Agricultural Producers\u27 Motivations and Challenges With Improving Soil Health in Utah

The Utah Soil Health Program (USHP) developed a five-year project to increase understanding of how best to implement soil health practices into Utah’s diverse farming systems. Fifteen producers were selected to participate in the USHP On-Farm Soil Health Demonstration Project. During 2022, the trial’s first year, the participating farmers and ranchers were interviewed. We begin by discussing participant demographics and operation characteristics. Next, we turn to challenges the producers faced in implementing soil health practices in the IMW and then turn to motivations for the producers to enroll in the USHP trial. This will help (1) document what is currently known about soil health efforts in the IMW and (2) provide information to other producers interested in pursuing soil health on their agricultural land

TEAL 6545

The learning objectives for TEAL 6545 are to develop a research question about a chosen topic and to design a realistic study to conduct in the future. This library module teaches viewers about research and resources including strategies, grey literature, peer review, and more. Preview: https://lor.instructure.com/resources/17bf6c8efaee41648e7e6f724404dc85?sharedhttps://digitalcommons.usu.edu/elearning_all/1059/thumbnail.jp

CubeSat: Structure

Design, prototype, redesign, test, and fabricate the best 3U structure for the Utah Tech CubeSat to contain and protect the payload and necessary subsystems

CubeSat: Communications P.A.R.R. Earth Station

Designed and prototyped developed an autonomous earth station with RF tracking and SatNOGS integration to enable reliable satellite communication for environmental monitoring

International Rocket Engineering Competition

The Intercollegiate rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) challenges teams to design, build, and launch a high-powered rocket to a target altitude of 10,000 feet while recovering all components, Our team must integrate propulsion, avionics, recovery, and payload systems within strict safety, budget, and design constraints, demonstrating proficiency and innovation in rocketry

Understanding the Barriers to Hybrid Control

Hybrid rockets combine a solid fuel with a liquid or gaseous oxidizer, offering a balance of safety, simplicity, and throttleability not found in solid or liquid systems. Their modular design and low cost make them attractive for academic, commercial, and small-space applications. However, challenges in dynamic control—such as O/F shift, delayed system response, and variable injector behavior—limit their precision and practical use in responsive missions

Your Healthiest Year Yet: Practical Tips for Mental and Physical Well-Being

As a new year begins, it’s important to prioritize our health. In a world that continues to evolve, maintaining mental and physical wellness is key to thriving in both personal and professional life. Small, intentional changes can lead to transformative results, improving not only how we feel but also how we connect, grow, and succeed. This guide presents actionable tips for fostering mental clarity, physical strength, and overall balance, all grounded in evidence-based practices. Whether you\u27re looking to boost your fitness, reduce stress, or enhance your daily routines, these strategies will empower you to make this year your healthiest yet

Assessing the State of Archives and Archives Workers in the California State University

This article presents findings from an environmental scan of archival work at California State University (CSU), the largest public university system in the United States. Using an online survey to collect qualitative and quantitative data, the researchers were able to create a snapshot of the current state of the archives across the CSU system\u27s campuses. This included information about staffing, compensation, collections, duties and responsibilities, and budgets, as well as challenges. While all of the archival workers are part of the same university system, there were many differences in staffing levels, staff and faculty ranks, budgets, and duties assigned to the workers across the different campuses. These differences and challenges suggest that more research is needed to create better equity and opportunities for collaboration across the university system. This research will be of interest to other archival workers in large, geographically dispersed university systems, and archives workers across the western US in academic and other institutions

Quantifying the Threshold for Fragmentation of Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Drops

This dissertation investigates how the properties of liquid drops influence the minimum aerodynamic forces needed to cause the drop to fragment (breakup). For this work, we focus only on aerodynamic forces that are applied on a stationary drop by a sudden, uniform flow, a process called impulsive acceleration. Previous studies have largely focused on the fragmentation of spherical drops of Newtonian fluids (liquids with constant viscosity, like water), when impulsively accelerated in air-like ambient medium. Such systems only capture a limited range of drop and ambient properties (described by non-dimensional groups). Many real-world applications, such as aerial fire retardant delivery, involve conditions beyond this typical range. Fire retardants, for instance, can exhibit shear-thinning behavior (their viscosity decreases under stress), and the drops undergoing fragmentation often start with a non-spherical shape. The ambient medium could also be one with much higher densities and viscosities, common in cases where liquid drops fragment in other liquids. Through this dissertation, we aim to utilize computational models, specifically interface-tracking multiphase flow direct numerical simulations (DNS), to systematically examine how various drop properties affect the threshold of secondary fragmentation. The research is divided into five main parts. First, a model was developed to predict the trajectory and coverage of aerially delivered fire retardants, motivating the need for a deeper understanding of drop fragmentation. Second, we expanded the study of spherical, Newtonian drops beyond existing parameters, identifying a more robust non-dimensional parameter to predict the breakup threshold. Third, we performed the first systematic investigation of how initial drop shape affects fragmentation, quantifying its significant influence. Fourth and Fifth, we characterized the influence of shear-thinning or a viscoplastic nature of the drop fluid

From Classroom to Orbit: How a High School Girls-In-STEM Club Started the Journey of Pleiades Orpheus

Students from Irvington High School in Fremont, California built and launched a 1U CubeSat satellite called Pleiades Orpheus after its establishment in 2022. This project was a central part of the Irvington High School Girls-in-STEM Club and is among the few high school student-run programs globally to design, build, and successfully launch a satellite. The Pleiades Orpheus team strived to increase gender diversity in their student body, eventually leading them to form IHS Women in Satellite Engineering (IHS WiSE) in 2024. This paper will showcase the central goals and progress of the team, highlighting their most important goal: to make engineering more accessible to students. By addressing women as a historically marginalized group in engineering fields, and by fostering this passion from a young age, the initiative hopes to make a direct impact on this issue. An account of mentorship from students from the Bronco Space program from California Polytechnic State University Pomona, the PolySat team from California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo), and the Stanford Student Space Initiative from Stanford University is given. The discussion will emphasize how high schoolers navigated technical and logistical challenges enhancing their engineering, problem-solving, program management, and collaborative skills. Their 1U CubeSat, Pleiades Orpheus, was intended to detect light pollution across North America, applying scientific innovation to environmental research. The discussion will then entail the successful CubeSat launch, made on December 21, 2024. Finally, the paper will close with the broader implications and future plans for the Irvington High School Women in Satellite Engineering (IHS WiSE) initiative. The achievement represents a pioneering milestone in high school education, advancing the accessibility of CubeSat development for future generations of young women