Optical Methods to Quanitfy Oxygen Tension in Microfluidic Devices

From the Washington University Office of Undergraduate Research Digest (WUURD), Vol. 12, 05-01-2017. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor: Steven Georg

Heat transport by laminar boundary layer flow with polymers

Motivated by recent experimental observations, we consider a steady-state Prandtl-Blasius boundary layer flow with polymers above a slightly heated horizontal plate and study how the heat transport might be affected by the polymers. We discuss how a set of equations can be derived for the problem and how these equations can be solved numerically by an iterative scheme. By carrying out such a scheme, we find that the effect of the polymers is equivalent to producing a space-dependent effective viscosity that first increases from the zero-shear value at the plate then decreases rapidly back to the zero-shear value far from the plate. We further show that such an effective viscosity leads to an enhancement in the drag, which in turn leads to a reduction in heat transport.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

A Letter of Gratitude

Please accept this letter as a thank you for enrolling and supporting me for my placement in the On-Line Research Summer Co-Op at the Foundation for Student Science and Technology. It has been an incredible month and I want to express my gratitude to you and the foundation for allowing me to pursue such an opportunity

NGO-isation and the Plight of Women in Developing Nations

Over the past century, NGOs have been rapidly growing in numbers have become increasingly involved in such health crises as HIV/Aids and Ebola around the world. Many organizations have also been founded to recognize and support oppressed groups in certain countries, one of the most important of these being women. It is undeniable that women of developing nations have been greatly affected by the rise of NGOs, and the ensuing phenomenon of NGO-isation, from increased opportunities for activism, to unsustainable dependencies on nutritional supplements,. This article presents a background of both NGOs and the plight of women in developing nations, as well as attempting to draw a relationship between these two stakeholders in our global society. This article also presents evidence to support the hypotheses that NGOs allow women to become more politically and socially active through government-neutral involvement, but also hinder their health and job prospects by failing to employ local workers and using short-term solutions instead of sustainable ones. Major analysis is conducted on these topics and attempts to determine the correlation between NGOs and their involvement with women in impoverished communities. The article concludes with final comments from the author about their overall experience and thoughts on the issue.Au cours du précédent siècle, les ONG sont rapidement augmentés en nombre et en implication dans plusieurs pays en développement en conséquence de plusieurs crises de santé telles que VIH / SIDA et Ebola. Plusieurs organisations ont aussi été créés pour donner reconnaissance à certaines groupes dans des pays oppressifs, un des plus importants parmi ces groupes étant les femmes. Il est indéniable que les femmes des pays en développement ont été aidés considérablement par la montée des ONG et le phénomène qui s'ensuit d'ONG-isation. Cet article présente un contexte d'à la fois les ONG et la situation des femmes dans les pays en développement et décrit une proposition de recherche pour tenter de déterminer la relation entre ces deux très importantes parties intéressées dans notre société globale. Cette proposition de recherche décrit ses objectives, buts et hypothèses qui concernent divers aspects de la vie d'une femme et ensuite ça décrit pourquoi ceci est un problème important et comment les données vont être obtenues. L'article conclut avec des commentaires finales de l'auteur à propos de leur expérience générale et leurs pensées concernant le problème.

Study of the Efficacy of Probiotic Bacteria to Reduce Acrylamide in Food and In Vitro Digestion

In this study, probiotic bacteria as a new post-processing approach to reduce acrylamide (AA) was investigated. The AA reduction ability of selected Lactobacillus strains and Bifidobacterium strains was demonstrated in (a) AA chemical solutions; (b) food matrices (biscuits and chips) and (c) in vitro digestion. The findings showed tested bacteria exhibited AA reduction ability which was probiotic strain-, AA concentration-, probiotic concentration-, incubation time- and pH-dependent. L. acidophilus LA 45 and B. longum ATCC 15707 (109 CFU/mL) showed the highest AA reduction (86.85 and 88.85%, respectively) when exposed to 350 ng/mL AA solution for 8 h. The findings also demonstrated that AA reduction ability of selected probiotic strains was pH- and food matrixdependent in both food matrices (9.45–22.15%) and in vitro digestion model (10.91–21.29%). This study showed probiotic bacteria can lower AA bioaccessibility under simulated digestion

Comparison of Test Your Memory and Montreal Cognitive Assessment Measures in Parkinson’s Disease

Background. MoCA is widely used in Parkinson’s disease (PD) to assess cognition. The Test Your Memory (TYM) test is a cognitive screening tool that is self-administered. Objectives. We sought to determine (a) the optimal value of TYM to discriminate between PD patients with and without cognitive deficits on MoCA testing, (b) equivalent MoCA and TYM scores, and (c) interrater reliability in TYM testing. Methods. We assessed the discriminant ability of TYM and the equivalence between TYM and MoCA scores and measured the interrater reliability between three raters. Results. Of the 135 subjects that completed both tests, 55% had cognitive impairment according to MoCA. A MoCA score of 25 was equivalent to a TYM score of 43-44. The area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve for TYM to differentiate between PD-normal and PD-cognitive impairment was 0.82 (95% CI 0.75 to 0.89). The optimal cutoff to distinguish PD-cognitive impairment from PD-normal was ≤45 (sensitivity 90.5%, specificity 59%) thereby correctly classifying 76.3% of patients with PD-cognitive impairment. Interrater agreement was high (0.97) and TYM was completed in under 7 minutes (interquartile range 5.33 to 8.52 minutes). Conclusions. The TYM test is a useful and less resource intensive screening test for cognitive deficits in PD