4353 research outputs found
Sort by
Final Project Report Team Photoreactor
Full text linkFor this year-long design project, a team of four engineering seniors was tasked with building an improved photoreactor system for the Cooley Lab’s photoinitiated polymerization reactions. The existing reactors suffered from inconsistent lighting conditions and an extreme rise in the test space temperature of 20-45°C above the ambient temperature. Additionally, the four different boxes that the lab used took up significant bench space and varied widely from one another. These adverse conditions limited the Cooley Lab’s ability to generate quality, replicable data for publication, so the team sought to provide an alternative. The final photoreactor design improves the end-user functionality by incorporating removable modular light trays of three different wavelengths, a high-speed fan for regulating the internal temperature, convenient drawers to hold samples in cuvettes or 96 well plates, and a button-operated user interface to automate the reaction runtime.
The team built the photoreactor with the goal of meeting the following project requirements: minimize heat generation, produce light that is constant in time and space for three different wavelength options, run simultaneous and independent reactions in cuvette or 96 well plates, withstand the cleaning chemicals used in an organic chemistry lab, and provide an understandable user interface that runs autonomously for a set run time. After extensive testing, our prototype has met or nearly met all of its requirements. The final design reduced the internal heat generation to +2°C for green light panels, +3°C for UV panels, and +6°C for blue panels. This slightly exceeds our goal of +2°C, but is a significant improvement from the previous system because it represents an overall reduction in both temperature and variability between wavelength options. In 96-well orientation, the green and blue light panels produce a spatial temperature distribution where all light intensities are within 5% of the mean value with respect to both time and space. The exterior of the photoreactor is constructed from acetone-resistant high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and the user interface accurately shuts off the lights and fan after the timer reaches a given reaction time.
After completing our design, we partnered with current research students in the Cooley lab to run side-by-side reactions in our prototype and the former photoreactor system. Our prototype increased the degree of polymerization during the reaction and the automatic shutoff was significantly more convenient for the research students. At this time, we have a fully operational prototype to present to our sponsor that satisfies the major requirements that we set for the project.
In this document, we discuss the project requirements in more detail and present a summary of the data from each of our tests. In addition, we give an overview of the construction methods we used and instructions for safe operation of the photoreactor. We would like to thank Dr. Cooley for her responsiveness and support throughout this process as well as our Senior Design Administrator, Dr. Darin George, and our Project Advisor, Dr. Keith Bartels. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the project team if you have any questions or concerns, and we are pleased to present our work in this final project report
Rock-Paper-Scissors Robot
Full text linkThe design incorporates a sophisticated Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) playing interface, amalgamating robotics, audio control, gesture recognition, and display functionalities. At its core, the system employs a robotic hand mechanism featuring pulleys and fishing wire to simulate finger movements. This mechanism is orchestrated by servo motors through a PIC system, which receives commands from the Arduino. The Arduino serves as the central processor and begins a round when the player hits the reset button. It triggers an audio prompt at the onset of each round using an Icstation Recordable Sound Module, prompting the player to make their move. The Arduino then selects the RPS move based on the player\u27s gesture captured via flex sensors integrated into their glove. These sensors, acting as variable resistors, detect finger movements and interface with the Arduino through a voltage divider circuit and ADC. The system operates in two modes: easy and hard. In easy mode, the move selection is random, while in hard mode, a rational agent determines the optimal move. Once both the player and the robotic hand have made their moves, the Arduino determines the winner and updates the scores on an LCD connected via I2C communication. This comprehensive integration of hardware components and intelligent algorithms offers an engaging and interactive RPS gaming experience, combining physical interaction with digital feedback seamlessly
La escucha de los soplos: Chamanismo y proposiciones ontológicas sobre el lenguaje en el Alto Río Negro, Amazonas
Full text linkLa región del Alto Río Negro-AM es considerada una de las áreas con mayor intensidad de multilingüismo en Brasil e incluso en el mundo. Hay un total de 23 pueblos indígenas que hablan lenguas de las familias lingüísticas arawak, tukano y hup, yuhup, dâw y nadëb. El presente trabajo busca analizar, desde un enfoque comparado, cómo un sistema regional multilingüe y multiétnico se compone no sólo de exogamia lingüística, sino también de la articulación ontológica entre endoexogamia lingüística y dialogismo chamánico. Comienza con el estudio del antropólogo tukano João Rivelino Barreto sobre el arte del diálogo chamánico tukano para describir proposiciones ontológicas fundamentales sobre la traducción, la dialogicidad, la escucha y la alteridad. Luego, se analiza la propuesta del líder Américo Socot sobre la imposibilidad de nombrar una familia lingüística para las lenguas hup, yuhup, dâw y nadëb, mostrando las diferencias ontológicas y los supuestos conceptuales sobre lengua, vida y familia. ¿En qué medida la escucha atenta de las proposiciones ontológicas sobre el lenguaje de líderes, chamanes y antropólogos hupd’äh y tukano nos permite comprender cómo se delinean regímenes de producción de alteridad a partir de la producción simultánea de una reflexión-experiencia-persona que genera el multilingüismo chamánico rionegrino
Mercury’s Shadow: The Pharmaceutical Sources of Hysteria
Full text linkThis essay reconsiders the nineteenth-century epidemic of hysteria in the context of common pharmaceutical practice. Examining the health records of industrial workers, Civil War soldiers, and such prominent figures as Abraham Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, this essay argues that hysteria in its distinctive nineteenth-century manifestation was the result of mercury poisoning. Physicians throughout the nineteenth century commonly prescribed mercury treatments for everything from teething and diaper rash to dysentery and syphilis. Nineteenth-century Americans were habitually exposed to mercury, and yet physicians did not recognize the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning, which included numbness and paralysis of hands and limbs, tremors, seizures, and difficulties speaking, seeing, and walking. The symptoms of mercury poisoning correspond directly with the symptoms of hysteria, and even Sigmund Freud’s famous case histories of hysteria attest to the presence of mercury in his patients’ medical backgrounds. It is no accident that hysteria disappeared in the early twentieth century, just as antibiotics and more effective treatments emerged, but hysteria’s legacies nonetheless endure in recent environmental catastrophes and episodes of pharmaceutical malpractice
Remembering Change: Interdependence between Change Awareness and Meaningful Connection in Achieving Proactive Facilitation
Full text linkTwo experiments investigated proactive facilitation (PF) or interference (PI) in the recall of recently learned targets, under conditions of assessing the detection and recollection of target changes across two learning phases (with A-B/A-D word pairs). Some changes established meaningful connections across the phases; others did not. Task instructions on the subsequent cued-recall test (Experiment 1) or during Phase-2 study (Experiment 2) guided participants (university students) to monitor and report the changes. Accuracy in cued recall conditionalized on measures of change awareness replicated previous findings in establishing conditions for PF and PI. However, PF was much reduced for unconnected materials. Moreover, when change recollection failed, PI occurred even under conditions of meaningful connections (Experiment 1). Discussion emphasizes this interdependence of meaningfulness of connections and change awareness in influencing whether and how memory for earlier events affects memory for more recent one
