This project will evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of a new, simple CPAP device in treating obstructive sleep apnea.  CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure, is used to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by holding the patient’s airway open with pressurized air. The pressure of the CPAP device keeps the airway from collapsing or experiencing a blockage, allowing the patient to get high-quality sleep. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the mask used to administer the treatment, air leakage is possible. This causes pressure to be lost, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the treatment. There are several mask modifications to alleviate the problem, but they all come with drawbacks such as discomfort or an inability to fit. Our CPAP device will attempt to solve these problems. It consists of a piece of silicone gel surrounded by a biocompatible adhesive. Two slanted flaps cut in the center of the gel act as a valve that opens during inhalation and closes during exhalation to maintain air pressure. This device poses several advantages. It is non-toxic, inexpensive, conforms to most facial features, and can easily be applied.

The clinical test subjects will consist of volunteers with a history of OSA who have given their informed consent and undergone basic health screening. Each subject may proceed to the overnight and/or extended treatment evaluation. The overnight evaluation will collect data from a subject’s single session with the device, while the extended overnight evaluation will collect data from a subject over a period lasting up to one year....

The project is centered around the combinatorial game The Princess and the Roses. In this game, there are n heaps which each have some chips in them. On a move, a player may either remove one chip from a heap or two chips from different heaps. There are two players, and the last person to make a move wins. The game has been solved for up to 5 heaps and some cases of the 6 heap problem has been solved. The aim of this project is to continue this analysis using a function that generates a number for any given position of a game, the Grundy number, which can identify which player would win from a given position. Grundy numbers can be calculated recursively, so in this project a computer program will be made that recursively calculates the Grundy number for larger and larger positions for a given number of heaps. The project aims to verify the results previously found for up to 5 heaps and find new results for 6 or more heaps empirically from the program and to form conjectures based on these patterns. These conjectures will then be proved mathematically. With time permitting, generalizations of the game will also be studied. 

The aim of the study is to analyze the number of incidences evaluated and treated by high school athletic trainers using statistics. In 2014, there was a total of 7.8 million high school students participating in athletics for their respective school according to the National Federation of State High Schools Association). This is an increase of 82,081 from last year, part of a trend which stretches across 25 years of increased participation in athletics, however in 2014 only 55%  of athletes in a public secondary school and only 40% of all schools had access to an Athletic Trainer according to HuffingtonPost. In 2012 the American Academy of Physicians conducted a study in which they discovered schools with Athletic Trainers have more diagnosed concussions but fewer overall injuries. The schools that did not have an Athletic Trainer on staff had a fewer rate of diagnosed concussions, however this could lead the athletes still participating with a concussion which can lead the severe medical problems later in life. There are some problems in schools with athletic trainers as they only contain one trainer for a large number of athletes as Diana Miller, an athletic trainer at Robert E. Lee High School in Virginia, takes care of 700 students and Christina Romero, athletic trainer at Henry M. Gunn high school) in 2014 had 1115 athletes in her care. This project is to find out the number of trainers needed in schools...The Gunn Athletic Training Room will be used to record the amount of injuries and the treatments performed on the athlete. This data will be used to analyze the traffic patterns...

How have technological advancements in sports increased the performance potential of runners? Over the past few centuries, sports technology has vastly increased the potential of runners all around the world. From tighter uniforms and better diets, to improved track surfaces, modern athletes are possessing more and more of the copious amounts of equipment and enhancements necessary for them to reach their full potential as runners. Although it may seem like sprinters and long distance runners have been getting faster and stronger over the years, it is in fact the non-human factors of running that have been rapidly improving and making the largest difference in results. For example, the winner of the 2012 Olympic marathon completed the race in 2:08:01. However, the gold medalist of the 1904 Olympic marathon finished just under an hour and a half slower with a time of 3:28:53; this is a result of different training, equipment, diets, and knowledge (Epstein). Renowned 100m sprinter Jesse Owens ran what was thought to be an incredible 100m time of 10.2 seconds (Epstein) which nowadays is a common time for collegiate sprinters. Had Owen's been racing against today’s 100m champion, Usain Bolt, he would have finished about half a second behind, which is the equivalent of 4.2 meters (Epstein). The 1/20 of the race that Owens would still have left to complete when Bolt finished is not a result of Bolt being much faster than Owens, but rather the surfaces on which they competed on and the blocks on which they started in....Using our own data and the data of Epstein, we will not only be able to prove the main reason that athletic records fall, but we will also be able to show that the way you prepare, and the gear you use during running gives you the ability to fulfil your full potential as an athlete. This data may affect the way that people view running gear, but ultimately the advantages gained by the use of expensive shoes, or expensive clothes will be negligible to the average runner. However, as the professionals use more and more advanced gear, its availability to the public may increase. This would result in overall added significance to high tech advancements for runners....

How does one deal with different types of signal impairments in a 5G wireless communications system? Wireless communications is one of the systems that allows our world to function the way it currently does. Every facet of our world is controlled by computers and the signals that they send and receive. Yet very few people understand how these systems work. In a basic communications system, binary data is translated into an analog signal and sent as an electromagnetic wave, and then that wave is received and translated back into binary data. The transmitter sends different signals to represent different pieces of data: for instance, one might send a sine wave to represent a 1 and a cosine wave to represent a 0. If the transmitter sends out one these signals per second, then the data rate, or the speed with which this information that can be sent and received, is 1 bps....in order to increase the data rate, one must either increase the frequency of the symbols or increase the amount of information per symbol. While basic cellular communication can be achieved using simple, low-speed transmissions, more data-intensive activities, such as video streaming and online gaming, require higher speeds.  Each subsequent generation of cellular network attempts to increase one of these elements. In particular, 5G systems seek to increase the symbol frequency by increasing the frequency of the carrier wave. This allows more full wave periods to be included per symbol, and this allows the receiver to more precisely model the wave. However, while high-frequency waves allow more precise estimations of the data, they are less resilient and more harshly affected by background noise. The basic challenge of 5G cellular networks is to be able to recover these high-frequency waves despite all different kinds of impairments.... To mathematically model our communications system, we will be using a program called MatLab. MatLab allows us to program and reprogram each part of the system: the transmitter, the channel, and the receiver. The transmitter is typically very simple: it merely prints a string of random data points. The channel attempts to model different types of impairments that can occur in the real world. We will focus on four main types of impairments: random noise, reflections, interference, fading, and doppler. Finally, the receiver attempts to recover the original data from the signal it receives. This part of the design takes the most creativity, but we can build on the work of researchers in the past who have already designed adjustments for certain types of impairments. Finally, we must compare the received data to the original data string in order to find our percent error. The goal of this project is to create a system that deals with multiple types of impairments and has an error rate of 1 error per million bits.

Through the use of nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and other renewable energy sources, is it possible to theoretically convert the US or even the world to renewable and clean energy, both short term and long term? It is well documented that the activities humans have been conducting since the industrial revolution (in terms of energy consumption) have been releasing a large amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Indeed, this is a phenomenon that had been agreed upon by all unbiased studies over the past several decades and by the vast majority of scientists who study it. The release of carbon dioxide is most often caused by the burning of fossil fuels as a form of energy consumption. It is a common consensus among scientists that by the year 2050, humans must find alternate sources of energy before the amount of carbon in the atmosphere exceeds 550 ppm; examples of these include clean energy, such as nuclear energy, and renewable energy, such as that gotten from sunlight, wind, water, and heat. In this project, we will attempt to outline several of the general problems that are faced today in the realm of energy consumption and propose steps to overcome them, if not provide possible solutions. Specifically, we will address several aspects of the complex problem of carbon emission into the atmosphere, culminating in a short term plan to prevent the 550ppm benchmark from occurring by the year 2050, and a long term plan to prevent further climate change that will render our planet uninhabitable...Ultimately, the problem of energy consumption and climate change must be broken down into several categories – social, political, and technological. These categories can be broken down further: in the social category, a lack of awareness as well as disbelief in climate change. In the political category: every nation has differing resources available for use in reducing environmental impact, and also have different ideas about climate change. Some nation produce much more environmental pollution than others but have no plans to reduce this pollution...climate change and renewable energy sources have been studied extensively over the past several decades. We will not be able to conduct experimental research on sources of clean and renewable energy ourselves, but can use the data from these in our research, as well as data from research related to other problems addressed in this project – social, technological, and political...

What conditions, such as temperature, pH, access to light, and rainfall, are optimal for cyanobacterial growth and microcystin presence? After conducting preliminary research, we hypothesize that microcystins are likely to be present in bodies of water that are generally warm and exposed to light. Microcystins break down at pHs that are too acidic or too basic, so a near neutral pH will likely be optimal. Calm weather conditions will likely enhance growth....Cyanobacteria is a blue-green algae that produces cyanotoxins, most commonly microcystins. There are at least 80 known types; with microcystin-LR considered to be one of the most toxic. Microcystins are primarily cyclic peptides. When conditions are favorable, cyanobacteria are able to multiply, causing “blooms” that concentrate on the surface. Bloom formation is affected by light intensity and duration, the availability of nutrients (primarily phosphorus), water temperature, pH, precipitation, and water flow. Bloom decay consumes oxygen which creates hypoxic conditions that kill off plants and animals. Some types of cyanobacteria have cavities filled with gas that allow them to float to the wherever there are optimal light and nutrient levels. Under favorable conditions, some species of cyanobacteria will release cyanotoxins, including neurotoxins, hepatotoxins, and dermatoxins. Microcystin primarily affects the liver, causing minor to widespread damage depending on the amount absorbed. These toxins are not deadly to humans in small quantities and the World Health Organization’s provisional value for drinking waters is 1.0 µg/L microcystin-LR or less, but they are highly toxic to fish, birds, pets, and livestock....

Are silicene sheets a proper and effective catalyst substitute for the material of platinum (Pt)? This study attempts to computationally identify efficient cathode catalysts in fuel cells, which can lead to deeper understanding of the process of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Platninum is one of the most commonly used catalysts used to catalyse ORR in fuel cells. However, in general platinum is expensive and limited in supply. Therefore, it is important to identify more economical and sustainable material as a cathode catalyst replacement for Pt. With reference from literature reviews of previous research, a detailed associative mechanism of ORR on chosen silicene surface is drafted.  Calculations are developed with the use of the density functional theory (DFT) and with the use of open-source software called Quantum Espresso. A simulation of the adatoms and dimers interacting with the two-dimensional silicene sheet is conducted to obtain the final electronically stable coordinates of the respective atoms. Analysis will then be done on the results from these calculations...

What are the optimal conditions for algal biohydrogen production by Chlamydomonas moewusii? For hundreds of years, mankind has utilized fossil fuels, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas, to power many facets of its society. For example, most power plants run on coal or natural gas, and most large trucks and airplanes run off kerosene-based fuels or petroleum diesel. However, concerns regarding greenhouse gas emissions and consequent global warming have led scientists and engineers to research and/or develop new ways of obtaining clean energy. One promising solution is the use of hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel (H2) is seen as a potential alternative to fossil fuel because of its high specific energy/energy density and clean combustion, which can be shown with its simple reaction equation: 2H2 + O2 → 2H2O A reason hydrogen fuel is not currently mainstream is that hydrogen fuel, by itself, is not a renewable energy source. It does not hide in pockets underground, and cannot be found in large amounts on Earth’s surface. The production of hydrogen fuel determines the cleanliness of its use; hydrogen fuel produced by burning fossil fuels is not considered clean energy, whereas hydrogen fuel produced by renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, or nuclear energy, is considered clean energy. In addition to its ability to be used in hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen fuel can also be reacted with carbon monoxide (CO) to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels. This research exploration focuses on biohydrogen, or hydrogen fuel produced by algae under certain environmental conditions. We are going to manipulate the conditions on algae in its optimal environment, to see the effect on hydrogen gas production. The enzyme hydrogenase is responsible for creating hydrogen gas. The optimal temperature is 37 deg C, and the optimal pH is 6.0. We will test H2 production in the presence of various substances, like acetic acid or hydrochloric acid. We will likely relate the treatment substance to something that is becoming more prevalent in the environment due to climate change. The measure of H2 gas produced would show the flexibility of and strength of the hydrogenase...

This research project utilizes the diverse locations of the two teams of collaborators (Singapore and the US) by comparing plants used in eastern (Chinese) and western (Native American) traditional medicines. The goal is to compare plants from different areas of the world that are used to treat the same symptoms, and see if there is a correlation in the types and quantities of metabolites produced in these plants. After collecting locally grown plant samples, we will extract metabolites from them, and then use High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to identify and analyze the quantities of metabolites present in the plant samples.  Following the identification of metabolites, we will test the anti-microbial properties of the plant essences using the Kirby-Bauer method to test the resistance of E. coli bacteria to the extracted essences of the plant samples. The USA side of the collaboration will be analyzing the metabolites found in the following plants: Coffee, Redbud Tree, and Manzanita. Through this research, we hope to be able to identify specific metabolites used in traditional medicines that aid in relieving specific symptoms, and see their anti-microbial effect. This knowledge would be applicable to future research and design in the field of pharmaceuticals and drug development...