A.C.E. Lift: Assisted Cab Entry Lift System for Heavy Equipment Vehicles

The A.C.E. is a lift system to allow users with above-knee prosthetics to access the cab of heavy machinery. It is being designed as a senior project for California Polytechnic State University’s mechanical engineering curriculum with support from Quality of Life Plus (QL+) and sponsored by Jon Monett. In accordance with QL+’s mission of helping wounded veterans integrate into the workforce, the A.C.E. lift will allow disabled individuals to obtain jobs in the construction, agriculture, and waste management industries. As a continuation of a previous senior project that focused on a Caterpillar excavator, the new design will be applicable to a broad range of machines. The first steps were to take inventory of the heavy equipment vehicles available at Cal Poly and consult with Jason Newby, a local paraplegic and operator of heavy machinery. The equipment vehicles were categorized into three different groups; large offset back wheels, flush cab with wheels, and large rollers and treads. The large offset category of vehicles was chosen based upon different category vehicles as the previous senior project and the category also contains the widest selection of vehicles. The Caterpillar 420D backhoe was ultimately chosen as a platform for the proof-of-concept prototype with the understanding that the design would be scalable or easily modifiable to function with other vehicles in the same category. Many products exist on the market to assist people with disabilities. However, these products intended usage are for assisting disabled out of pools, into cars, and up and down the stairs. Not many products are available to be used on a heavy equipment machine. These products also must be custom built for each heavy equipment device. An extensive ideation process yielded a power screw design similar to that used by the previous group. However, after consulting with our project advisor and sponsors, the team selected a hoist system. At the current time the project is in the design phase. After research has been conducted on components and materials, and functionality has been ensured by hand calculations the team plans to begin ordering materials and fabricating the prototype

Statistical Properties of Many Particle Eigenfunctions

Wavefunction correlations and density matrices for few or many particles are derived from the properties of semiclassical energy Green functions. Universal features of fixed energy (microcanonical) random wavefunction correlation functions appear which reflect the emergence of the canonical ensemble as the number of particles approaches infinity. This arises through a little known asymptotic limit of Bessel functions. Constraints due to symmetries, boundaries, and collisions between particles can be included.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Non-degree Recital: Andrew Berry, euphonium and Laurenz Oriondo, tuba

Messrs. Berry and Oriondo study low brass with Paul Dickinson.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2256/thumbnail.jp

Damped Ly{\alpha} Absorption Systems in Semi-Analytic Models with Multiphase Gas

We investigate the properties of damped Ly{\alpha} absorption systems (DLAs) in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation, including partitioning of cold gas in galactic discs into atomic, molecular, and ionized phases with a molecular gas-based star formation recipe. We investigate two approaches for partitioning gas into these constituents: a pressure-based and a metallicity-based recipe. We identify DLAs by passing lines of sight through our simulations to compute HI column densities. We find that models with "standard" gas radial profiles - where the average specific angular momentum of the gas disc is equal to that of the host dark matter halo - fail to reproduce the observed column density distribution of DLAs. These models also fail to reproduce the distribution of velocity widths {\Delta}v, overproducing low {\Delta}v relative to high {\Delta}v systems. Models with "extended" radial gas profiles - corresponding to gas discs with higher specific angular momentum - are able to reproduce quite well the column density distribution of absorbers over the column density range 19 < log NHI < 22.5 in the redshift range 2 < z < 3.5. The model with pressure-based gas partitioning also reproduces the observed line density of DLAs, HI gas density, and {\Delta}v distribution at z < 3 remarkably well. However all of the models investigated here underproduce DLAs and the HI gas density at z > 3. If this is the case, the flatness in the number of DLAs and HI gas density over the redshift interval 0 < z < 5 may be due to a cosmic coincidence where the majority of DLAs at z > 3 arise from intergalactic gas in filaments while those at z < 3 arise predominantly in galactic discs. We further investigate the dependence of DLA metallicity on redshift and {\Delta}v, and find reasonably good agreement with the observations, particularly when including the effects of metallicity gradients (abbrv.).Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, submitted to MNRA

Identification of Clinical and Behavioral Outcomes Predictive of FTLD-TDP Pathology

Frontotemporal Lobar Dementia (FTLD) is a neurogenerative disease often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), resulting in poor treatment outcomes (Rascovsky et al., 2011). Multi-factorial approaches are increasingly being applied to yield more accurate and earlier diagnoses. These standard clinical outcomes include MRI imaging, biomarkers, and assessments of cognitive ability. While each of these outcomes are partially predictive of FTLD diagnosis, none alone carry enough power to differentiate FTLD patients from other dementias, including AD. One notable variable is TDP-43, a DNA-binding protein involved in regulating the FTLD risk gene UNC13A, suggested as one of the more effective biomarkers for early FTLD diagnosis. While it is understood that TDP-43 serves as a good diagnostic biomarker, it is less understood what unique clinical outcomes emerge as a consequence of FTLD-TDP pathology compared to other TDP-related diagnoses. To examine best clinical predictivity, exploratory analyses will be run to investigate outcome combinations that most accurately identify TDP-43 pathology. These variables include: CSF tau concentration, level of cognitive ability, and cerebral gray matter volume. Data was extracted from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC). Inclusion criterion were completeness of the following items/scores: FTD diagnosis, T1 scan (gray matter volumes), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), CSF tau, and TDP-43 pathology. Structural equation modeling (SEM) - specifically between FTLD-TDP patients compared to FTLD patients investigated the predictiveness of these variables. Data collection is still being conducted and results will be presented and discussed in full during the oral presentation. Overall, the results are expected to shed light on what combination of clinical outcomes are most related to FTLD-TDP pathology over other FTLD cases

Brief for Respondents. County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 137 S.Ct. 1539 (2017) (No. 16-3690), 2017 WL 696103

QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Does the legal framework set out in Grnham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), apply to actions by police that foreseeably create a need for the use of force? 2. In an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, where a house search that violates the Fourth Amendment results in the shooting of an innocent resident who did not know that the intruders were sheriff’s deputies, does a resident’s nonculpable response to the intrusion constitute a superseding cause that bars relief for the residents’ injur

Deformations and dilations of chaotic billiards, dissipation rate, and quasi-orthogonality of the boundary wavefunctions

We consider chaotic billiards in d dimensions, and study the matrix elements M_{nm} corresponding to general deformations of the boundary. We analyze the dependence of |M_{nm}|^2 on \omega = (E_n-E_m)/\hbar using semiclassical considerations. This relates to an estimate of the energy dissipation rate when the deformation is periodic at frequency \omega. We show that for dilations and translations of the boundary, |M_{nm}|^2 vanishes like \omega^4 as \omega -> 0, for rotations like \omega^2, whereas for generic deformations it goes to a constant. Such special cases lead to quasi-orthogonality of the eigenstates on the boundary.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

The Drosophila caspase Ice is important for many apoptotic cell deaths and for spermatid individualization, a nonapoptotic process

Caspase family proteases play important roles in the regulation of apoptotic cell death. Initiator caspases are activated in response to death stimuli, and they transduce and amplify these signals by cleaving and thereby activating effector caspases. In Drosophila, the initiator caspase Nc (previously Dronc) cleaves and activates two short-prodomain caspases, Dcp-1 and Ice (previously Drice), suggesting these as candidate effectors of Nc killing activity. dcp-1-null mutants are healthy and possess few defects in normally occurring cell death. To explore roles for Ice in cell death, we generated and characterized an Ice null mutant. Animals lacking Ice show a number of defects in cell death, including those that occur during embryonic development, as well as during formation of adult eyes, arista and wings. Ice mutants exhibit subtle defects in the destruction of larval tissues, and do not prevent destruction of salivary glands during metamorphosis. Cells from Ice animals are also markedly resistant to several stresses, including X-irradiation and inhibition of protein synthesis. Mutations in Ice also suppress cell death that is induced by expression of Rpr, Wrinkled (previously Hid) and Grim. These observations demonstrate that Ice plays an important non-redundant role as a cell death effector. Finally, we demonstrate that Ice participates in, but is not absolutely required for, the non-apoptotic process of spermatid differentiation