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Hardware Implementation of High-Precision Priority Encoders
No full textWe introduce a generalized method for constructing high-precision priority encoders and decoders by dividing them into multiple levels. This builds upon our previous work which introduced the idea of two-level hardware. We extend this concept to three levels using two different techniques (cascading and composition) and comment on further generalization. We analyze hardware delay and complexity as a function of input precision for both FPGA and ASIC implementation technologies. Our results show that the two-level priority encoder reduces complexity by about half, with a corresponding increase in delay. Adding additional levels introduces incremental improvements, but has overhead and diminishing returns. Thus, each number of levels is best for a particular range of input precisions
Polar Robotics Interface Board
No full textIn robotic football, the internals of each robot must be durable, reliable, and flexible and require connections between various components, including motors, sensors, and control systems. However, maintaining these connections and components, through the brutal nature of robotic football itself, as well as through repairs and redesigns, poses a significant challenge. Given this, there is a need for a centralized, protected connection system that is adaptable and functional for years to come. This research project aims to design a circuit board that provides connection and protection for all necessary components in a robotic football robot. The design will centralize all connections while shielding components from overcurrent, overvoltage, and voltage glitching due to user error and physical impact. Furthermore, the design will focus on versatility and modularity, minimizing the need for significant modifications. By adding modularity into the design, individual components can be replaced or added without requiring a complete redesign of the system. This allows greater flexibility without excessive cost, ensuring that the system remains functional and relevant over time. By achieving this, the project seeks to provide a long-term, cost-effective solution for robotics teams, reducing component failure and the need for constant updates. This research will not only enhance the performance and longevity of the robot using various protection circuits, but also prevent irreparable damage that would cause the whole board to need to be replaced. The modular design will reduce maintenance costs and make it easier than ever to adapt. Ultimately, this project aims to create a scalable, adaptable, and protected system that serves as a model for future robotics designs, reducing maintenance needs and ensuring long-term sustainability and reliability
Investigating Design Canvases Impact on Student Performance
No full textThe first year of an engineering undergraduate program is an integral part of the students\u27 academic development. Although the first-year engineering (FYE) community lacks universal learning objectives and course outcomes, these courses commonly introduce students to the university and profession while also covering professional and engineering skills. At Ohio Northern University (ONU), students experience and practice problem framing and solving skills. The students utilize design process canvases that guide them through initial steps of a design process. Four canvases help the students identify an opportunity statement, stakeholders, and design specifications. While the canvases are theorized to aid the design process, their direct impact on students’ education development is still being understood. This study aims to understand how the design canvases impact FYE students in their introductory engineering courses. Approximately twenty-five volunteer students, placed into groups of four to six students based on a range of factors, completed study activities. The groups completed a set of canvases based on a design prompt. Artifacts from the design prompts were evaluated using a predeveloped rubric. Students were given the opportunity to express their opinions on the design canvases and FYE course in focus groups. Researchers conducted the design prompts and focus groups at the beginning and end of the spring semester of 2024. Researchers observed and analyzed a variance in student group performance based on the grouping factors. Students provided critical feedback in the focus groups that is being used to refine the canvases to promote a streamlined design process
Sick Days - Diabetes Management
No full textDiabetes is the eighth leading cause of death in America. It affects over 38 million Americans with 2 million of them having type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition where the pancreas makes little to no insulin, and therefore cannot convert blood glucose into energy. The buildup of blood glucose in the bloodstream can lead to diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). DKA is life threatening. It occurs when the cells in the body do not get the proper amount of glucose for energy causing the body to resort to burning fat for energy. As fat is burned, ketones are produced making the blood more acidic. The rising acidity becomes toxic to the body and can lead to coma or death. The most common causes of DKA are when insulin is not given after a meal and during illness. Training from the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Program and approval by the Institutional Review Board at Ohio Northern University were completed before starting research. Utilizing the Delphi method, a focus group of four to six residents from Ohio with type 1 diabetes who have a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device discussed managing diabetes during sick days. Emphasis was placed on the education of sick day management, such as how to adjust dosing, signs of DKA, and how to prepare for sick days to ensure blood glucose is correctly managed. After convening the discussion, a handout was made that focused on key information that type 1 diabetics should know about managing their blood glucose during sick days. This research helps identify the baseline information newly diagnosed patients with type 1 diabetes should know about managing their blood glucose during sick days and how to best be prepared
Color Psychology\u27s Role in Evoking Emotions: A Study of Brand Identity in Health-Focused Pop Brands
No full textAbstract: Color Psychology\u27s Role in Evoking Emotions: A Study of Brand Identity in Health-Focused Pop Brands
Question: How does the application of color psychology in brand identity of health-focused pop brands influence the emotional response of consumers?
With brands like Poppi, Zevia, and Lollipop gaining popularity, there\u27s a growing interest in exploring factors that contribute to their success, including the role of color psychology. In a crowded marketplace, establishing a strong brand identity is crucial for differentiation and attracting consumers, as it can evoke specific emotions. Does the application of color psychology influence the emotional response of consumers to these brands?
The insights gained from this research contains valuable information for marketers and designers. Designers and marketers can tailor their communication strategies to their target audience. This can include refining brand messaging, packaging design, and marketing campaigns to leverage the emotional connections.
The methodology for this study consists of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods such as self-ethnography, visual anthropology, psychographics, competitor profiling, and marketing research, such as a questionnaire. The insights gained from this research will provide understanding into the emotional bonds formed between consumers and healthy pop brands alternatives
Differing Maternal Outcomes Between Flexible Sacrum and Supine Birthing Positions
No full textProblem: Often hospitals encourage a supine birthing position, even though other labor and delivery positions may prove more beneficial. Previous research indicates that flexible sacrum birthing positions provide the most beneficial maternal outcomes.
Purpose: The purpose of this project is to compare maternal outcomes during labor when birthing in a flexible sacrum or supine birthing position is used.
Methods: This project will be a mixed methods outcomes survey. Patients will complete a survey following delivery to determine material satisfaction. A retrospective chart review of maternal outcomes will include labor position, length of hospital stay, perineal damage, instruments used to assist labor, and length of time in active labor. Maternal outcomes of mothers laboring in the flexible sacrum position will be compared to those laboring in the supine position.
Conclusion: When compared to supine birthing positions, flexible sacrum birthing positions increase comfort and satisfaction, decrease perineal damage, decrease length of hospital stay, decrease amounts of instruments needed to assist delivery, and decrease length of time spent in active labor. It is recommended that flexible sacrum birthing positions be used as appropriate to improve maternal birth outcomes
Second Thoughts on How we Treat Animals
No full textMost people place nonhuman animals in a completely different moral category than humans, which makes it much easier to justify treating them differently. Many humans consider and treat animals as a mere resource, whether it be for food, entertainment, or transportation. However, such treatment towards humans would be considered cruel and barbaric, due to the pain and suffering it would cause. In defense of such behavior, people contend that humans are superior to or more valuable than animals, making their pains and sufferings deserving of greater consideration. When examined however, many of the reasons for why humans should be considered superior are weak. It’s not clear that the pain and suffering a human experiences is much worse than that a dog experiences, so it doesn’t seem reasonable to allow a dog to needlessly suffer, and the same goes for all other animals. It is right of us to give moral considerations to humans for the sake of their ability to experience pain and suffering. However, it is wrong of us to be inconsistent and fail to grant the same moral considerations to the pains and sufferings experienced by nonhuman animals
Assessing another potential threat to the snakes of Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area: Cryptosporidium serpentis
No full textAssessing another potential threat to the snakes of Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area: Cryptosporidium serpentis
Grant M. Beck 1 [email protected] Joseph R. Szoke 1 [email protected] Riley L. Yunker 1 [email protected] Pam Dennis, MSL, DVM, PhD 2 [email protected] Amy Aulthouse PhD 1 [email protected] Dennis De Luca PhD 1 [email protected] Eileen Wyza 3 [email protected] Katherine Krynak PhD 1 [email protected]
1. Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio 45810 2. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Cleveland, Ohio 44109 3. Ohio Division of Wildlife, Columbus, Ohio, 43229
Ohio snakes are threatened by numerous synergistically acting factors including habitat degradation, predation by feral cats, misguided fears, and pathogens/parasites. Two notable pathogenic threats are Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, which causes snake fungal disease and a protozoan parasite, Cryptosporidium serpentis. C. serpentis affects the gastrointestinal tract causing weight loss and ultimately death. It is primarily known from zoo-housed animals. This parasite was recently discovered in Thamnophis radix at both Ohio Northern University and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, threatening the captive breeding program of this state endangered species. Infections were diagnosed via molecular and histological techniques. These snakes had been originally collected at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area (KPWA) located in Wyandot and Marion Counties. Given that these snakes had been quarantined since collection, it begs the question: how prevalent is C. serpentis infection in wild snake populations at KPWA? We propose to use the annual snake surveys hosted by ODNR to study prevalence of this parasite across snake species. KPWA is home to four imperiled species: massausaga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus), Kirtland\u27s snake (Clonophis kirtlandii), plains gartersnake (Thamnophis radix), and smooth green snake (Opheodrys vernalis). We are proposing to utilize visual encounter surveys and coverboard arrays to collect snakes for our survey. Cloacal swabs and subsequent qPCR analysis would be used to examine parasite load across species. We predict that prey species and habitat preferences of the snakes may influence Cryptosporidium sp. prevalence
Low-dose psilocybin sex-dependently enhances fear extinction in adult rats
No full textFear-related psychological disorders, such as specific phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), represent a major public health issue. It is thought that these disorders develop, at least in part, through fear conditioning processes. Thus, treatment often involves exposure therapy, a technique based on the concept of extinction. However, this type of therapy is ineffective for many individuals. To augment extinction learning, researchers have paired exposure therapy with pharmacological agents that enhance neuroplasticity (e.g., D-cycloserine), but the results of such manipulations have been inconsistent. It is possible that psychedelics, which have been largely unexplored in their ability to enhance extinction learning, could aid in exposure therapy. Indeed, preclinical research suggests that several psychedelic substances, such as MDMA and DMT, enhance synaptic plasticity. Thus, we explored the dose-dependent effects of the 5-HT2A agonist psilocybin on fear extinction in adult rats.
On Day 1, adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were placed in a fear conditioning chamber (Context A). Following a 3-min acclimation phase, the rats were presented with 5 tones (10-sec, 2-kHz) that each co-terminated 1-sec, 1-mA footshocks; there was a 60-sec interstimulus interval (ISI) following each tone-shock pairing. On Day 2, the rats were injected intraperitoneally with psilocybin (0.3 or 1 mg/kg) or vehicle (0.9% saline) 30 min prior to undergoing fear extinction in a novel environment (Context B). During extinction, the rats were given a 3-min acclimation phase, followed by 30 tone presentations (60-sec ISIs) without any footshock. On Day 4, rats underwent extinction recall by being placed in Context B; the test began with a 3-min acclimation phase, followed by 10 tone presentations (60-sec ISIs) without any footshock. Freezing behavior was quantified by FreezeFrame software (Actimetrics, Inc.). Analyses of freezing behavior during training and early extinction demonstrated that all rats developed strong fear of the tone. Most importantly, the low dose of psilocybin enhanced extinction learning in males but slowed extinction learning in females. This differential impact of psilocybin on extinction was maintained during extinction recall the next day. Our findings suggest that a low dose of psilocybin augments extinction learning in males, but not females. The sex-dependent nature of this effect warrants additional research