houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
the goal of the sahara program is to utilize structured asics to meet the performance and security needs of the electronic components used in diverse department of defense applications said kostas amberiadis asic design engineer at intel corporation to accomplish this goal intel will develop a version of its easic tm technology with added security and ip (intellectual property) protection while significantly automating the whole design flow to drastically reduce its development time especially when converting from fpgas to strengthen chip security the sahara project will also explore reverse engineering countermeasures to prevent potential counterfeiting attacks fpgas are widely used in military applications today but the prospect and efficiency that structured asics deliver offer a promising look into the future sahara aims to enable a 60% reduction in design time a 10-times reduction in engineering costs and a 50% reduction in power consumption by automating the fpga-to-structured asics conversion said serge leef a program manager in darpas microsystems technology office in a press release announcing the project because of the nature of the program and the nature of the chips that we are trying to protect this project will not only bolster the semiconductor industry but will also have widespread impact in industries such as the smart grid and other critical infrastructure elements rajendran said rajendrans students and postdoctoral researchers are also working closely with intel on this project and receiving invaluable experience at this stage of their academic and professional careers to bridge the gap between academia and industry rajendran has worked with darpa in the past on partnerships such as the obfuscated manufacturing for gps program and the ongoing automatic implementation of secure silicon program this research was in part funded by the us government the views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies either expressed or implied of the us government
there is nothing glamorous about infrastructure even these days as congress debates the meaning of the word however modern high-quality infrastructure is critical to a vital strategic goal shared by the texas a&m university system and the us army: to build a world-class ecosystem for military technology innovation on the rellis campus its called the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) the texas a&m system board of regents took an important step toward this shared goal by appropriating $131 million for infrastructure improvements on the west side of rellis the improvements will undergird two testing ranges for next-generation technology: the innovation proving ground (ipg) and the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range the infrastructure package includes basic improvements water sewer and electrical power to areas around the runways of the former army and air force base it also includes fiber cabling to fully support 5th-generation (5g) internet capabilities 5g is really important to our partners and potential partners said ross guieb a retired army colonel serving as bcdc executive director the intel community dod (department of defense) and defense industry leaders are all watching closely with interest and excitement army commanders and other us military leaders eagerly await the completion of the bcdc over the next several years the $200 million complex is the result of a partnership between the us army futures command and the texas a&m system texas a&m engineering experiment station and the state of texas the bcdc includes the ipg the bam and other facilities that will bring together researchers from us universities the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of military prototypes the regents also approved three amendments to enhance bams instrumentation for research and testing bam will host enclosed testing of hypersonic vehicles directed-energy beams and the impact that hypersonic blasts have on various materials the changes improve the tubes rail guidance system add blast target tanks and a soft catch assembly that will safely recover flown objects for post-flight analysis and data collection the combined cost of the changes is $35 million bringing the total estimated cost to about $425 million at one kilometer long and 25 meters in diameter bam will be the nations largest enclosed hypersonic test range it will bridge a critical gap in us research capacity between lab-scale experiments and open-range tests which can cost tens of millions of dollars per test
the texas a&m university system board of regents has named dr john hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering at texas a&m university and interim agency director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) he will assume the duties of the position june 1 hurtado will oversee administration of the college and agency while a national search is conducted to fill the positions hurtado joined the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m in 2001 and serves as deputy director and chief technology officer for the bush combat development complex and professor of aerospace engineering his research areas include aerospace systems and robotics and his work is being used at nasa and sandia national laboratories his patented algorithms were developed for unique miniature robots that the smithsonian institution recently obtained for its permanent collection in the national museum of american history he earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from san diego state university and his masters and doctorate in aerospace engineering from texas a&m hurtado replaces outgoing vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories dean of the texas a&m college of engineering and agency director for tees dr m katherine banks who was named to these positions in 2011 and was appointed the 26th president of texas a&m in march
scientists from texas a&m university have developed an extension to an ordinary cellphone that turns it into an instrument capable of detecting chemicals drugs biological molecules and pathogens the advance is reported in reviews of scientific instruments by aip publishing modern cellphones include high-quality cameras capable of detecting low levels of light and eliminating digital noise through software processing of the captured images recent work has taken advantage of this sensitivity to produce cellphone cameras that can be used as portable microscopes and heart rate detectors the current advance is based on two types of spectroscopy one type known as fluorescence spectroscopy measures the fluorescent light emitted by a sample another known as raman spectroscopy is useful for detecting molecules such as dna and rna that do not fluoresce or emit light at very low intensities both types were used to develop this cellphone detector the system includes an inexpensive diode laser as a light source oriented at right angles to the line connecting the sample and the cellphone camera the right-angle arrangement prevents back-reflected light from entering the camera "in addition this right-angle excitation geometry has the advantage of being easier to use for the analysis of samples where a bulk property is to be measured " said author dr peter rentzepis the investigators studied a variety of samples using their constructed cellphone detector including common solvents such as ethanol acetone isopropyl alcohol and methanol they recorded the raman spectra of solid objects including a carrot and a pellet of bacteria carrots were chosen for this study because they contain the pigment carotene the laser light used in their system has a wavelength that is easily absorbed by this orange pigment and by pigments in the bacteria the investigators compared the sensitivity of their system to the most sensitive industrial raman spectrometers available the ratio of signal to noise for the commercial instrument was about 10 times higher than the cellphone system the sensitivity of the cellphone detector could however be doubled by using a single rgb channel for analysis the system has a rather limited dynamic range but the investigators note that this problem can be easily overcome through several hdr or high dynamic range applications that combine images from multiple exposures the additional components including the laser add a cost of only about $50 to the price of a typical cellphone making this system an inexpensive but accurate tool for detecting chemicals and pathogens in the field
will it be possible to design materials that are unfazed by extreme temperatures in the near future in a study published in the journal nature computational materials researchers at texas a&m university have described a computational tool to evaluate a materials suitability for high-temperature applications such as gas turbines for jet engines and electrical power generators the computational framework which incorporates artificial intelligence and basic physics can forecast how materials will behave under harsh conditions in a fraction of the time compared to other algorithms we have used an innovative and interdisciplinary approach for screening materials that is a million times faster than traditional techniques said dr raymundo arróyave professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and corresponding author on the study currently these types of calculations even for a small temperature above absolute zero are an enormous challenge because they are computationally expensive since the late 1800s gas turbines have been the workhorse of power generation this drum-shaped machine lined with a series of bent or curved blades converts chemical energy from burning fuel into mechanical energy when the turbines blades rotate this motion is then exploited either to propel an aircraft or generate electricity gas turbines operate in high-temperature corrosive conditions making them prone to damage and progressive deterioration and so designing materials that can withstand extreme temperatures has been an ongoing pursuit among an array of high-temperature tolerant materials ceramics known as max phases are known to have properties that bridge the gap between conventional ceramics and metals in other words they are less brittle than ceramics and have higher temperature tolerance than many metals these materials are ideal candidates for structural components for gas turbines and heat-resistant coatings said dr miladin radovic professor in the materials science and engineering department and a senior author on the study however only a few out of hundreds of possible max phases have been experimentally verified to be high-temperature corrosion and oxidation-resistant
dr karim ahmed assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university will collaborate with dr anders david ragnar andersson at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) to conduct research to better understand the breakdown of nuclear fuel in order to extend the nuclear fuel cycle the heavy metals that compose the fuel must have a targeted high burnup burnup is a measure of how much uranium is burned in the reactor the faster the energy is extracted from a nuclear source the more efficient the reactor runs this reduces the downtime for refueling as well as the number of fresh nuclear fuel elements needed at high burnup values however the fuel sometimes fragments presenting a potential technical challenge that is poorly understood this is where ahmed and his research team come in they were awarded a developmental fellowship as part of the 2019-20 edition of the texas a&m university system national laboratories office collaborative research program with lanl to pursue this issue we are developing a physics-based multiscale modeling approach to understand this fuel fragmentation phenomenon said ahmed while other research groups at texas a&m and lanl have developed independent submodels to look at different aspects of the complicated physical process of fuel fragmentation ahmeds project is the first step in integrating the models the current regulatory limit of fuel peak burnup sits at 62 gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium but the united states nuclear industry is considering increasing this limit to improve the economy and efficiency of electricity production before this extension can be approved the nuclear regulatory commission will likely require nuclear power plants to analyze a number of potential operational occurrences as well as their consequences a major factor in such analyzed scenarios is the behavior of fuel rods at high burnup we hope that our work will provide the nuclear community with guidelines to assess the most limiting conditions and possible mitigation strategies for safely extending the fuel peak burnup said ahmed ahmeds lanl collaborator andersson is an expert on atomistic modeling of nuclear materials as a long-term goal we plan on investigating the structure-composition-property relationships in nuclear materials through integrating physics-based multiscale models guided by the principles of integrated computational materials science and engineering he said
the texas a&m university system national laboratories office (nlo) was formed by the chancellor to be a conduit for expanding engagement with the national laboratories for faculty staff and students of the a&m system this office engages with all department of energy and national nuclear security agency laboratories and sites the nlo has developed a multi-element program to help texas a&m system researchers develop collaborative ties with researchers at los alamos national laboratory (lanl); execute the texas a&m system and lanl collaborative research projects; and formalize long-term relationships where appropriate such as through joint appointments
dr zachary grasley has been named the new head of the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university effective sept 1grasley has been the director of the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) at texas a&m since january 2018i am really excited for the opportunity to lead this dynamic department with such talented and hard-working staff students and faculty he saidwhile directing the cir he helped facilitate the initiation and continued development of the research labs and established significant collaborations with key external partners grasleys research spans from fundamental studies on mechanisms and modeling to applied solutions that lead to intellectual property and commercializationhe is a fellow of the american society of civil engineers the american concrete institute and the american ceramic society grasley also has held leadership and service roles in the american concrete institute and the american ceramic societyhe originally joined texas a&m in 2006 after completing his bachelors degree in civil engineering at michigan technological university and his masters and doctoral degrees in civil engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign grasley accepted a faculty position at virginia tech in 2012 and returned to texas a&m in 2014grasley holds the zachry chair for construction integration and is an inaugural presidential impact fellow he is also a professor in the materials science and engineering departmentgrasley replaces dr robin autenrieth who served in an interim capacity for one year before becoming department head in 2014 and will return to full-time faculty in the fall during her eight-plus-year tenure autenrieth has overseen the growth of the department and academic programs increased endowments and recruited highly talented faculty the environmental engineering degree program was developed under her directiondr autenrieth has done a great job and set us on the path to success grasley said the department is on an upward trajectory and is poised for major growth in research impact reputation and innovative education i am looking forward to helping shepherd this growth
automated vehicle (av) technology is widely acknowledged as a promising means to prevent crashes increase mobility among drivers and even lower emissions but there is a hesitancy toward autonomy among drivers which texas a&m university researchers are attempting to understand dr anthony mcdonald assistant professor and dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering utilize neuroergonomics to measure and model human driver trust in automated vehicles the team has been awarded a grant for this research by the national science foundation (nsf) one of the unique things about this project is that its focused on dynamic trust between humans and a machine or humans and an automated vehicle in this case mcdonald said some people are more predisposed to trust automation and systems than others our hypothesis is that trust among these people differs over time after interactions with the automation and our goal is to measure those changes objectively neuroergonomics is the study of the brain and behavior at work and is the pillar for driver trust measurements with autonomous vehicles more specifically the research team will use brain imaging and model trust and driver behavior to examine how trust calibration models influence dynamic trust and driving behavior the team will conduct two experiments using the driving simulator in industrial and systems engineering to gather driver behavior data and subjective neural and physiological trust measures to understand how particular regions of the brain communicate with each other or dont when a driver wagers trust the first year of this three-year project will begin with data collection on 60-100 participants we will then be able to see how trust builds over time and capture it using brain signals mehta said in the simulator we can also breach driver trust in the automated vehicle by having the simulators automation fail to overtake another vehicle in the manner expected we are interested to see how similar or different human-automation trust and its neural correlates are in the automated vehicle application space the research team will be able to map communication or lack thereof between different regions of the brain as trust in the av is built broken and repaired over the course of the experiment among drivers who vary in their levels of trust in automation these neural markers can be employed to develop trust detection models that can trigger trust calibration methods to ultimately increase the transparency of the vehicles reliability so that the driver can see and calibrate how much control they want to retain while driving our goal is to make substantial progress in our understanding of dynamic trust laying the groundwork for measuring and modeling it mcdonald said we want to produce fundamental contributions that ultimately lead to safer vehicle technology
the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university installed a new driving simulator to use in research pertaining to driving and autonomous vehicles it is a one-of-a-kind feature on campus that can be driven manually or autonomously with a 270-degree field of vision due to the many different types of research that might require a driving simulator interdisciplinary teamwork is almost inherent in any project that incorporates this technology
covid-19 caused by the sars-cov-2 has plagued our world over the last year in just one year we have lost over half a million americans and an estimated 25 million worldwide to this virus the uncertainties about its long-term effects as well as how and where it spreads particularly indoors continues to motivate researchers and scientists to find solutions to contain the virus dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and his collaborators designed an experimental system to show that exposure of the virus to a very high temperature even if applied less than a second can be sufficient to neutralize the virus so that it can no longer infect another human host in march 2020 the united states began shutting down when covid-19 cases began to rise over the past year many have dealt with the severity of the virus that has negatively impacted our country in a number of ways with the pandemic still ongoing getting back to a more normal societal environment is important and this research is a step in the right direction applying heat to neutralize covid-19 has been demonstrated before but in previous studies temperatures were applied anywhere from one to 20 minutes this length of time is not a practical solution as applying heat for a long period of time is both difficult and costly han and his team have now demonstrated that heat treatment for less than a second completely inactivates the coronavirus providing a promising and efficient solution to mitigate the ongoing spread of covid-19 particularly through long-range airborne transmission
medistar corporation approached leadership and researchers from the college of engineering at texas a&m in the spring of 2020 to collaborate and explore the possibility of applying heat for a very short amount of time to kill covid-19 soon after han and his team got to work and built a system to investigate the feasibility of such a procedure their process works by heating one section of a stainless-steel tube through which the coronavirus-containing solution is run to a high temperature and then cooling the section immediately afterward this experimental setup allows the coronavirus running through the tube to be heated up only for a very short period of time through this rapid thermal process the team found the virus to be completely neutralized in a significantly shorter time than previously thought possible their initial results were released within two months of proof-of-concept experiments han explained that if the solution is heated to nearly 72 degrees celsius for about half a second it can reduce the virus titer or quantity of the virus in the solution by 100 000 times which is sufficient to neutralize the virus and prevent transmission the potential impact is huge said han i was curious of how high of temperatures we can apply in how short of a time frame and to see whether we can indeed heat-inactivate the coronavirus with only a very short time and whether such a temperature-based coronavirus neutralization strategy would work or not from a practical standpoint the biggest driver was ‘can we do something that can mitigate the situation with the coronavirus
their research was featured on the cover of the may issue of the journal biotechnology and bioengineering not only is this sub-second heat treatment a more efficient and practical solution to stopping the spread of covid-19 through the air but it also allows for the implementation of this method in existing systems such as heating ventilation and air conditioning systems it also can lead to potential applications with other viruses such as the influenza virus that are also spread through the air han and his collaborators expect that this heat-inactivation method can be broadly applied and have a true global impact influenza is less dangerous but still proves deadly each year so if this can lead to the development of an air purification system that would be a huge deal not just with the coronavirus but for other airborne viruses in general han said
in their future work the investigators will build a microfluidic-scale testing chip that will allow them to heat-treat viruses for much shorter periods of time for example 10s of milliseconds with the hope of identifying a temperature that will allow the virus to be inactivated even with such a short exposure time the lead authors of the work are electrical engineering postdoctoral researchers yuqian jiang and han zhang other collaborators on this project are dr julian l leibowitz professor and dr paul de figueiredo associate professor from the college of medicine at texas a&m; biomedical postdoctoral researcher jose a wippold; associate research scientist in microbial pathogenesis and immunology jyotsana gupta; and electrical engineering assistant research scientist jing dai this work has been supported by grants from medistar corporation several research personnel on the project team were also supported by grants from the national institutes of healths national institute of allergy and infectious diseases
the texas a&m university system has named dr nancy currie-gregg interim deputy director and chief technology officer of the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) she assumed the duties of the position on june 7 currie-gregg will oversee the bcdcs research events and projects while a search is conducted to fill the position she joined the bcdc located on the texas a&m systems rellis campus in 2019 at its inception serving as the systems engineering and research integration lead currie-gregg is a holder of the don lummus ‘58 professorship of practice in engineering with appointments in the texas a&m university department of aerospace engineering and the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering she develops and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in aerospace human factors engineering quantitative risk analysis and reliability engineering system safety engineering and resilient systems engineering her research interests include spacecraft occupant protection human-robot interaction and the optimization of human performance and safety in engineered systems prior to joining texas a&m in the fall of 2017 currie-gregg spent the vast portion of her career supporting nasas human spaceflight programs and projects selected as an astronaut in 1990 she accrued more than 1 000 hours in space as a mission specialist on four space shuttle missions sts-57 in 1993; sts-70 in 1995; sts-88 the first international space station assembly mission in 1998; and sts-109 the fourth hubble space telescope servicing mission in 2002 a retired us army colonel and master army aviator she logged more than 4 000 flying hours in a variety of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft following the space shuttle columbia tragedy in 2002 she led the space shuttle program safety and mission assurance office directing safety reliability and quality assurance efforts enabling the safe return to flight of the space shuttle in 2005 she was then selected as a senior executive member of the nasa engineering and safety center serving for over a decade as the chief engineer at the johnson space center then as principal engineer currie-gregg earned her bachelors degree in biological sciences (interdisciplinary) from the ohio state university her masters degree in safety engineering from the university of southern california and her doctorate in industrial engineering with a specialization in human factors engineering and artificial intelligence from the university of houston currie-gregg replaces outgoing bcdc deputy director and chief technology officer dr john e hurtado who was named interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering at texas a&m and interim agency director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in may
when the covid-19 pandemic began to inundate the united states in early 2020 many researchers looked at how they could adapt their current work to help fight the pandemic dr limei tian assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university and her team are developing a novel way to diagnose covid-19 through a mask we are developing a reliable noninvasive point-of-care biosensor that can directly capture and detect sars-cov-2 for rapid detection and surveillance of covid-19 tian said one of tians research focuses is in organic and inorganic hybrid materials for physical chemical and biological sensors and multifunctional surfaces and interfaces as opportunities to research ways to detect and fight covid-19 started tian began to adapt biosensors designed for other disease diagnoses to instead detect covid-19 tian said the goal is to develop a biosensor patch that can be placed into a mask/scarf as a person exhales their breath can be captured the sensor then be easily removed and placed in a hand-held reader for analysis in addition to covid-19 the platform technology being developed in our lab can be readily adapted for rapidly detecting and monitoring other infectious respiratory diseases tian said the team is in the sensor development process tian said one challenge has been improving the sensitivity of the biosensors to capture low concentration of biomarkers in the breath tian was recently recognized for her work in biosensors by receiving the trailblazer r21 award from the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering part of the national institutes of health the award is an opportunity for new and early-stage investigators to pursue research programs that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and behavioral sciences
hydrogels are commonly used inside the body to help in tissue regeneration and drug delivery however once inside they can be challenging to control for optimal use a team of researchers in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is developing a new way to manipulate the gel by using light graduate student patrick lee and dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor are developing a new class of hydrogels that can leverage light in a multitude of ways light is a particularly attractive source of energy as it can be confined to a predefined area as well as be fine-tuned by the time or intensity of light exposure their work was recently published in the journal advanced materials light‐responsive hydrogels are an emerging class of materials used for developing noninvasive noncontact precise and controllable medical devices in a wide range of biomedical applications including photothermal therapy photodynamic therapy drug delivery and regenerative medicine lee said light-responsive biomaterials are often used in biomedical applications; however current light sources such as ultraviolet light and visible light cannot sufficiently penetrate the tissue to interact with the hydrogel instead the team is researching near-infrared (nir) light which has a higher penetration depth the team is using a new class of two-dimensional nanomaterials known as molybdenum disulfide (mos2) which has shown negligible toxicity to cells and superior nir absorption these nanosheets with high photothermal conversion efficiency can absorb and convert nir light to heat which can be developed to control thermoresponsive materials in the groups previous study published in advanced materials certain polymers react with mos2 nanosheets to form hydrogels building on this discovery the team further utilizes mos2 nanosheets and thermoresponsive polymers to control the hydrogel under nir light by photothermal effect this work leverages light to activate the dynamic polymer–nanomaterials interactions gaharwar said upon nir exposure mos2 acts as a crosslink epicenter by connecting with multiple polymeric chains via defect‐driven click chemistry which is unique nir light allows internal formation of therapeutic hydrogels in the body for precise drug delivery for cancer therapy most of the drugs can be retained within the tumor which will ease the side effects of chemotherapy moreover nir light can generate heat inside the tumors to ablate cancer cells known as photothermal therapy therefore a synergetic combination of photothermal therapy and chemotherapy has shown a higher efficacy in destroying cancer cells this study is funded by the new innovator award from the national institutes of health as well as the texas a&m president's excellence fund through x‐grant and t3
with questions about the short- and long-term reliability and sustainability of the power grid set forth by the electric reliability council of texas more commonly referred to as ercot having alternate energy options is more vital than ever and while many forms of renewable energy such as solar and nuclear call land their home other methods such as offshore wind farms wave energy and current/tide energy are taking to the seas to generate electricity dr moo-hyun kim bauer professor ii in the department of ocean engineering and director of the ocean system simulation and control lab and his team of fellow researchers at texas a&m university believe the next generation of offshore energy lies in the development of a synergistic combination of several renewable energy production methods set atop a floating offshore platform offshore renewable energy can directly power remote islands numerous ocean platforms electric boats and underwater drones and vehicles as well as ‘blue economy systems such as marine aqua-culture fish or macro algae farms kim said it can also be combined with desalination plants and hydrogen factories the ocean renewable energy station will feature wind wave current and solar energy elements that could generate electricity for anything from a coastal or island community a research lab or a military unit tethered where the sea level is 60 meters or deeper the station will be ideal when water depth increases quickly such as along the united states pacific coast or hawaii and will be less obtrusive to the view of coastal residents than a fixed offshore wind farm and it has been proven to have a highly competitive levelized cost of energy (the measurement of lifetime costs divided by energy production) denmark is now building a huge multi-source multi-purpose ocean energy island; wind energy is already competitive against fossil fuels kim said the biggest disadvantage of ocean renewable energy is its variability so some sort of storage method is highly needed to be commercially more useful while offshore wind energy is commercially competitive current wave-energy converters (which sit close to the surface of the water and utilize the natural motion of waves to generate electricity) are less cost-effective and only useful for smaller-scale special purposes to help solve these problems the ocean renewable energy station combines several different methods of renewable energy additionally as kim described larger offshore wind turbines may create better synergy with the other forms of energy production the team also plans to incorporate innovative smart materials into the wave energy converter that will respond to changes in wave height and frequency and allow for more consistent power production now the united states department of energy is the largest funding source for ocean renewable energy and the wind energy industry is growing fast kim said major oil/gas companies are also gradually shifting their business emphasis toward ocean clean energy
occurring faster than the speed of sound the mystery behind the breakdown of plasma discharges in water is one step closer to being understood as researchers pursue applying new diagnostic processes using state-of-the-art x-ray imaging to the challenging subject these diagnostic processes open the door to a better understanding of plasma physics which could lead to advances in green energy production through methods including fusion hydrocarbon reforming and hydrogen generation dr david staack and christopher campbell in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are part of the team pioneering this approach to assessing plasma processes partners on the project include diagnostics experts from los alamos national laboratories and using the facilities at the argonne national laboratory advanced photon source (aps) the team is working with lteoil on patented research into the use of multiphase plasma in carbon-free fuel reforming the research is supported by the dynamic materials properties campaign (c2) and the advanced diagnostics campaign (c3) at los alamos national laboratories through the thermonuclear plasma physics group (p4) principal investigator zhehui (jeph) wang the research which was recently published in physical review research is producing the first-known ultrafast x-ray images of pulsed plasma initiation processes in water staack associate professor and sallie and don davis '61 career development professor said these new images provide valuable insight into how plasma behaves in liquid "our lab is working with industry sponsors on patented research into the use of multiphase plasma in carbon-free fuel reforming " staack said "by understanding this plasma physics we are able to efficiently convert tar and recycled plastics into hydrogen and fuels for automobiles without any greenhouse gas emissions in the future these investigations may lead to improvements in inertial confinement fusion energy sources" inertial confinement fusion in which high temperature high energy density plasmas are generated is a specific focus of the project to better understand the plasma physics involved in this type of fusion staack said the team is developing short timescale high-speed imaging and diagnostic techniques utilizing a simple low-cost plasma discharge system additionally they are seeking to better understand the phenomena that occur when plasma is discharged in liquid causing a rapid release of energy resulting in low-density microfractures in the water that move at over 20 times the speed of sound
campbell a graduate research assistant and phd candidate said the team hopes their discoveries can prove to be a valuable contribution to the collective knowledge of their field as researchers seek to develop robust predictive models for how plasma will react in liquid "our goal is to experimentally probe the regions and timescales of interest surrounding this plasma using ultrafast x-ray and visible imaging techniques thereby contributing new data to the ongoing literature discussion in this area " said campbell "with a complete conceptual model we could more efficiently learn how to apply these plasmas in new ways and also improve existing applications" although they have made progress campbell said current methods are not yet sophisticated enough to collect multiple images of a single plasma event in such a short amount of time less than 100 nanoseconds "even with the state-of-the-art techniques and fast framerates available at the advanced photon source we have only been able to image a single frame during the entire event of interest by the next video frame most of the fastest plasma processes have concluded " campbell said "this work highlights several resourceful techniques we have developed to make the most of what few images we are able to take of these fastest processes" the team is currently working to measure the pressures induced by the rapid phenomena and preparing for a second round of measurements at aps to investigate interacting discharges discharges in different fluids and processes that may limit confinement of higher energy discharges they look forward to the opportunity of using even higher-framerate x-ray imaging methods ranging up to 67 million frames per second compared to 271 thousand frames per second in this study
dr isaac adjei is using his background in drug delivery to engineer new ways to treat late-stage cancer patients adjei assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university develops treatments for patients with late-stage cancers to improve their quality of life and help them live longer typically these patients have cancer that has spread to other parts of the body or tumors that do not respond to treatment one of the current treatments for most cancer patients is immunotherapy where antibodies are used against specific receptors on cancer cells to activate the immune system or immune cells are isolated activated and then re-injected into the body to attack the cancer however immunotherapy is less likely to work on patients with late-stage cancer in breast cancer patients only about 5% in the advanced stage will respond to treatment adjeis group takes a different approach to how the immune system interacts with tumors instead of only testing different immunotherapies his team looks to see if they can develop ways to change the environment inside a patients tumor to give the treatment a better chance of working were trying to change the environment within the tumor using nanoparticles that we developed in our lab so that when the new immune cells get there the cells are happy and they can find the cancer cells and kill them adjei said were giving them a fighting chance to be able to do the job you send them there to do one way adjeis team is hoping to accomplish this is by changing the oxygen levels within the tumor as cancer grows it uses a lot of nutrients lowering the amount of oxygen within the tumor once the environment is depleted of nutrients the tumor is prompted to leave which leads to the cancer spreading throughout the body through metastasis the cancer cells also develop ways that allow them to hide from the immune cells in this hypoxic environment making immunotherapy ineffective
if nanoparticles tiny devices 1 000 times smaller than a strand of human hair can be injected into the tumor and produce oxygen the immune system will have a better chance at destroying the tumor adjeis team develops nanoparticles that take advantage of some of the properties of the tumor cells to produce oxygen in that environment to ensure a sustained effect adjei says one goal is to find ways to mimic nature one of my philosophies is if you take something that nature is already using it makes it easy to translate adjei said i did some of my phd coursework in a hospital so there its put into your head before you develop or design anything you have to think about how youre going to ultimately get it into a patient that leads to another challenge his team is working to solve ensuring nanoparticles end up in the right place in the body once again they are using the bodys own systems as a template the liver for instance produces many substances but the body knows where each should go usually using specific proteins what (my graduate student) sri is doing is shes developing these nanoparticles that if you inject them into the body they can recruit some of these proteins and then use that to tell the nanoparticles where to go adjei said once we have this platform we can apply it for different applications such as treatment of cancer stroke even traumatic brain injuries adjei said one of his goals is to train students with the right skills and mentality to help patients which can have a broader impact on the health of the community if i train two doctoral students who have the same mentality and they go out with the goal to improve outcomes for patients thats three people trying to do the same thing adjei said that is my ultimate goal: help patients and train excellent translation-minded students who when they go out even if they are in industry are going to make impacts
can we develop models of the cognitive behavior of human-machine collaboration while this might seem like the stuff of science fiction researchers at texas a&m university are currently developing algorithms that interpret situations close to how humans navigate through their daily lives for example say you see something that resembles a rock in the road -- do you keep driving or swerve to avoid it the split-second choice may seem obvious but it is dependent on many factors that can range from whether it is rock or a stray turtle how big the rock is and if there are cars in the lane next to you although human decision-making relies on many variables these decisions are made in a split second among various other possible scenarios "humans pay attention to context; that's part of our intuition " said dr mark balas leland jordan professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university "if you're on a high-speed highway and traffic is bunching ahead of you a machine can slow your car down or speed up but it's not doing anything intelligent however the human operator might make a different decision based on what they can see and their motives" the researchers said this intuition might resemble how events in the atomic and subatomic realms occur a process mathematically described by quantum mechanics unlike other mathematical abstractions of decision-making that consider past events to decide the probability of a future outcome quantum mechanical probabilities are based on multiple possibilities that are ever-changing and present simultaneously at the moment of action when a decision is made all of these fluctuating probabilities converge to a single value called a quantum collapse this type of math is used to describe the behavior of electrons photons and other subatomic particles the researchers argued that this math can also be applied to human decision-making as well "at any given moment humans experience many emotions simultaneously " said dr james hubbard oscar wyatt professor in the department of mechanical engineering "but if asked what they are feeling right now they will generally state one emotion out of multiple possibilities you could think of it as a quantum collapse into one emotional state based on this rationale the researchers are investigating if they can create an algorithm for semi-autonomous vehicles that would model how well-trained operators would make decisions in conjunction with these vehicles we want to use quantum probability-based algorithms to address bigger issues like the decisions needed when other drivers make unexpected moves said balas in other words wed like our algorithms to mimic what experienced operators would decide to do in these instances and we think that that might be a novel way to approach the future of human collaboration with autonomous vehicles hubbard and balas are the co-investigators on this project they host a weekly quantum cognition research seminar with their team that they refer to as the center for the hopelessly naïve to discuss their ideas on quantifying and understanding the human decision-making process