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Communicating Mathematics Comps Profile
No full textEven if you have the best ideas, if you can’t articulate them to friends, family, and colleagues, what really is their value? In this comps, I practiced writing mathematics and communicating my ideas in a variety of different genres, including a book review, a blog post, a NYT op ed, and even writing for a children’s magazine! This variety of projects provided many opportunities for me to grow and develop my ability to communicate technical ideas in a range of different contexts
Exploring the different mechanisms by which Candida albicans Enhances Staphylococcus aureus Virulence in Peritonitis and Oral Candidiasis
No full textYou Are What Eats You: Understanding the Gut Microbiome’s Relationship with Alzheimer’s Disease
No full textPeroxisomal Disruptions at the Lipid Droplet Interface: Implications for Insulin Resistance
No full textFrom Sensory Organelle to Evolutionary Catalyst: The Impact of Primary Cilia and Sonic Hedgehog Signaling on Phenotypic Plasticity
No full textPhenotypic plasticity is a cornerstone of vertebrate evolution, enabling rapid morphological and functional adaptations to environmental pressures. This paper explores the central role of primary cilia and Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) signaling in mediating these adaptive changes across diverse species. Case studies reveal how SHH upregulation drives eye degeneration and enhanced sensory capacities in Astyanax mexicanus, craniofacial plasticity underpinning rapid cichlid speciation, and the modular evolution of limb structures in snakes and the Galapagos cormorant. These findings highlight the versatility of SHH signaling as a driver of phenotypic plasticity and in turn evolutionary innovation. Primary cilia and Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) signaling are essential drivers of phenotypic plasticity and therefore should be considered an underappreciated mechanism for adaptive evolution in vertebrates, as they enable significant morphological adaptations necessary for survival in changing environments
Role of Beta Cell Cilia in Insulin Exocytosis
No full textCilia are hair-like membrane bound signaling organelles that extend from the membrane of most cells throughout the human body (Polino et al. 2023). They are derived from the centriole and their cytoskeletal structure, the axoneme, is composed of multiple pairs of microtubules (Satir and Christensen 2007). Cilia are involved in functions ranging from development of the body plan to sensing vibration in the inner ear (Satir and Christensen 2007). Due to their wide range of function and difference in structure, they are often divided into two categories, primary cilia and sensory cilia (Satir and Christensen 2007). One of the functions of primary cilia is their role in metabolic processes and related diseases such as adipogenesis, insulin secretion, and obesity (Hilgendorf et al. 2019; Lee et al. 2020; Wu et al. 2021). Insulin is secreted from beta cells in the pancreas. Cilia present on beta cells have many diverse mechanisms by which they modulate insulin release (Hughes et al. 2020; Wu et al. 2021; Cho et al. 2022). Although primary cilia do not possess a physical barrier separating them from the cell body, the signaling pathways involved in beta cell cilia insulin regulation are distinct from cytosolic signaling (Truong et al. 2021). These mechanisms of ciliary insulin modulation are currently underappreciated and underrepresented as important modulators of insulin release. Beta cell cilia modulate insulin release independent of cell body signaling and so are critical for normal beta cell secretory function
Smartphone Inertial Measurement Unit System
No full textIn this paper, we will explore the physics principles that enable a smartphone to detect and interpret environmental inputs through its sensors. The accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer are sensors that are used daily, and you might not even realize how you are using them. We will explore how the inertial measurement unit system (IMUS) tracks different types of motion and direction in real time. The IMUS consists of the accelerometer, gyroscope and the magnetometer. These sensors use laws of mechanics, electricity and magnetism along with laws of thermodynamics. By connecting these elements, we can begin to understand how smartphones are designed and operate, which can help us learn and understand the advancement of future phones
Re-interpreting borehole breakouts and corresponding lithology from well logs in central California: Implications for stresses near the San Andreas fault system
No full textBorehole breakouts are a significant dataset for inferring stress directions in the shallow crust. Breakouts are interpreted to be perpendicular to the maximum horizontal compressive stress direction (SHmax) assuming that wall rocks are homogeneous and isotropic. Previous studies from central California found SHmax derived from breakouts at a high angle to the San Andreas fault, which led to the idea that the fault must be unusually weak to slip under these stress conditions. This study examines wireline logs of wells that were previously studied by Castillo and Zoback (1994). I repick breakouts from 6 wells using revised criteria for determining breakouts and compile sedimentary bedding from dip logs. For the six wells with available logs, the dominant SHmax direction varies from 45º to 131º in azimuth. In four sites this direction parallels the dip direction of bedding; in two sites it parallels the strike of bedding. These SHmax results disagree with the published results of Castillo and Zoback (1994) due to their various data management errors but are comparable to the given mean azimuth of breakouts in their data. I also create stratigraphic columns and analyze lithologic information from a variety of logs, primarily data, mud, and sidewall core logs. Breakouts sometimes begin in host rock layers where grain size dramatically changes and may occur in smaller grain size material. The further exploration of lithologic and bedding anisotropy is crucial to interpreting borehole breakouts assumed stress direction and impacts the current understanding of the San Andreas fault system
Nanoconfined Metal Hydrides as Hydrogen Storage Materials
No full textHydrogen storage has the potential to enable a renewable energy economy. This talk will focus on Mark D. Allendorf’s research on the development of hydrogen storage materials. Metal hydrides are one promising class of hydrogen storage materials, but there are kinetic and thermodynamic limitations to the practical use of bulk metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. Nanoconfinement is a powerful tool to alter the chemistry of these materials. By confining metal hydrides within nanoporous molecular frameworks, Allendorf and his collaborators have improved (de)hydrogenation reactions by making them faster, favorable at lower temperatures, and reversible over multiple cycles. Allendorf also explores how these advances in fundamental research can be leveraged for practical applications in larger systems like cars
Malayalam Causatives Have Two Layers of Voice: A Present-Tense Reply to Krishnan & Sarma (2023)
No full textRecent literature (Nie 2020) has brought to attention difficulty in accounting for morphological causatives using only one layer of Voice, because of the different semantic and syntactic require- ments that accompany the causativisation of unergatives and transitives when compared with unaccusatives. In this paper, I argue that the typology of 8 verb forms in Malayalam in the one-Voice theory of √AGENT adjunction proposed by Krishnan & Sarma (2023) can be refined to 10 verb forms by instead adopting Nie’s (2020) two-Voice structure. I make this argument based primarily on morphosemantic evidence with a secondary focus on the feature geometry of phonological processes that alter the morphology after Spell-Out. This re-analysis also focuses on expanding the understanding of causativisation in Malayalam beyond the past tense and highlights changes to the /N/ non-active morpheme and the /kk/ causative morpheme that only surface in the present tense