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Using drone and AI to map Leaf water potential and stem water potential for water stress management in commercial vineyards
No full textCompost composition effects on microbial communities, deep carbon, and nutrient cycling in organic dry-land wheat systems
No full textUV-A Light Activated Biodegradable Antimicrobial Packaging: A Sustainable Hurdle Technology for Food Preservation
No full textCalibration and Systems Engineering Collaboration
No full textSystems engineering and calibration engineering are critical to the efficient development, production, and operation of complex systems. Systems engineering provides the framework for the system lifecycle, ensuring stakeholder needs are met through integrated solutions. Calibration engineering ensures the accuracy, reliability, traceability of measurement, and compliance with standards. Coordination between system engineering and calibration ensures that instrumentation, control systems, and system performance are enabled. As the lifecycle coordinator, systems engineering relies on calibration engineers to reduce risks, optimize development, and ensure operational success.
However, the relationship between these disciplines is often poorly coordinated, as noted in tabletop discussions at CalCon 2024. By improving coordination, efficiency is increased, risks are reduced, and performance is improved. Throughout the lifecycle, coordination is essential for optimized and cost-effective system development, production, and operation.
This paper explores the interactions between systems engineering and calibration engineering across the lifecycle, highlighting how early and continuous collaboration addresses challenges such as traceability, compliance, and risk management. Through insights from industry practitioners, it aims to improve coordination between these disciplines, contributing to the successful realization of complex systems
Space 101 (EPS Electrical Power System)
No full textIntroduction Power Storage (Battery) Power Generation (Solar Arrays) Power Regulation & Distribution Other EPS function
Enhancing Grid Integration of High-Power Loads Through Modular Unfolding-Based Power Conversion With Decentralized Control
No full textThe transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is a critical step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating a cleaner, more sustainable transportation sector. However, many drivers — particularly those operating larger vehicles such as trucks and buses — face significant challenges, including limited driving range and lengthy charging times. High-power, fast-charging stations, which can rapidly replenish EV batteries, are therefore essential for mitigating these barriers and making electric transportation practical across all vehicle classes. Despite the promise of electric vehicles, deploying high-power fast-charging stations presents significant challenges. They require large amounts of electricity, making them expensive to install, operate, and connect to the power grid. This research focuses on improving the core technology inside these charging stations: the systems that convert electricity from the grid into a form EVs can use. This work introduces a new power converter design that can connect directly to the medium-voltage power grid. The design is more efficient and flexible, reducing both cost and complexity. The research also addresses key technical challenges to unlock the full potential of this system. While the technology directly supports EV fast charging, its impact extends further. It can benefit other high-power applications, such as data centers, and the research contributes to the broader field of power electronics by addressing fundamental design and control challenges. These advances support the development of a more resilient, efficient, and intelligent electric infrastructure for a clean energy future
Built for Participation: A Set of Measures for Evaluating Community Living for People of all Abilities as Supported by the Built Environment
No full textAs the world enters a new era of urban living, it is important to develop cities that allow residents of all ages and abilities to fully participate in society. Integration of people with disabilities into daily community living involves looking beyond site- or product-specific features to community- and city-wide systems. Some tools have been developed to begin evaluating cities’ levels of inclusive social participation and to provide recommendations for city planning professionals. However, the tools that have been developed often are too complex for practical use or rely on data that varies in obtainability. Therefore, the purpose of this series of papers is to develop a set of measures, based on current disability and planning literature, that can be used to inform city planning professionals and direct priorities for fuller social participation.
This thesis project includes a thorough review of the literature to identify elements of the built environment that support social participation. Building on the literature review, the second part of the study includes a case study on a small regional city in the Intermountain West. This case study will provide context for developing measures to evaluate the presence and quality of built environment elements that support social participation. The results will inform city officials and planning professionals of the areas in which they can focus their efforts and funding in city development. Discussion of the measures—including their practicality, potential accuracy, and reflections on the process—will provide insight into how they can be refined for use in other contexts
Understanding Impact of Starter Culture Blends on the pH Variation in Cheddar Cheese During Early Aging
No full textConsumer expectations govern what is acceptable when it comes to the flavor, texture, and color of the cheese. These quality attributes of cheese are all influenced by the pH of the cheese which is in turn controlled by the acid production of the starter lactic acid bacteria (SLAB) used to make cheese. Whatever the final pH of the cheese is, is what determines the quality of the cheese. Unfortunately, there are some Cheddar cheese manufacturers that have observed pH variation during the early aging of their cheeses. We hypothesize that the addition of thermophilic, fast-acid producing bacteria, like Streptococcus thermophilus, as a SLAB is causing the pH variation.
To test this hypothesis, both simulated and traditional Cheddar cheese productions were undertaken. The simulated cheese production was done with a benchtop biofermenter where the temperature profile of a traditional Cheddar cheese production was mimicked to determine the rates of acidification of commercial Cheddar cheese starter culture blends containing mixtures of mesophilic and thermophilic bacteria. It was found that these starter culture blends had statistically different rates of acidification during the post-cook and Cheddaring phases of the make. The starter culture blends containing thermophilic bacteria also showed a plateauing or increase in the pH at the end of the simulated cheese production which could have been mimicking the variation of the pH during the manufacturing of commercial Cheddar cheese.
The same commercial starter culture blends were used in their traditional Cheddar cheese productions. Over the course of the cheese production and the first six weeks of aging, pH measurements were taken. While the pH of the cheeses were found to not be significantly different during aging, the cheeses made with 100% S. Thermophilus did have a higher pH and all the cheeses made with thermophilic bacteria had an increase in their pHs from the time of salting to after pressing.
These results strongly suggest that the inclusion of thermophilic, fast-acid producing bacteria into Cheddar cheese starter culture blends is behind recent pH variation in commercial Cheddar cheese manufacturing
Species Differences in the Biotransformation of Aflatoxin B1: Primary Determinants of Relative Carcinogenic Potency in Different Animal Species
No full textIt has been known since the early days of the discovery of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) that there were large species differences in susceptibility to AFB1. It was also evident early on that AFB1 itself was not toxic but required bioactivation to a reactive form. Over the past 60 years there have been thousands of studies to delineate the role of ~10 specific biotransformation pathways of AFB1, both phase I (oxidation, reduction) and phase II (hydrolysis, conjugation, secondary oxidations, and reductions of phase I metabolites). This review provides a historical context and substantive analysis of each of these pathways as contributors to species differences in AFB1 hepatoxicity and carcinogenicity. Since the discovery of AFB1 as the toxic contaminant in groundnut meal that led to Turkey X diseases in 1960, there have been over 15,000 publications related to aflatoxins, of which nearly 8000 have addressed the significance of biotransformation (metabolism, in the older literature) of AFB1. While it is impossible to give justice to all of these studies, this review provides a historical perspective on the major discoveries related to species differences in the biotransformation of AFB1 and sets the stage for discussion of other papers in this Special Issue of the important role that AFB1 metabolites have played as biomarkers of exposure and effect in thousands of human studies on the toxic effects of aflatoxins. Dr. John Groopman has played a leading role in every step of the way—from initial laboratory studies on specific AFB1 metabolites to the application of molecular biomarkers in epidemiological studies associating dietary AFB1 exposure with liver cancer, and the design and conduct of chemoprevention clinical trials to reduce cancer risk from unavoidable aflatoxin exposures by alteration of specific AFB1 biotransformation pathways. This article is written in honor of Dr. Groopman’s many contributions in this area
Proximal Remote Sensing: An Essential Tool for Bridging the Gap Between High-Resolution Ecosystem Monitoring and Global Ecology
No full textA new proliferation of optical instruments that can be attached to towers over or within ecosystems, or ‘proximal’ remote sensing, enables a comprehensive characterization of terrestrial ecosystem structure, function, and fluxes of energy, water, and carbon. Proximal remote sensing can bridge the gap between individual plants, site-level eddy-covariance fluxes, and airborne and spaceborne remote sensing by providing continuous data at a high-spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we review recent advances in proximal remote sensing for improving our mechanistic understanding of plant and ecosystem processes, model development, and validation of current and upcoming satellite missions. We provide current best practices for data availability and metadata for proximal remote sensing: spectral reflectance, solar-induced fluorescence, thermal infrared radiation, microwave backscatter, and LiDAR. Our paper outlines the steps necessary for making these data streams more widespread, accessible, interoperable, and information-rich, enabling us to address key ecological questions unanswerable from space-based observations alone and, ultimately, to demonstrate the feasibility of these technologies to address critical questions in local and global ecology