Lab-Scale Railway Simulator Improvements

Railway vehicles are a cornerstone of the infrastructure of many societies; however, the research, development, and implementation of railway systems are extremely costly and space-intensive. In partnership with Kyoto University of Advanced Science (KUAS), this project aimed to diminish the cost and spatial requirements of railway vehicle testing by improving the capabilities of an existing railway simulator at KUAS. By creating a signal response between the pressure regulator and the microcontroller, implementing and testing dynamic load functions, adding regenerative braking, and designing and implementing a throttle and emergency brake, the project resulted in an improved lab-scale railway simulator. This system is now much closer to being application-ready for electric train dynamics

Cubes in Space at New England Sci-Tech

Engaging students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics requires a multifaceted approach that not only sparks their curiosity but also equips them with the tools and mental frameworks to sustain their interest and growth. The process extends beyond traditional classroom learning, emphasizing critical thinking, problem-solving, and connecting theoretical knowledge to practical challenges. By fostering and nurturing these capabilities, students are more likely to envision themselves pursuing STEM careers, addressing the global demand for skilled professionals in these fields, by engaging them in the engineering design, research, and experimental development process through the creation of a structured learning curriculum based on the real engineering team's operational work

Building BioTech Cities: Impact of Living Support Services

In this project, a study is conducted on a business incubator subsidiary, Transfar Science & Technology City. The project focuses on examining living support systems such as housing, supermarkets, networking events and more. The team applied various data collection methods, such as literature studies, interviews, and surveys to formulate correlations between the entrepreneurial market around science parks, and highly sought-after conveniences by job seekers, in the U.S. and China. The team offers informed conclusions, advising which supports to develop further to continue to attract overseas returnees. Additionally, they found providing increased residential spaces, supermarkets, and nearby casual meeting spaces can help attract young talent and overseas returnees to an innovation park

Broadfield Precision Distortion and Displacement Analysis (BPDDA): An Automated Distortion Correction and Stitching Method for Traction Force Microscopy

During tissue development and wound healing processes, cells generate and transmit mechanical forces to the surrounding matrix. Traction force microscopy (TFM) is widely used to measure these forces on soft gels, but conventional TFM is usually limited to a single field of view. This small area makes it difficult to study how local forces are organized across large cell monolayers. This thesis develops a large field TFM method and uses it to analyze collective mechanics in wound healing. Compared to previous studies limited to a single imaging field, this approach enables traction force measurements over image sizes exceeding 2 mm. Wound closure relies on coordinated force generation across large cell assemblies rather than isolated single cell mechanics. By enabling direct measurement of traction forces over tissue scale areas, the large field TFM approach provides new insight into how local cellular forces are organized and integrated to drive collective closure dynamics. A distortion correction and stitching workflow, termed Broadfield Precision Distortion and Displacement Analysis (BPDDA), was first established. A micropillar calibration board was used to measure the distortion field of the microscope, and a fourth order polynomial fit was used to correct it. After distortion correction, position errors were reduced to below one pixel. This level of geometric control is necessary when bead displacements are only a few tenths of a micrometer. To improve displacement detection, a hybrid method called MPIV+Track was then designed. It combines windowed particle image velocimetry with single-particle tracking. Tests on simulated displacement fields that mimic cell experiments showed that MPIV+Track detects small displacements better than MPIV or Track alone. It produced more detailed vectors than MPIV 4 and fewer false vectors than Track, especially in noisy images or images with dense bead distribution. BPDDA was applied to MEC1 cell monolayers that were closing circular wounds on soft gels. At early times after stencil removal, a thin ring of inward traction at the wound edge was detected in the traction maps. At later times, this ring was replaced by a wider traction band around the wound, which was found to support collective migration. TGF-β treatment increased traction magnitude and directional order near the edge, whereas ROCK inhibition reduced traction and altered the balance between edge forces and forces in the interior of the monolayer. Unlike small wounds dominated by a purse string mechanism, closure of the large wounds studied here involves traction forces generated by cells far from the wound edge. Finally, the method was used to compare control HeLa cells with HeLa cells in which IQGAP1 level was reduced. These changes indicate that IQGAP1 mediates mechanosensation and force transmission at the cell–matrix interface. Earlier work has suggested roles for IQGAP1 in cytoskeletal organization and migration (1), whereas this study directly measures how IQGAP1 depletion alters traction force magnitude and stiffness dependent force responses. Overall, these results demonstrate that combining BPDDA with MPIV+Track enables TFM measurements with sub-pixel geometric accuracy over millimeter-scale areas. This method provides a practical basis for future studies of cell monolayer mechanics. Quantitative measurements of monolayer mechanics enable direct study of how local cellular forces are coordinated across cell collectives to drive tissue level behaviors such as wound healing and tissue morphogenesis

Climate Lessons: Volume 2

Climate Lessons: Volume 2, is the five-year follow-up to the first text, Climate Lessons: Environmental, Social, Local. Both texts are written by first-semester undergraduate students in the Great Problems Seminar course on Climate Change, and grew out of a desire to record the accelerating pace at which we are seeing climate impacts, and to help students who are growing up in a rapidly warming world use their knowledge and voices now. This edition is different in that, first, students explored updates and shifts in issues, and, second, we provide more information and transparency for other faculty and students about how this book came together (e.g., assignment details). This book is in the Creative Commons under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0.). If you give appropriate credit, you may share and adapt this work for noncommercial purposes. https://pressbooks.pub/climatelessonsvol2

Suppression of Thermal Decomposition in Woody Biomass by Hig

This research introduces an experimental approach to suppressing thermal decomposition in woody biomass. Unlike conventional fire-suppression studies, this method utilizes high-viscosity fluid coatings to delay pyrolysis during radiant heat exposure. Xanthan gum and methylcellulose solutions in water were used in an ongoing study. This study focuses on sodium polyacrylate solutions. These materials are distinct for their rheological, moisture-retention, and thermal response properties. The project was conducted in collaboration with the Combustion Engineering Laboratory at the Shibaura Institute of Technology, where research focuses on flame propagation and pyrolysis behavior

6-DoF Surgical Robot Arm Capable of Accessing Behind Organs

This paper presents the redesign and validation of a modular 6-DOF robotic surgical instrument for Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) through sub-2 cm incisions. To address torsional compliance, backlash, and unreliable distal actuation from fully flexible shafts, a rigid–flexible–rigid transmission is introduced, localizing compliance to the elbow while increasing overall torsional stiffness. Modeling and FEA show reduced angular twist and improved torque transmission. A redesigned cable-driven system, modular docking interface, and internal cable management enhance decoupling, durability, and assembly. Testing confirms independent 6-DOF control, 360° shoulder and wrist rotation, and improved grip reliability without spring-like distal motion

A Plan for Water Refill Stations at University of the Aegean

Access to safe drinking water on Syros, a Greek island in the Cyclades, is limited. Working with the University of the Aegean, this project assessed students’ willingness to shift from bottled to filtered tap water on campus. Through a multi-method approach, we found students were unlikely to shift due to their distrust, lack of water quality data, and limited accessibility to refill stations. We then developed recommendations to expand and promote refill stations to reduce plastic waste and increase sustainability

Earthovia 2.0: Curriculum Building and Auditing Software

The project aims to embed interdisciplinary learning objectives in higher education curriculum using Earthovia 2.0 software developed by the research team. Earthovia 2.0 is a full stack web application deployed on the internet that uses an LLM engine to integrate interdisciplinary learning objectives. It achieves this by using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide the LLM engine with factual interdisciplinary education data as context and by following the backwards design curriculum development paradigm. A survey was administered to evaluate the impact of manual integration and Earthovia integration tasks. Finally, a focus group semi-structured interview was conducted to develop a comprehensive understanding of the similarities and differences in the integration approaches

Enhancing API Usability Via MCP Context Delivery for LLMs

The role of MCP servers & LLMs in large APIs were explored with the sponsorship of Quantifi Solutions. An MCP server was created that queried a large Quantifi API dataset and generated code using the Quantifi libraries. This MCP server was also used to explain how bond pricing models can be implemented using the Quantifi API. A chatbot was developed that prompted the user for a query, used the MCP server to obtain context about the API and generated Python code that used Quantifi's proprietary classes & bond pricing methods. The chatbot was successfully created to generate a working script that can price bonds with a SOFR curve. The model produced a working code template that follows Quantifi’s intended usage patterns & could be adjusted to fit specific pricing or modeling requirements