Have I Made My Point?

The purpose of my research is to use Experimental Archaeology to explore how individuals relate to, and behave in, their environment. For this study, I chose to use materials and techniques that would have been available to pre-contact populations in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia, to manufacture lithic tools, or projectile points and knives (PP/Ks).https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1051/thumbnail.jp

Mild pro-p-groups with 4 generators

Let p be an odd prime and S a finite set of primes = 1 mod p. We give an effective criterion for determining when the Galois group G=G_S(p) of the maximal p-extension of Q unramified outside of S is mild when |S|=4 and the cup product H^1(G,Z/pZ) \otimes H^1(G,Z/pZ) --> H^2(G,Z/pZ) is surjective.Comment: 12 pages. No figures. LaTe

Susurrations of the CCC

The purpose of my research is to explore the use of anecdotal evidence and primary sources to locate and explain deviations from official records. For this study, I chose to look for a boxing ring constructed at the behest of the Commanding Officer of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 2386 at Camp SP-24V in Chester, Virginia.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1052/thumbnail.jp

A 22-Caliber Foreign Body

On Feb. 27, 1953, a five-year-old gelding was admitted to the Stange Memorial Clinic with a gunshot wound in the left foreleg. Questioning of the owner revealed that the animal had been shot accidentally with a 22-caliber rifle while the owner was attempting to destroy a stray dog. The patient had been lying in a stall when he was shot. It was also reported that the animal had been shot on February 26, and that on the same day a local veterinarian had attempted to remove the bullet but had failed. The local veterinarian then gave the patient penicillin and sent it to the clinic

MODELING OF A COMBINED HEAT AND POWER UNIT AND EVALUATION OF SYSTEM PERFORMANCE IN BUILDING APPLICATIONS

This thesis presents a validated model of a 4 kilowatt combined heat and power (CHP) system derived from laboratory experiments. The model is tuned to match steady state experimental tests, and validated with transient experimental results. Further simulations are performed using a modeled thermal storage system, and implementing the CHP system into a building model to evaluate the feasibility of CHP in the mid-Atlantic region, as well as the Great Lakes region. The transient simulation outputs are within 4.8% of experimental results for identical load profiles for a simulated summer week, and within 2.2% for a spring or autumn week. When integrated with a building model, the results show 23.5% cost savings on energy in the mid-Atlantic region, and 29.7% savings in the Great Lakes region

ECL Circuits

Emitter Coupled Logic (ECL) gates were fabricated on a n-epi layer. SUPREM was used to simulate the fabrication including junction depth and sheet resistance. The Integrated Circuit Editor was used to layout the design based on SUPREM parameters. SPICE was also used to confirm the proper operation of the devices. Testing was limited due to a lack of a probe card for the logic analyzer. But, an npn transistor was tested with a gain of one indicating a working device was present. A subcollector implant was not performed due to the time constrains placed on the project

Investigating Post-Translational Modification of the Net Protein Superfamily

The Net protein superfamily represents a group of actin binding proteins contain a novel actin binding domain at their N termini. The aim of this project was to investigate post-translational modification of these proteins in order to explore how the interaction of these proteins with actin is regulated. A bioinformatics-based approach was used to predict sites for multiple types of modification, with a focus on phosphorylation, that were conserved between members of the superfamily. It became clear that there was some level of conservation of predicted post-translational modification sites at the C-terminus in multiple Net families. Net4B was identified as having a high probability of being phosphorylated at the C-terminus and predicted to have its N- and C-termini proximal to one another in its tertiary structure, and following this mutant forms of the protein were created to investigate how its actin binding activity would be affected if one site, S509, was phosphorylated or dephosphorylated. The mutants were transiently expressed in Nicotania benthamiana and the appearance of the leaf cells assessed. Whilst phosphomimicry of S509 resulted in no appreciable change in the appearance of the GFP-tagged protein, mutation to a residue imitating a non-phosphorylatable serine resulted in the formation of punctae, in some cases much like the ‘beads-on-a-string’ seen in other members of the Net superfamily. This finding may have implications for the regulation of actin binding in other Net proteins and for other proteins outside of the superfamily. Two models are presented in both of these contexts. This project may also provide groundwork for future experiments concerning phosphorylation and acylation, and may illuminate the mechanism by which Net proteins interact with actin and with the membranes with which they are respectively localised

China\u27s Soft Power in the Context of the Belt and Road Initiative: Three Case Studies

In 2013 China announced the start of The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By building infrastructure in countries across the world, China hopes to strengthen itself economically and reshape the international balance of power. Evidence from other works suggests this strategy may be working. However, this thesis suggests that the BRI is not a fool-proof method of persuading other countries to join China’s sphere. In fact, China may be hindering its use of soft power through actions not wholly related to the BRI