houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
the neuroergonomics lab examines the mind-motor-machine nexus to understand quantify and predict human performance when interacting with emerging technologies (unmanned collaborative and wearable systems) in safety-critical extreme environments (eg emergency response space exploration oil and gas) the lab's research advances knowledge of human neuromuscular functioning particularly under stress and in underserved populations
a researcher at texas a&m university is launching a project to better understand how light can affect neurons in the brain dr alex walsh assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering recently received a grant through the air force office of scientific researchs (afsor) young investigator research program the grant supports walshs research to better understand why neurons in the brain are affected by infrared light we know that the infrared light induces a thermal gradient so it heats the neurons it happens very fast within milliseconds and changes the neurons electrical signals walsh said but we dont know how one hypothesis is that the stimulation affects the ion channels in neurons but responses are observed even in cells that lack light- and heat-sensitive channels with the air force grant walsh will pursue research to test if theres a relationship between infrared light and cellular metabolism if the infrared light is impacting how cells produce energy it could be modulating the neurons activity because ion channels need energy to function we use infrared lasers and fiber optics to deliver the infrared light on top of the cell and then use electronics to shape the pulses of the light to be milliseconds in duration walsh said we can apply pulse trains or single pulses
walsh said one challenge that has limited the broader field of studying infrared lights impact on cells is that optimizing parameters is difficult everyone uses different laser sources wavelengths and pulse parameters so comparing studies across different labs is challenging walsh said her lab has applied for a grant to buy multiple laser sources for a head-to-head comparison of different wavelengths rather than using just one which can make replicability difficult being able to stimulate neurons to control cell behavior could have a wide variety of applications in the healthcare field walsh said many diseases ranging from seizures and pain management to heart arrhythmias could be treated by stimulating neurons to turn off another application involves turning the neurons on to interact with medical devices current prosthetic devices are integrated with the brain through electrical stimulation but there are limitations that impact the precision of the connection there may be times we want to stimulate neurons for man-machine interfacing if you have a machine like an artificial leg and you want to be able to control it the infrared light could be a precise way to tune biological responses walsh said she is also interested in learning if infrared light impacts other cell types as this may provide a light-based technology to control cell function
in a new study researchers at texas a&m university have described their novel plant-based energy storage device that could charge even electric cars within a few minutes in the near future furthermore they said their devices are flexible lightweight and cost-effective integrating biomaterials into energy storage devices has been tricky because it is difficult to control their resulting electrical properties which then gravely affects the devices life cycle and performance also the process of making biomaterials generally includes chemical treatments that are hazardous said dr hong liang oscar s wyatt jr professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering we have designed an environmentally friendly energy storage device that has superior electrical performance and can be manufactured easily safely and at much lower cost their research is outlined in the june issue of energy storage energy storage devices are generally in the form of either batteries or supercapacitors although both types of devices can deliver electrical currents when required they have some fundamental differences while batteries can store large amounts of charge per unit volume supercapacitors are much more efficient at generating a large quantity of electric current within a short duration this burst of electricity helps supercapacitors to quickly charge up devices unlike batteries that can take much longer supercapacitors have an internal architecture that is more in line with basic capacitors both these devices store charge on metal plates or electrodes however unlike basic capacitors supercapacitors can be made in different sizes shapes and designs depending on the intended application furthermore supercapacitor electrodes can also be built with different materials for their work liang and her team were attracted to manganese dioxide nanoparticles for designing one of the two supercapacitor electrodes manganese dioxide is cheaper available in abundance and is safer compared to other transition metal oxides like ruthenium or zinc oxide that are popularly used for making electrodes said liang but a major drawback of manganese dioxide is that it suffers from lower electrical conductivity
past research has shown that lignin a natural polymer that glues wood fibers together used with metal oxides enhances the electrochemical properties of electrodes however liang said there have been few studies looking into combining manganese dioxide and lignin to leverage both of their useful propertiesto create their electrode liang and her team treated purified lignin with a commonly available disinfectant called potassium permanganate they then applied high heat and pressure to initiate an oxidation reaction that results in the breaking down of potassium permanganate and the deposition of manganese dioxide on lignin next they coated the lignin and manganese dioxide mixture on an aluminum plate to form the green electrode finally the researchers assembled the supercapacitor by sandwiching a gel electrolyte between the lignin-manganese dioxide-aluminum electrode and another electrode made of aluminum and activated charcoal upon testing their newly designed green electrode they found that their supercapacitor had very stable electrochemical properties in particular the specific capacitance or the ability of the device to store an electrical charge changed little even after thousands of cycles of charging and discharging also for an optimal lignin-manganese dioxide ratio the specific capacitance was observed to be up to 900 times more than what has been reported for other supercapacitors liang noted that these supercapacitors are also very light and flexible these properties extend their use as structural energy storage elements in vehicles for example in this study we have been able to make a plant-based supercapacitor with excellent electrochemical performance using a low-cost sustainable method said liang in the near future wed like to make our supercapacitors 100% environmentally friendly by incorporating only green sustainable ingredients other contributors to this research include swarn jha raj likhari and weston stewart from the mechanical engineering department; yan chen from the department of materials science and engineering; siddhi mehta from the texas a&m energy institute; and dr dilworth parkinson from the lawrence berkeley national laboratory california this research was funded by a texas a&m energy institute fellowship
upon testing their newly designed green electrode they found that their supercapacitor had very stable electrochemical properties in particular the specific capacitance or the ability of the device to store an electrical charge changed little even after thousands of cycles of charging and discharging also for an optimal lignin-manganese dioxide ratio the specific capacitance was observed to be up to 900 times more than what has been reported for other supercapacitors liang noted that these supercapacitors are also very light and flexible these properties extend their use as structural energy storage elements in vehicles for example in this study we have been able to make a plant-based supercapacitor with excellent electrochemical performance using a low-cost sustainable method said liang in the near future wed like to make our supercapacitors 100% environmentally friendly by incorporating only green sustainable ingredients other contributors to this research include swarn jha raj likhari and weston stewart from the mechanical engineering department; yan chen from the department of materials science and engineering; siddhi mehta from the texas a&m energy institute; and dr dilworth parkinson from the lawrence berkeley national laboratory california this research was funded by a texas a&m energy institute fellowship
texas a&m engineering researchers have been awarded $13 million in funding from the us department of energys advanced research projects agency-energy (arpa-e) with the award researchers will focus on the design fabrication and testing of a lightweight and ultra-efficient electric powertrain for aircraft propulsion to reduce the energy costs and emissions of aviation the texas a&m team is led by principal investigator dr hamid toliyat raytheon professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and head of the advanced electric machines and power electronics lab and recent texas a&m graduate dr matthew gardner 19 who is an assistant professor at the university of texas at dallas their multidisciplinary team includes dr prasad enjeti department of electrical and computer engineering; drs dion antao jonathan felts jaime grunlan and bryan rasmussen from the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering; dr moble benedict from the department of aerospace engineering; and dr patrick shamberger from the department of materials science and engineering the teams technology will reach unprecedented peak power density and efficiency via (1) an axial flux motor with lightweight carbon fiber reinforced structural material (2) a gan multilevel inverter (3) a thermally conductive nanocomposite electrical insulation and (4) a two-phase thermal management system with zeolite thermal energy storage to absorb the excess heat generated during takeoff each subsystem is designed for tight integration with the other subsystems to minimize weight the wealth of technical expertise at texas a&m allowed us to form a multidisciplinary team that can approach this problem from every angle to achieve a profound advance in electric powertrains and help enable electric and hybrid-electric aircraft this project will also give texas a&m students invaluable experience solving challenging real-world problems with a multidisciplinary team said toliyat texas a&m received this competitive award from arpa-es aviation-class synergistically cooled electric-motors with integrated drives (ascend) program which works to develop innovative lightweight and ultra-efficient electric motors drives and associated thermal management systems (collectively referred to as the all-electric powertrain) that will help enable net-zero carbon emissions in single-aisle 150-200 passenger commercial aircraft millions of americans travel on single-aisle aircraft every year contributing to continued increases in energy use and emissions by commercial airlines said arpa-e director lane genatowski in the arpa-e release announcing the awards reeach and ascend teams will work to lower these burdens by creating innovative new systems to enable more cost-effective and efficient flight systems for commercial travel
the secureamerica institute led by the texas a&m university system and managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station has released a $4 million project call as part of a nationwide initiative for a secure and resilient us manufacturing and industrial base the secureamerica institute is a private-public partnership converging technology economics and policy to secure the us critical manufacturing sector and defense industrial base through applied research education and workforce development and technology transition the inaugural $4 million project call is in partnership with three manufacturing usa institutes america makes (additive manufacturing) mxd (digital manufacturing) and arm (robotics manufacturing) the manufacturing usa institutes were created by the departments of commerce defense and energy through a 2014 initiative called manufacturing usa the institutes are organized to ensure that the united states is the worlds leader in manufacturing innovation in the coming decades technical topic areas for the project call were established through the industry-facing manufacturing usa partners as well as key university partners including georgia tech north carolina state university the colorado school of mines and the university of california–los angeles the project call will focus on advancing the security and resilience of us manufacturers and their supply chains funding will go to competitively selected projects aimed at developing technologies and sharing best practices for more information click here the secureamerica institute serves as a free agent to the over half-million manufacturing businesses across the united states it is clear that the future of a strong us manufacturing sector is a secure and resilient supply chain ecosystem said rep haley stevens michigans 11th congressional district i look forward to working with the institute on advancing this agenda the secureamerica institute is headquartered at the texas a&m system rellis campus while drawing on a diverse network of experts and facilities in more than 21 states and over 75 private-sector and public-sector partners among leading manufacturers industry groups research labs and universities the institutes initial roster of more than 50 industry partners which includes raytheon technologies ge rockwell sap bp deloitte and amentum ensures that maximum impact is felt across the manufacturing community the team also includes more than 25 academic institutions with a core value of selfless service the texas a&m system is proud to host another institute where the contributions will impact future generations said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m system the private-public partnership model works said rob gorham executive director of the secureamerica institute it allows for an extraordinary level of collaboration something critical given the significant challenges facing manufacturers
the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $63 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities a comprehensive health science center eight state agencies and the rellis campus the texas a&m system educates more than 153 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year systemwide research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in fy 2019 and helped drive the states economy
structural damage to any of the nations ailing bridges can come with a hefty price of billions of dollars in repairs new bridge designs promise more damage-resistant structures and consequently lower restoration costs but if these designs havent been implemented in the real world predicting how they can be damaged and what repair strategies should be implemented remain unresolved in a study published in the journal of structural engineering texas a&m university and the university of colorado boulder researchers have conducted a comprehensive damage and repair assessment of a still-to-be-implemented bridge design using a panel of experts from academia and industry the researchers said the expert feedback method offers a unique and robust technique for evaluating the feasibility of bridge designs that are still at an early research and development phase bridges particularly those in high-seismic regions are vulnerable to damage and will need repairs at some point but now the question is what kind of repairs should be used for different types and levels of damage what will be the cost of these repairs and how long will the repairs take these are all unknowns for new bridge designs said dr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering we have answered these questions for a novel bridge design using an approach that is seldomly used in structural engineering most bridges are monolithic systems made of concrete poured over forms that give the bridges their shape these bridges are strong enough to support their own weight and other loads such as traffic however sideris said if there is an unexpected occurrence of seismic activity these structures could crack and remedying the damage would be exorbitantly expensive to overcome these shortcomings sideris and his team have developed a new design called a hybrid sliding-rocking bridge instead of a monolithic design these bridges are made of columns containing limb-inspired joints and segments hence in the event of an earthquake the joints allow some of the energy from the ground motion to diffuse while the segments move slightly sliding over one another rather than bending or cracking despite the overall appeal of the hybrid sliding-rocking bridge design little is known about how the bridges will behave in real-world situations
to find the correct repair strategy we need to know what the damages look like said sideris our bridge design is relatively new and so there is little scientific literature that we could refer to and so we took an unconventional approach to fill our gap in knowledge by recruiting a panel of experts in bridge damage and repair for their study sideris dr abbie liel professor at the university of colorado boulder and their team recruited a panel of eight experts from industry and academia to determine the damage states in experimentally tested hybrid sliding-rocking segment designed columns based on their evaluations of the observed damage the panel provided repair strategies and estimated costs for repair the researchers then used that information to fix the broken columns retested the columns under the same initial damage-causing conditions and compared the repaired columns behavior to that of the original column through computational investigations the panel found that columns built with their design sustained less damage overall compared to bridges built with conventional designs in fact the columns showed very little damage even when subject to motions reminiscent of a powerful once-in-a-few-thousand-years earthquake furthermore the damage could be repaired relatively quickly with grout and carbon fibers suggesting that no special strategy was required for restoration fixing bridges is a slow process and costs a significant amount of money which then indirectly affects the community said sideris novel bridge designs that may have a bigger initial cost for construction can be more beneficial in the long run because they are sturdier the money saved can then be used for helping the community rather than repairing infrastructure this work is funded by the national science foundation other contributors include dr jakub valigura former graduate student researcher from the university of colorado boulder and dr mohammad salehi former graduate student in the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m
a team of researchers is creating mobile robots for military applications that can determine with or without human intervention whether wheels or legs are more suitable to travel across terrains the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) has partnered with dr kiju lee at texas a&m university to enhance these robots' ability to self-sufficiently travel through urban military environments the darpa offensive swarm-enabled tactics (offset) program awarded lee associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and a team of graduate students another opportunity after her prior successful accomplishments on developing a mixed-reality swarm simulator with embedded consensus-based decision making for adaptive human-swarm teaming as part of the offset sprint-3 this project was showcased at offsets third field experiment (fx3) together with other participating teams
i have recently been awarded a new darpa contract to join the offset sprint-5 effort focusing on enhancements to (the robots) physical testbeds lee said through this new project i will develop unmanned ground vehicles with agile and versatile locomotive capabilities for urban military operations lee and her team are developing an adaptable wheel-and-leg transformable robot (α-waltr) that can traverse over varying surfaces including staircases more efficiently the α-waltr will move with wheels or legs depending on their immediate need and will be able to decide for itself which to use
legged locomotion is more versatile but suffers from inherent structural mechanical and control complexities lee said the proposed testbed will be equipped with novel wheel/leg transformable mechanisms which can switch between the two locomotion modes actively adapting to its environment but without needing any additional actuator the team is rapidly developing prototypes and will showcase this new hardware platform at the offset fx5 tentatively scheduled for february 2021
although created for military use the team hopes this technology will transcend this field while the current focus is on defense and other military applications these types of adaptable mobile robots can be applied to many other areas such as space domestic service surveillance and agriculture said lee the offset sprint-5 effort is led by lee along with the help of five graduate students and one undergraduate student chuanqi zheng siddharth sane vishnu kalyanram kangneoung lee sohil parsana and jenna horn
dr michel kinsy has joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university this semester as an associate professor with expertise in cybersecurity and a focus on important engineering and computational problems he will also serve as associate director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center cybersecurity incidents are happening at an astonishing frequency scale and sophistication kinsy said the center being part of the texas a&m university system has access to tremendous resources that are almost unmatched anywhere else in the country – chief among them the sheer number and caliber of faculty members engaged in cybersecurity research coupled with the deep-rooted culture of academic excellence and service among the student body as associate director he hopes to develop the centers technical research and development enterprise alongside interim director dr danny davis their goal is to accelerate the centers ascension to becoming the premier academic destination for government agencies and industry entities looking for ahead-of-the-curve solutions for their cybersecurity needs and for students interested in hands-on cybersecurity training there is a level of research that you can engage in at texas a&m that is not readily available in most departments around the country or in the world for that matter kinsy said kinsys core area of research is computer architecture he is especially interested in discovering and creating the set of definitions methodologies and hardware primitives that enable the integrity checking of computing processes the access control and monitoring of system resources and hardware root-of-trust solutions for secure computation – something he calls design for security another central aspect of kinsys research efforts is the translation of basic engineering discoveries into applicable solutions in fact he is one of only a handful of secure systems researchers who can claim that their academic hardware designs have been directly incorporated into commercial and military systems as he starts his career at texas a&m kinsy urges engineering undergraduate students to embrace more mathematics courses such as number theory discrete mathematics logic and linear algebra early on in their academic careers – even students focusing on hardware although i am a hardware researcher these courses form the foundation of my engineering thinking process and my cybersecurity problem-solving methodology he said the cybersecurity field is moving toward security through proofs and not merely by construction due to ever-increasing complexity of our computing systems the main challenge is that if you are not exposed to these courses in a substantial way early on in your academic training by the time you really need them or use them it is often too late
the texas a&m cybersecurity center is dedicated to combating adversaries who desire to harm our citizens our government and our industry through cyber-attacks the center seeks to advance the collective cybersecurity knowledge capabilities and practices doing so through ground-breaking research novel and innovative cybersecurity education and mutually beneficial academic governmental and commercial partnerships working with researchers faculty and industry leaders the center stands committed to making outsized contributions to social good through the development of transformational cybersecurity capabilities
by seeking to understand how tiny droplets behave when subjected to high pressure and temperatures texas a&m university researchers could contribute to the development of more efficient engines for propulsion and energy production applications their project titled "droplet breakup and vaporization effects in high-speed liquid-fueled combustion " investigates how liquid droplets break up vaporize and react in detonation waves which may lead to better engine technologies "one day we may be able to use liquid-fueled detonation waves to power our commercial and military aircraft or to provide more efficient electric power generation " said dr jacob mcfarland "understanding how droplets break up can benefit us in other areas as well such as delivering aerosolized medicines more efficiently developing safer methods for destroying chemical or biological weapons mitigating the spread of diseases through airborne droplets and developing more efficient power generation and refrigeration technologies" mcfarland associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is leading the research effort for which he was recently awarded the 2020 young investigator award from the united states office of naval research funding for the project began september 1 and is scheduled to continue for the three-year duration of the award while the rotating detonation engine most commonly used in the propulsion of aircrafts and rockets is the primary focus of the research mcfarland said advances in the technology could also benefit more conventional liquid-fueled engines as well as supersonic-combustion ramjet engines mcfarland said the award is a great honor and opportunity for a young faculty member like himself and that he is excited for the life-long expertise it will help him build in this subject area "the project will support the development of a new liquid-fueled detonation tube facility and to purchase new instrumentation to allow us to image droplet breakup under these conditions for the first time " mcfarland said "it will also support the studies of a post-doctoral researcher and undergraduate researchers to train in this field of research"
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's energy market segment features innovative solutions to obstacles in energy production processing and consumption our strengths include natural gas fossil and non-fossil-based technologies energy economics and multi-scale energy systems engineering; upstream petroleum engineering technology through industry partnerships; energy consumption optimization in commercial and industrial building operations; power system infrastructure integration with transportation to create energy ecosystems; and turbomachinery performance and reliability in rotor dynamics acoustics seals tribology couplings computational and experimental fluid dynamics heat transfer torsional vibrations materials and finite element analysis
in the september issue of the journal nature scientists from texas a&m university hewlett packard labs and stanford university have described a new nanodevice that acts almost identically to a brain cell furthermore they have shown that these synthetic brain cells can be joined together to form intricate networks that can then solve problems in a brain-like manner this is the first study where we have been able to emulate a neuron with just a single nanoscale device which would otherwise need hundreds of transistors said dr r stanley williams senior author on the study and professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering we have also been able to successfully use networks of our artificial neurons to solve toy versions of a real-world problem that is computationally intense even for the most sophisticated digital technologies in particular the researchers have demonstrated proof of concept that their brain-inspired system can identify possible mutations in a virus which is highly relevant for ensuring the efficacy of vaccines and medications for strains exhibiting genetic diversity over the past decades digital technologies have become smaller and faster largely because of the advancements in transistor technology however these critical circuit components are fast approaching their limit of how small they can be built initiating a global effort to find a new type of technology that can supplement if not replace transistors in addition to this scaling-down problem transistor-based digital technologies have other well-known challenges for example they struggle at finding optimal solutions when presented with large sets of data lets take a familiar example of finding the shortest route from your office to your home if you have to make a single stop its a fairly easy problem to solve but if for some reason you need to make 15 stops in between you have 43 billion routes to choose from said dr suhas kumar lead author on the study and researcher at hewlett packard labs this is now an optimization problem and current computers are rather inept at solving it
but tasks that can send digital machines into a computational tizzy are ones at which the brain excels in fact brains are not just quick at recognition and optimization problems but they also consume far less energy than digital systems hence by mimicking how the brain solves these types of tasks williams said brain-inspired or neuromorphic systems could potentially overcome some of the computational hurdles faced by current digital technologies to build the fundamental building block of the brain or a neuron the researchers assembled a synthetic nanoscale device consisting of layers of different inorganic materials each with a unique function however they said the real magic happens in the thin layer made of the compound niobium dioxide when a small voltage is applied to this region its temperature begins to increase but when the temperature reaches a critical value niobium dioxide undergoes a quick change in personality turning from an insulator to a conductor but as it begins to conduct electric currents its temperature drops and niobium dioxide switches back to being an insulator these back-and-forth transitions enable the synthetic devices to generate a pulse of electrical current that closely resembles the profile of electrical spikes or action potentials produced by biological neurons further by changing the voltage across their synthetic neurons the researchers reproduced a rich range of neuronal behaviors observed in the brain such as sustained burst and chaotic firing of electrical spikes capturing the dynamical behavior of neurons is a key goal for brain-inspired computers said kumar altogether we were able to recreate around 15 types of neuronal firing profiles all using a single electrical component and at much lower energies compared to transistor-based circuits
to evaluate if their synthetic neurons can solve real-world problems the researchers first wired 24 such nanoscale devices together in a network inspired by the connections between the brains cortex and thalamus a well-known neural pathway involved in pattern recognition next they used this system to solve a toy version of the viral quasispecies reconstruction problem where mutant variations of a virus are identified without a reference genome by means of data inputs the researchers introduced the network to short gene fragments then by programming the strength of connections between the artificial neurons within the network they established basic rules about joining these genetic fragments the jigsaw puzzle-like task for the network was to list mutations in the virus genome based on these short genetic segments the researchers found that within a few microseconds their network of artificial neurons settled down in a state that was indicative of the genome for a mutant strain williams and kumar noted this result is proof of principle that their neuromorphic systems can quickly perform tasks in an energy-efficient way the researchers said the next steps in their research will be to expand the repertoire of the problems that their brain-like networks can solve by incorporating other firing patterns and some hallmark properties of the human brain like learning and memory they also plan to address hardware challenges for implementing their technology on a commercial scale calculating the national debt or solving some large-scale simulation is not the type of task the human brain is good at and that's why we have digital computers alternatively we can leverage our knowledge of neuronal connections for solving problems that the brain is exceptionally good at said williams we have demonstrated that depending on the type of problem there are different and more efficient ways of doing computations other than the conventional methods using digital computers with transistors dr ziwen wang from stanford university also contributed to this research funded by the national science foundation the department of energy and the texas a&m x-grants program
with the intensity of the ongoing climate change debate scientists and engineers are looking for cleaner energy sources to replace fossil fuels nuclear energy is one such possibility but innovations are being sought to enhance the promise of clean nuclear energy a team from texas a&m university has established a collaboration to explore the potential of an innovative new type of thorium-based fuel researchers in the nuclear engineering and science center (nesc) at texas a&m and the us department of energys (doe) idaho national laboratory (inl) have partnered with clean core thorium energy (ccte) a chicago-based company to fabricate a proprietary thorium-based nuclear fuel called advanced nuclear energy for enriched life (aneel) this fuel is a combination of thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium and addresses issues including cost safety proliferation and waste management texas a&m will manufacture the aneel fuel pellets at the nesc following the strict guidelines and quality assurance requirements of the doe and nuclear regulatory commission they will then send fabricated aneel fuel pellets to inl to conduct high burn-up irradiation testing of aneel fuel followed by post-irradiation examination and fuel qualification we are excited for the opportunity to be part of the aneel fuel development to work with our colleagues at inl and ccte to realize a safe and clean baseload energy solution for the world said dr sean mcdeavitt director of the nesc for years researchers have been investigating new ways to make nuclear energy often looking at new types of nuclear power plants however due to the high cost of full-scale demonstrations lengthy irradiation and performance testing and regulatory limitations most of these new nuclear technologies are still decades away from realization despite these challenges nuclear energy is still one of the largest sources of emission-free power in the world generating nearly a fifth of americas electricity and more than half of its clean energy moreover nuclear energy is an abundant clean energy source that can deliver baseload electricity that is needed most in emerging markets
the texas a&m/inl/ccte team is addressing nuclear energy from a different angle by delivering optimal performance in existing heavy water reactor designs with proven competitive performance the new aneel fuel breaks barriers for fuel utilization safety and proliferation resistance necessary to lower the hurdles to deploy nuclear energy when used in small heavy water reactors aneel fuel is ideal for deployment to emerging countries where the need for additional clean energy is most urgent two such existing heavy water reactors are the canada deuterium uranium (candu) and the pressurized heavy water reactor (phwr) these reactors are heavy water-cooled and moderated pressurized water reactors where the nuclear core is contained in hundreds of pressurized tubes they usually employ natural uranium oxide as fuel with heavy water as the moderator (a material used in a nuclear reactor to slow down the neutrons produced from fission) the team feels it is beneficial to use existing reactor technology to minimize the cost and avoid decades-long regulatory hurdles for deployment there are currently 49 operating phwr/candu reactors in seven countries including canada argentina india and china using thorium as the main ingredient also has many advantages in these existing reactors with its higher melting point and lower internal operating temperature thorium is inherently safer than uranium making a core meltdown less likely due to the higher fuel burn-up possible with aneel waste is decreased substantially higher fuel burn-up also means more uranium and plutonium are burned to make energy while the end product is significantly denatured reducing the possible proliferation of the used fuel thorium is also found more abundantly than uranium on earth and can be extracted readily from seawater making it a renewable energy source with this collaboration aneel-fueled phwrs/candus could provide abundant safe and clean energy in order to build a path to development and dignity for emerging nations said mehul shah founder and ceo of ccte
john crawford chief financial officer for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and assistant vice chancellor for business management in the college of engineering was recently designated one of seven regents fellow service award winners for 2019-20 by the texas a&m university system board of regents the board established the regents fellow service awards program in 1998 to recognize service extension or research professionals within the texas a&m university system who have made extraordinary contributions to their university or agency as well as to the people of texas these individuals exemplify the commitment to excellence in research and service that sets a&m system employees apart said elaine mendoza chairman of the board of regents i hope their example will inspire others in their own endeavors the selection process for the awards begins with a call for nominations from the chancellor final nominations are put forth to the chief executive officer of each respective entity john has superbly executed his responsibility for oversight of over $300 million in annual budget supporting tees and the college of engineering said dr dimitris lagoudas tees deputy director and senior associate vice chancellor for engineering research in his nomination letter as a key leader supporting the texas a&m engineering response to the covid-19 pandemic he displayed decisive and steady leadership by quickly modifying existing business and financial processes to support remote operations in accordance with state of texas and system guidance in summary john is a tremendous asset for texas a&m engineering and a great ambassador for the texas a&m university system as a whole to date 157 agency professionals have received the regents fellow service award view the complete list of regents award winners
every year an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) and this number is rising current interventions to prevent premature births are not always successful and the health care cost to treat them is over $26 billion per year in the united states alone researchers at texas a&m university are working to produce an organ-on-a-chip model to help prevent these preterm births tissue chips also called organ-on-a-chip or microphysiological systems are hybrid microsystems that contain both microfabricated structures and human cells to mimic the multi-cellular structure of human organs dr arum han professor and presidential impact fellow in the department of electrical and computer engineering and director of the nanobio systems laboratory and also a member of the tissue chip testing center at texas a&m is leading this research along with dr ramkumar menon professor at the university of texas medical branch at galveston they received a $38 million grant from the national institutes of healths (nih) national center for advancing translational sciences (ncats) for their research on developing extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics against preterm birth through the use of maternal-fetal interface on a chip research has shown that fetal immune responses are key mediators triggering spontaneous preterm birth where labor starts early and doctors are not able to stop the labor process this accounts for about 60% of preterm births current prevention strategies do not address fetal immune responses; instead doctors focus on stopping contractions to delay birth which is more of a band-aid approach instead of actually fixing the problem finding a way to reduce inflammation in the tissues at the feto-maternal interface (which helps protect and nourish the fetus) could help maintain a pregnancy and prevent spontaneous preterm birth unfortunately current intervention strategies have not been very effective in treating this problem currently to study preterm birth researchers use very simplistic cell culture models but the feto-maternal interface is a complicated three-dimensional organ structure with many different cell layers all working together to protect the baby throughout gestation han said conventional cell culture systems are two-dimensional and cannot incorporate the many different cellular layers and thus cannot mimic the complicated 3d multi-cellular structure of the feto-maternal interface animal models are also used but most animal models are structurally and functionally different from humans and thus not adequate
approximately 30% of promising medications have failed in human clinical trials because they are found to be toxic despite promising preclinical studies and about 60% of candidate drugs fail due to lack of efficacy ncats in collaboration with other nih institutes and centers and the us food and drug administration is leading the tissue chip for drug screening program to develop tissue chips that more accurately model the structure and function of human organs to better predict drug safety and efficacy in humans more rapidly and effectively as part of this effort ncats has just launched a new $355 million clinical trials on a chip program providing grants to 10 teams to support research in studying diseases and test drugs using organ-chip models han is leading one of the 10 teams organ-on-a-chip systems can more accurately recapitulate the complex 3d structure and functions of organ systems; thus research using such a model system can lead to far superior and more relevant research outcomes han said while organ-on-a-chip research has progressed significantly in the last decade the fetal membrane a key tissue that maintains pregnancy and promotes childbirth has been neglected hans project will develop an organ-on-chip model that reproduces the structure function and responses of the feto-maternal tissue interface the chip will recreate healthy and inflammatory conditions and allow testing of compounds that can inhibit inflammation in this interface han expects their organ-on-a-chip research will make preterm birth research including understanding the mechanisms of preterm birth and new drug development far more effective because the chip is a far more accurate physiological model of a human organ system so the outcome of experimental results will be far more physiologically relevant this could not only save lives but also save billions in health care costs and prevent other preterm-related health issues
even in the era of smartphones and self-driving cars the grim reality of our ever-modernizing world is that there are communities that still lack electricity and potable water making matters worse these underserved communities are often isolated from centralized power and water treatment plants making them largely dependent on infrastructure development for access to basic amenities researchers at texas a&m university have come up with an economical green solution that can help underprivileged communities with their water and electricity needs their standalone water-energy nanogrid consists of a purification system that uses solar energy to decontaminate water furthermore the setup they said is mathematically tuned to utilize solar energy optimally so that the water filtration is unhindered by the fluctuations of solar energy during the course of the day to serve areas that are remote and isolated the infrastructural cost of laying down new water pipes or setting up an electricity grid is enormous and can take a very long time said dr le xie professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering to overcome these hurdles we presented a cost-effective solution that uses solar energy to both purify water and generate electricity for basic household use the researchers have described their technology in the journal applied energy in the united states the colonias represent one of the many rural low-income communities along the texas-mexico border where basic resources are not readily available since the colonias are very remote their residents consisting of mainly migrant workers are isolated from major utility and water treatment facilities and thus have limited means for electricity and more essentially safe drinking water moreover even methods like boiling water are extremely cost-prohibitive and inadequate boiling water is one of the most expensive ways of decontamination because it takes a lot of energy to heat water said dr shankar chellam professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering also although boiling gets rid of biological contaminants it does not remove many chemical contaminants we needed a solution that could address both these problems at the same time an efficient way to decontaminate water is by passing it through purification systems these machines utilize pumps to push water through a filter however the pumps require electricity which is scarce in the colonias so the researchers looked for a solution that would help with both the power and water requirements of the colonia residents