MEMS 411: T-Shirt Strip Dispenser

For this design project, we worked with Dr. Mary Ruppert-Stroescu from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts to create a device that dispenses t-shirt strips. Dr. Ruppert-Stroescu has a patented process where strips of cloth are laid down on a sticky backing paper and sewn together to be made into new clothing. Our goal was to streamline the strip-laying process, making it less tedious and time consuming

American Edibles: How Cannabis Regulatory Policy Rehashes Prohibitionist Fears and What to do About It

Why can’t we buy a cannabis muffin with our morning coffee? For much of the past century, the answer was simple: cannabis was illegal. Now, however, with more and more states legalizing cannabis for adult use, the answer is far less clear. Even in those states that have legalized cannabis, the simple action of buying and eating edibles at the same location has somehow remained a pipe dream despite consumer demand. Digging a little deeper, we can see how contemporary alarmism, by rehashing the same prohibitionist rhetoric demonizing cannabis for over eighty years, has once again arisen with a new target: cannabis-infused edibles. From journalists to policymakers to legal scholars, the rekindling of prohibitionist arguments against edibles has had real world impacts on the regulation of cannabis edibles, to the harm of all involved.This Article explores contemporary cannabis edibles regulation using historical, scientific, and legal frameworks to explain why current edibles regulation is so problematic, and what to do about it. By delving into the history of cannabis prohibition, this Article shows how the very same arguments propping up prohibitionist edibles policies are rooted in bad-faith arguments made decades ago that themselves were merely thin veils for racism. Applying this historical perspective and a rational understanding of contemporary cannabis edibles, this Article explores how states have used prohibition-inspired regulations to address two main concerns—overconsumption and inadvertent consumption— and how such regulations need to be revisited and revised. This Article then argues that social consumption sits at the crux of edibles regulation, and that states must implement social consumption imminently to address the harms that current regulations do not address, or even worse, perpetuate

Link Path Design on a Block-by-Block Basis

In high-speed data communication systems, the complexity of link path between transmitters and receivers present a challenge for designers to maintain an acceptable bit error rate. An approach is presented in this paper to design the link path on a block-by-block basis. The unique advantage of this approach lies on the physics-based model of each block, which relates performance to geometry and makes design improvement and optimization possible. An example link path involving a backpanel is investigated using the approach. The via stubs and the dielectric materials in the backpanel are demonstrated to be critical factors for link performance in certain situations

A Device for Quantitative Analysis of the Thumb Ulnar Collateral Ligament

A device to quantitatively assess the ulnar collateral ligament of the thumb was developed to facilitate rapid and accurate diagnosis of the ligamentous injury known as Skier’s thumb. Topics: Wound

Natural history of chronic mitral insufficiency: Relation of peak systolic pressure/end-systolic volume ratio to morbidity and mortality

The ratio of peak systolic pressure to end-systolic volume (PSP/ESV) is a measure of contractility that is relatively independent of loading conditions. To define the relation of this index to the natural history of chronic mitral insufficiency, follow-up studies were performed in 76 patients. All had isolated mitral insufficiency and were followed up for an average of 48 months. None underwent surgery. Cardiac volumes, ejection fraction and PSP/ESV ratio were calculated and Cox multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the relation of functional status, ejection fraction and PSP/ESV ratio to morbidity and mortality.Twenty-three patients died during follow-up; in 70% of those who died, the PSP/ESV ratio was reduced below the 20th percentile. However, as an independent predictor of mortality, this ratio was less sensitive (p>0.05) than ejection fraction (p < 0.01). Similarly, functional status change was predicted more accurately by ejection fraction (p < 0.01) than by the PSP/ESV ratio (p>0.05). Thus, although a decreased PSP/ESV ratio was associated with a higher mortality rate, other clinical and laboratory variables were superior to this index for determining morbidity and mortality in patients with isolated mitral insufficiency

The Effect of Cone Opsin Mutations on Retinal Structure and the Integrity of the Photoreceptor Mosaic

Purpose. To evaluate retinal structure and photoreceptor mosaic integrity in subjects with OPN1LW and OPN1MW mutations. Methods. Eleven subjects were recruited, eight of whom have been previously described. Cone and rod density was measured using images of the photoreceptor mosaic obtained from an adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). Total retinal thickness, inner retinal thickness, and outer nuclear layer plus Henle fiber layer (ONL+HFL) thickness were measured using cross-sectional spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images. Molecular genetic analyses were performed to characterize the OPN1LW/OPN1MW gene array. Results. While disruptions in retinal lamination and cone mosaic structure were observed in all subjects, genotype-specific differences were also observed. For example, subjects with “L/M interchange” mutations resulting from intermixing of ancestral OPN1LW and OPN1MW genes had significant residual cone structure in the parafovea (∼25% of normal), despite widespread retinal disruption that included a large foveal lesion and thinning of the parafoveal inner retina. These subjects also reported a later-onset, progressive loss of visual function. In contrast, subjects with the C203R missense mutation presented with congenital blue cone monochromacy, with retinal lamination defects being restricted to the ONL+HFL and the degree of residual cone structure (8% of normal) being consistent with that expected for the S-cone submosaic. Conclusions. The photoreceptor phenotype associated with OPN1LW and OPN1MW mutations is highly variable. These findings have implications for the potential restoration of visual function in subjects with opsin mutations. Our study highlights the importance of high-resolution phenotyping to characterize cellular structure in inherited retinal disease; such information will be critical for selecting patients most likely to respond to therapeutic intervention and for establishing a baseline for evaluating treatment efficacy

Discovery and Early Evolution of ASASSN-19bt, the First TDE Detected by TESS

We present the discovery and early evolution of ASASSN-19bt, a tidal disruption event (TDE) discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) at a distance of $d\simeq115$ Mpc and the first TDE to be detected by TESS. As the TDE is located in the TESS Continuous Viewing Zone, our dataset includes 30-minute cadence observations starting on 2018 July 25, and we precisely measure that the TDE begins to brighten $\sim8.3$ days before its discovery. Our dataset also includes 18 epochs of Swift UVOT and XRT observations, 2 epochs of XMM-Newton observations, 13 spectroscopic observations, and ground data from the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network, spanning from 32 days before peak through 37 days after peak. ASASSN-19bt thus has the most detailed pre-peak dataset for any TDE. The TESS light curve indicates that the transient began to brighten on 2019 January 21.6 and that for the first 15 days its rise was consistent with a flux $\propto t^2$ power-law model. The optical/UV emission is well-fit by a blackbody SED, and ASASSN-19bt exhibits an early spike in its luminosity and temperature roughly 32 rest-frame days before peak and spanning up to 14 days that has not been seen in other TDEs, possibly because UV observations were not triggered early enough to detect it. It peaked on 2019 March 04.9 at a luminosity of $L\simeq1.3\times10^{44}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ and radiated $E\simeq3.2\times10^{50}$ ergs during the 41-day rise to peak. X-ray observations after peak indicate a softening of the hard X-ray emission prior to peak, reminiscent of the hard/soft states in X-ray binaries.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables. A machine-readable table containing the host-subtracted photometry presented in this manuscript is included as an ancillary fil