26242 research outputs found
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Infrasound from Shoshone Falls, ID, USA
No full textThis is one of the datasets referred to in a paper on waterfall infrasound by Jacob Anderson, Hugo Ortiz, and Jesse Barber, that relates a waterfall\u27s infrasound to its physical characteristics (height, discharge, and power), maps infrasound power over the waterfall\u27s surroundings, and models audibility distance for pigeons as an example of a well-studied infrasound-sensitive animal
Development of a Modular Thumb Support with Multi-Directional Locking to Improve Post-Stroke Thumb Opening and Positioning
No full textStroke is a leading cause of long-term adult disability and frequently impairs voluntary control of the hand. Disruption to the brain’s motor pathways weakens the muscles responsible for finger extension while also increasing involuntary tone in the finger flexors. This imbalance makes it difficult to extend or release the hand, hindering daily activities and slowing rehabilitation. Although dysfunction affects the entire upper limb, effective thumb positioning—particularly in abduction, extension, and opposition—is essential for functional hand use. Most orthotic devices focus on supporting grasp but offer little assistance for controlled hand opening or repeatable thumb positioning. To address this gap, a modular thumb support attachment was developed for a lab-designed hand orthosis. The design includes a multi-layered spherical joint with a position-locking cam handle, allowing for manual locking and multi-directional adjustment. The attachment was designed to align with natural thumb movement and provide support for abduction and extension without interfering with grasp. It remains low-profile and lightweight for user comfort and integrates directly into the existing hand orthosis framework. Preliminary self-testing demonstrated improved comfort, positioning, and ease of use during repeated motions. This early-stage prototype presents a promising direction for adaptable, user-centered orthotic tools that support functional hand rehabilitation
Peak Knee Flexion and Real-World Running: Indoor-Outdoor Differences in Joint Kinematics with Markerless Motion Capture
No full textLow-cost, portable markerless motion capture has demonstrated promise to accurately measure joint kinematics during running – particularly within controlled laboratory spaces. Yet, the capability to measure joint kinematics in less controlled environments, like an outdoor recreational run, is unknown. This study sought to evaluate lower limb joint kinematics with markerless motion capture while individuals ran indoors and outdoors running over different surfaces. We hypothesize that markerless motion capture will overestimate peak lower limb flexion during both indoor and outdoor running compared to traditional marker-based systems, but markerless derived peak flexion angles will be greater outdoors. Up to 24 participants (12 male and 12 female) will have lower limb biomechanics recorded when running a comfortable sustained pace in laboratory by both markerless and marker-based motion capture, and by markerless motion capture at two instances during a longer outdoor run. Peak hip, knee and ankle joint flexion will be submitted to analysis. We expect that markerless motion capture will consistently overestimate peak lower limb flexion, particularly at the knee, and markerless derived flexion angles will be greatest during outdoor running. Providing researchers and clinicians the accurate markerless capability will improve accessibility of rehabilitation, sports performance, and clinical diagnostics
Probing Biomolecular Forces in Nanoscale Water Systems with COIFM
No full textOur research focuses on a new, novel instrument, the Cantilever-based Optical Interfacial Force Microscope (COIFM). This unique tool is used to measure extremely tiny forces between surfaces at the molecular scale. Its most prominent feature is its force feedback system which employs a photothermal laser to balance out the forces acting upon the cantilever. This technology allows for highly accurate, distance-dependent force measurements at the nanoscale, as it eliminates the ‘snap to contact’ problem that Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) devices are known for.
Our primary goal is to investigate a groundbreaking idea: that the water molecules forming a hydration layer around biomolecules are not simply unstructured, but arrange themselves into organized chain-like structures, known as water chains. Previously, the only data reported with the COIFM was using a flat silicon surface, with a 10 nm silicon-oxide tip approaching the surface in an ambient environment. This did however show the oscillatory forces that were then shown to be the work of water chains. For the first time, the COIFM will be used to approach two single biomolecules, avidin and biotin, in a liquid environment, the most natural state for biomolecules. Through this research, we hope to significantly improve our understanding of important phenomena like long-range molecular interactions, which are relevant across biology, chemistry, and nanotechnology
Data Driven Solutions: Understanding Turnover Trends and Tenure Among OIT Student Employees
No full textStudent employees in the Office of Information Technology (OIT) gain a lot of experience and are proven valuable to the division, but are not transitioned into long-term, full-time positions after graduation. Many leave their roles prior to graduation, and this study sought to explore why student employees leave their jobs with OIT and how this information may be used to reduce student turnover rates. Student employment data from 9 departments with employee departure dates between 2021-2024 was analyzed using R Studio, pivot tables, and graphs. Among the student employees who left OIT voluntarily, nearly half (33 students) left in May, indicating a significant seasonal trend. Also notable, July 31st, 2021, experienced the highest hire rate of the period analyzed, with 12/87 employees being hired, almost 15% of students in this timeframe. Additionally, among the 9 departments that were analyzed, 1 department (cloud computing) boasted both the highest salary for students and the longest tenure. By understanding the reasons behind student departures, OIT can better retain valuable student employees and provide a stronger workforce pipeline
Thermal Sensitivity of Perennial Mountain Springs in the Gibson Jack Watershed
No full textMountain springs are commonly thought to be reliable, cold, high-quality water sources in semi-arid landscapes like Idaho. However, some springs have been observed to dry during hot summer months. These observations suggest that the capability of a spring to maintain cold water flows throughout the year may vary across the state, but springs are usually excluded from watershed models and no exhaustive inventory of Idaho springs currently exists. This limits accurate predictions of which springs will remain thermally stable. To explore the drivers of thermal sensitivity, we developed an inventory of springs throughout a research watershed, and collected elevation, latitude, longitude, canopy cover, discharge, water temperature, lithology, catchment area, and curvature data at each of the perennial springs. The thermal sensitivity of each spring was calculated by determining the slope of the best-fit line between the daily air temperature and daily water temperature for each spring, and a random forest model was then constructed to predict thermal sensitivity based on the observed characteristics. We found that all random forest models performed poorly, suggesting springs’ thermal sensitivity may have a complex connection between surface and subsurface elements. By understanding the controls of thermal stability in mountain springs, we may be able to more accurately predict environments that could support robust ecosystems and provide cold, reliable, high-quality water in a warming climate
Enhancing Architectural History Education with AI-Generated Imagery
No full textLeveraging generative AI to enrich established pedagogy, this project reimagines architectural-history instruction through purpose-built, visually provocative imagery. Guided by Wölfflin’s comparative binaries, Venturi’s dialectic of complexity, and Davis’s visual-culture analytics, we curate supervised, citation-rich datasets of canonical buildings and fine-tune Midjourney, DALL-E 3, and Stable Diffusion to produce hybrid renderings that fuse—yet never obscure—their source precedents. Targeted prompt engineering and model-specific control nets enable deliberate manipulation of massing, proportion, and ornament, foregrounding formal parallels and cultural divergences to sharpen comparative discussion. Pilot studio workshops show marked gains in students’ visual-literacy scores and catalyze livelier debate, while faculty report the images’ utility as springboards for speculative design. Ongoing analysis is cataloguing prompt–image–learning correlations to establish replicable best practices and to build an open-access repository of annotated AI visuals. By uniting historiographic theory with supervised machine creativity, the study delivers a scalable toolset for architecture educators and a transferable model for humanities-centered AI scholarship
Air Pollutants in Wildfire and Prescribed Fire
No full textWildfires in Western states have risen in frequency and intensity over the last two decades, contributing to degradation in air quality. This study examines volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles of wildfire smoke and prescribed fire smoke, as well as indoor and outdoor environments. Air samples were collected using sorbent tubes in Idaho and Montana during various smoke events and analyzed using thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS). Several VOCs were measured, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) which are air toxics that can impact human health. Overall, indoor air was more contaminated than outdoor air during wildfire smoke. Increased levels of BTEX are a concern as they contribute to the risk of cancer and other health effects
Mechanical Assessment of Limb Asymmetry Across Reserve Officer Training Corps Branches
No full textLimb asymmetry in muscular strength and force production may contribute to injury risk and reduced retention in military trainee populations (Reserve Officer Training Corps - ROTC). This project aims to examine these asymmetries during concentric and eccentric phases of motion among ROTC cadets. Participants were recruited from ROTC units (n=44) — 21 Air Force [Means: 74.67 kg, 172.1 cm], 10 Army [Means: 77.25 kg, 174.86 cm], 6 USMC [Means: 69.43 kg, 175.12 cm], and 7 Navy [Means: 77.94 kg, 176.84 cm] — to participate in two sessions. Session one consisted of obtaining consent and participant familiarization with the isokinetic dynamometer. During session two, participants performed isometric concentric (con) knee flexion/extension, isokinetic (60 deg/sec & 120 deg/sec) con/con knee flexion/extension, and isokinetic 90 deg/sec con/eccentric (ecc) knee flexion/extension. Participants were instrumented for motion capture with dual embedded force platforms to measure mechanics during lunging, landing, and jumping tasks. Bilateral mechanical asymmetries were assessed in single and double leg mechanics with the hypothesis that greater limb asymmetry will be positively correlated with decreased peak force output. Differences between the branch and service year of all dependent variables were assessed using multiple one-way ANOVAs
Accessibility and Inclusion of Students with Disabilities at the University of Idaho
No full textSince 2006, the number of undergraduate students with disabilities has increased from 11% to 19.4 % across four-year universities nationwide (Pingry O’Neill et al., 2007; Tarconish et al., 2023). However, compared to students without disabilities, those with disabilities have lower rates of enrollment, retention, and graduation (Soria, 2021). They also report a lower sense of belonging and rate their campus climate worse than nondisabled peers (Soria, 2021). This project focuses on collecting data on student attitudes towards campus climate, environment, and services in comparison to markers of student success and satisfaction. A survey was conducted in the Fall semester of 2024, with a final sample of n=371 University of Idaho students with and without disabilities. The study’s authors found that compared to students without disabilities, students with disabilities experience significantly higher levels of loneliness, and significantly lower levels of course and social academic self-efficacy. Additionally, they rate their satisfaction with campus accessibility features much lower and the importance of those features much higher than their nondisabled peers. The authors recommend that the University of Idaho explore accessibility and inclusion efforts for students with disabilities in order to address these issues.
References
Pingry O’Neill, L., Markward, M., & French, J. (2007). Predictors of Graduation Among College Students with Disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 25(1), 21–36.
Soria, K. (2021). Supporting Undergraduate Students with Disabilities: A Focus on Campus Climate and Sense of Belonging (pp. 1–16). National Center for College Students with Disabilities.
Tarconish, E., Lombardi, A., & Taconet, A. (2023). Disability Awareness & Inclusive Teaching Online Training Videos for College Instructors Featuring Students with Disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 35(4), 339–353