Tom Frey email interview about United States - Russian smokejumper exchanges

This interview consists of questions asked via email by the National Smokejumper Association to Bruce Ford for background to an article in September 2023 for the Smokejumper Magazine article US-Russian Smokejumper Exchanges: 1976-2004. Frey was a Bureau of Land Management smokejumper who participated in exchanges in the 1990s and 2000s

Effects of Procrastination and Intrinsic Motivation on Academic Performance and Life Satisfaction in Upper Division Courses

Traditional procrastination has been defined as an intentional delay in starting an act, which often leads to a negative outcome. Procrastination has been shown to be related to poor academic performance. However, some have argued that one type of procrastination – active procrastination (AP) – can sometimes provide benefits, as individuals intentionally use time pressure to increase motivation. Active procrastination predict better academic performance, whereas passive procrastination (PP) – avoiding the task and trying to act as if there were no task looming – predict poorer academic performance. The hypothesis for the current study were that higher AP would be associated with higher performance than lower AP or higher PP. 100 undergraduate students in online psychology classes were offered extra credit and completed at least part of the survey. AP and PP were assessed with scales, and academic performance was determined by grades on a term paper. The surveys were presented via Survey Monkey; instructor entered grade information, then deleted the identifying information before researcher received the data file. Pearson’s correlations were performed among both scales and the academic performance measure. AP was positively correlated with grades, whereas PP was negatively correlated. These results will be interpreted through the findings of previous studies

Developing Cryopreservation Methods of Wheat Roots

In the midst of record breaking rates of plant species extinction due to climate change and fungal diseases, a universal cryopreservation method would provide a means for preservation of these many different species. The concept of plant root cryopreservation first emerged in the late 1960’s, and with it came new avenues of preserving tissue for the purposes of agriculture and research. Frozen tissues can be transported and stored more reliably than other more conventional means. When thawed, they have the potential to be cultured and grown. Several different methods of cryopreservation exist. This experiment used the Fast (3°C/minute) and Slow freeze (0.3°C/minute) method with a controlled freezing unit on a wheat plant species. Cryoprotectant solutions containing 10% DMSO or 10% glycerol were used in conjunction with high (3.11 M) and low (1.5 M) sorbitol concentrations. A no sorbitol group was also tested. After being frozen, samples were transferred to a liquid nitrogen tank for storage, and later thawed. Thawed samples were stained with fluorescent dyes to observe live and dead cells under fluorescent microscopy. Root tips were deemed “surviving” if multiple live nuclei were present. In the glycerol group, Slow freezing showed a higher survival rate, while the DMSO group had good survival rates for both freezing rates. The Slow freeze rate showed greater survival rates overall compared to the Fast rate. Future experiments to develop a universal method will include testing on various plant species, such as potato plants, and succulents

Solid Waste Fuel For Combustion in Energy Recovery System

Across the United States, there are two pressing problems: garbage disposal and electricity generation. Firstly, the infrastructure in place doesn’t properly dispose of or reuse municipal solid waste. In addition, power insecurity is becoming more prominent as power grids are becoming outdated. This project aims to provide an alternative solution for both issues by using a Brayton cycle based waste-to-energy incinerator. The overall system efficiency relies heavily on the feedstock used for incineration. One way efficiency can be increased is through pelletizing trash, ensuring an even burn profile, providing the correct amount of feedstock, and ensuring adequate energy production. However, knowledge of the energy level per feedstock amount is needed. This project aims to use the money that was awarded to be able to purchase and test various feedstock: polypropylene, polyethylene, and mixed-wood pellets, as well as shredded packing paper. The testing uses a calorimeter to measure the amount of energy that is stored in each feedstock material. The data gained can provide information necessary for calculating the amount of electricity per specified volume of the above-mentioned materials. The first stage of this project involved gathering energy contents of the pure substances listed above through research papers. In the next few weeks, we will be continuing with our own experimentation that examines the energy released when combusting combinations of these substances. Our goal is to gather calorimetry data for the pelletized and shredded material listed above. The data will be used to design the waste-to-energy incinerator

The Water Crisis of Lake Mead, Nevada

The Colorado River flows from the western flanks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Gulf of California and is the primary water source for millions of residents of the southwestern United States. When Hoover Dam was completed in 1935, it created Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. At its fullest, Lake Mead holds 2 years of Colorado River flow. Lake Mead provides water to the cities of Las Vegas, Boulder City and Henderson, NV, and it provides electricity for Los Angeles, CA. Hoover Dam and the upstream Glen Canyon Dam regulate the amount of water in the Colorado River. Unfortunately, due to aridity and continuing high demand for water from both Lake Mead and Lake Powell, lake levels are dropping significantly. Lake Mead is expected to drop 20 feet within the next year. With levels dropping at an alarming rate, residents of southern Nevada are experiencing a water shortage crisis in what is already one of the driest areas in the nation, the Mojave Desert. We discuss the severity of the crisis, as well as the impacts on residents of the region

Beach Lamp

“Beach Lamp” is a mixed media lamp sculpture measuring 18” x 10”. This unusual piece is complex and made from objects found lying around a craft room. The work is inspired by living on the beach with a bright night light reflecting off the water. The figure poses as the queen of the ocean that has created this fun bright colored atmosphere full of random craft objects and materials. Beach Lamp brings you to a world of color and bright lights. With every little detail it invokes a bold expression of chaos, but it is organized. The Lamp reminds us to enjoy the little details when exploring a beach, to not take it for granted, and to recycle materials so they don’t end up hurting the ocean

Using an embedded system for a quality cup of coffee

Many coffee lovers spend up to $5 on a cup of coffee everyday. To save money one could make them at home, but a quality machine for a good cup of joe can cost up to$2000. Using an embedded system one could spend less than $500 and only spend a few hours to make a quality machine that will last a lifetime. Gaggiuno is an open source project that uses C language on an STM-32 microcontroller. Learning C language combined with hardware implementation applied to cheap and simple everyday objects can improve everyday quality of life and save money. We are improving upon the open source project by implementing a sensor to measure and display the temperature of the milk when it is being steamed. This addition improves safety for the consumer. This is challenging because we have to incorporate the addition into a pre-established circuit with limited space, and tie in new code to a preexisting one. In addition, all of our team members have to learn how to program the touch screen display using the proprietary IDE and language

\u3ci\u3eContracaecum multipapillatum\u3c/i\u3e prevalence and intensity of infection in the introduced brook stickleback as a case study of biotic resistance

The enemy release hypothesis suggests success of invasive species in initial phases of invasion is due to their ability to escape from native predators and pathogens. However, according to the biotic resistance hypothesis, this success of non-native species is time-dependent due to native predators and pathogen’s ability to shift prey and hosts making use of introductions. Introduced species function as predators and resource competitors to native species. It is important to understand potential limiting factors of an individual’s success and how it relates to large-scale ecosystem impacts. The brook stickleback is a newly introduced species in eastern Washington that has high population densities. These fish are parasitized by Contracaecum multipapillatum, a nematode in the Anisakidae family that has a complex life cycle targeting various species, including copepods, fish, piscivorous birds, and mammals. This study aims to calculate both prevalence and intensity of infection of C. multipapillatum by measuring the average number of nematodes found in Brook Stickleback. We collected fish at Middle Pine Lake within Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in October 2017, 2019, and 2022. We performed fish necroscopy to identify nematode presence and quantity per host. The prevalence of infection of C. multipapillatum was significantly higher at 40% in 2019 versus 15% in 2017 and 2022. Intensity of infection was not different between years. This analysis demonstrates interannual variability in prevalence of C. multipapillatum infection in brook stickleback. Investigation into dynamics of this system provides insight into interspecific relationships and biotic resistance, providing a case study for this hypothesis

Modeling repairable system failure data using NHPP realiability growth mode.

Stochastic point processes have been widely used to describe the behaviour of repairable systems. The Crow nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) often known as the Power Law model is regarded as one of the best models for repairable systems. The goodness-of-fit test rejects the intensity function of the power law model, and so the log-linear model was fitted and tested for goodness-of-fit. The Weibull Time to Failure recurrent neural network (WTTE-RNN) framework, a probabilistic deep learning model for failure data, is also explored. However, we find that the WTTE-RNN framework is only appropriate failure data with independent and identically distributed interarrival times of successive failures, and so cannot be applied to nonhomogeneous Poisson process