lanes, follow traffic rules, and be fully controlled by a six-channel RC controller. These constraints shaped almost every decision we made throughout the design process