Environmental Stewardship on the URI Campus

This poster campaign and report was an effort to get environmental stewardship to be more of a part of the student government at URI. It was used to raise awareness and link people\u27s actions to theory so that future work could be built off this and assessed for its effectiveness

Commercial users panel

The discussions of motives and requirements for telerobotics application demonstrated that, in many cases, lack of progress was a result not of limited opportunities but of inadequate mechanisms and resources for promoting opportunities. Support for this conclusion came from Telerobotics, Inc., one of the few companies devoted primarily to telerobot systems. They have produced units for such diverse applications as nuclear fusion research, particle accelerators, cryogenics, firefighting, marine biology/undersea systems and nuclear mobile robotics. Mr. Flatau offered evidence that telerobotics research is only rarely supported by the private sector and that it often presents a difficult market. Questions on the mechanisms contained within the NASA technology transfer process for promoting commercial opportunities were fielded by Ray Gilbert and Tom Walters. A few points deserve emphasis: (1) NASA/industry technology transfer occurs in both directions and NASA recognizes the opportunity to learn a great deal from industry in the fields of automation and robotics; (2) promotion of technology transfer projects takes a demand side approach, with requests to industry for specific problem identification. NASA then proposes possible solutions; and (3) comittment ofmotivated and technically qualified people on each end of a technology transfer is essential

Platinum(II) phosphonate complexes derived from endo-8-camphanylphosphonic acid

The reactions of cis-[PtCl₂L₂] [L = PPh₃, PMe₂Ph or L₂ = Ph₂P(CH₂)₂PPh₂ (dppe)] with endo-8-camphanylphosphonic acid (CamPO₃H₂) and Ag₂O in refluxing dichloromethane gave platinum(II) phosphonate complexes [Pt(O₃PCam)L₂]. The X-ray crystal structure of [Pt(O₃PCam)(PPh₃)₂]•₂CHCl₃ shows that the bulky camphanyl group, rather than being directed away from the platinum, is instead directed into a pocket formed by the Pt and the two PPh₃ ligands. This allows the O₃P–CH₂ group to have a preferred staggered conformation. The complexes were studied in detail by NMR spectroscopy, which demonstrates non-fluxional behaviour for the sterically bulky PPh₃ and dppe derivatives, which contain inequivalent phosphine ligands in their ³¹P NMR spectra. These findings are backed up by theoretical calculations on the PPh₃ and PPhMe₂ derivatives, which show, respectively, high and low energy barriers to rotation of the camphanyl group in the PPh₃ and PPhMe₂ complexes. The X-ray crystal structure of CamPO₃H₂ is also reported, and consists of hydrogen-bonded hexameric aggregates, which assemble to form a columnar structure containing hydrophilic phosphonic acid channels surrounded by a sheath of bulky, hydrophobic camphanyl groups

A phase Ib/II study of cabozantinib (XL184) with or without erlotinib in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

PurposeCabozantinib is a multi-kinase inhibitor that targets MET, AXL, and VEGFR2, and may synergize with EGFR inhibition in NSCLC. Cabozantinib was assessed alone or in combination with erlotinib in patients with progressive NSCLC and EGFR mutations who had previously received erlotinib.MethodsThis was a phase Ib/II study (NCT00596648). The primary objectives of phase I were to assess the safety, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics and to determine maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of cabozantinib plus erlotinib in patients who failed prior erlotinib treatment. In phase II, patients with prior response or stable disease with erlotinib who progressed were randomized to single-agent cabozantinib 100 mg qd vs cabozantinib 100 mg qd and erlotinib 50 mg qd (phase I MTD), with a primary objective of estimating objective response rate (ORR).ResultsSixty-four patients were treated in phase I. Doses of 100 mg cabozantinib plus 50 mg erlotinib, or 40 mg cabozantinib plus 150 mg erlotinib were determined to be MTDs. Diarrhea was the most frequent dose-limiting toxicity and the most frequent AE (87.5% of patients). The ORR for phase I was 8.2% (90% CI 3.3-16.5). In phase II, one patient in the cabozantinib arm (N = 15) experienced a partial response, for an ORR of 6.7% (90% CI 0.3-27.9), with no responses for cabozantinib plus erlotinib (N = 13). There was no evidence that co-administration of cabozantinib markedly altered erlotinib pharmacokinetics or vice versa.ConclusionsDespite responses with cabozantinib/erlotinib in phase I, there were no responses in the combination arm of phase II in patients with acquired resistance to erlotinib. Cabozantinib did not appear to re-sensitize these patients to erlotinib

Electrospinning Fundamentals: Optimizing Solution and Apparatus Parameters

Electrospun nanofiber scaffolds have been shown to accelerate the maturation, improve the growth, and direct the migration of cells in vitro. Electrospinning is a process in which a charged polymer jet is collected on a grounded collector; a rapidly rotating collector results in aligned nanofibers while stationary collectors result in randomly oriented fiber mats. The polymer jet is formed when an applied electrostatic charge overcomes the surface tension of the solution. There is a minimum concentration for a given polymer, termed the critical entanglement concentration, below which a stable jet cannot be achieved and no nanofibers will form - although nanoparticles may be achieved (electrospray). A stable jet has two domains, a streaming segment and a whipping segment. While the whipping jet is usually invisible to the naked eye, the streaming segment is often visible under appropriate lighting conditions. Observing the length, thickness, consistency and movement of the stream is useful to predict the alignment and morphology of the nanofibers being formed. A short, non-uniform, inconsistent, and/or oscillating stream is indicative of a variety of problems, including poor fiber alignment, beading, splattering, and curlicue or wavy patterns. The stream can be optimized by adjusting the composition of the solution and the configuration of the electrospinning apparatus, thus optimizing the alignment and morphology of the fibers being produced. In this protocol, we present a procedure for setting up a basic electrospinning apparatus, empirically approximating the critical entanglement concentration of a polymer solution and optimizing the electrospinning process. In addition, we discuss some common problems and troubleshooting techniques

Carotid Atheroma Rupture Observed In Vivo and FSI-Predicted Stress Distribution Based on Pre-rupture Imaging

Atherosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation is a major risk factor for stroke. As mechanical forces may impact lesion stability, finite element studies have been conducted on models of diseased vessels to elucidate the effects of lesion characteristics on the stresses within plaque materials. It is hoped that patient-specific biomechanical analyses may serve clinically to assess the rupture potential for any particular lesion, allowing better stratification of patients into the most appropriate treatments. Due to a sparsity of in vivo plaque rupture data, the relationship between various mechanical descriptors such as stresses or strains and rupture vulnerability is incompletely known, and the patient-specific utility of biomechanical analyses is unclear. In this article, we present a comparison between carotid atheroma rupture observed in vivo and the plaque stress distribution from fluid–structure interaction analysis based on pre-rupture medical imaging. The effects of image resolution are explored and the calculated stress fields are shown to vary by as much as 50% with sub-pixel geometric uncertainty. Within these bounds, we find a region of pronounced elevation in stress within the fibrous plaque layer of the lesion with a location and extent corresponding to that of the observed site of plaque rupture

What doesn’t kill me ... : adversity-related experiences are vital in the development of superior Olympic performance

Objectives: Recent research suggests that experiencing some adversity can have beneficial outcomes for human growth and development. The purpose of this paper was to explore the adversities that the world’s best athletes encounter and the perceived role that these experiences play in their psychological and performance development. Design: A qualitative design was employed because detailed information of rich quality was required to better understand adversity-related experiences in the world’s best athletes. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Olympic gold medalists from a variety of sports. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The findings indicate that the participants encountered a range of sport- and non-sport adversities that they considered were essential for winning their gold medals, including repeated non-selection, significant sporting failure, serious injury, political unrest, and the death of a family member. The participants described the role that these experiences played in their psychological and performance development, specifically focusing on their resultant trauma, motivation, and learning. Conclusions: Adversity-related experiences were deemed to be vital in the psychological and performance development of Olympic champions. In the future, researchers should conduct more in-depth comparative studies of Olympic athletes’ adversity- and growth-related experiences, and draw on existing and alternative theoretical explanations of the growth-performance relationship. For professional practitioners, adversity-related experiences offer potential developmental opportunities if they are carefully and purposely harnessed

Gold, power, protest: Digital and social media and protests against large-scale mining projects in Colombia

Colombia’s Internet connectivity has increased immensely. Colombia has also ‘opened for business’, leading to an influx of extractive projects to which social movements object heavily. Studies on the role of digital media in political mobilisation in developing countries are still scarce. Using surveys, interviews, and reviews of literature, policy papers, website and social media content, this study examines the role of digital and social media in social movement organisations and asks how increased digital connectivity can help spread knowledge and mobilise mining protests. Results show that the use of new media in Colombia is hindered by socioeconomic constraints, fear of oppression, the constraints of keyboard activism and strong hierarchical power structures within social movements. Hence, effects on political mobilisation are still limited. Social media do not spontaneously produce non-hierarchical knowledge structures. Attention to both internal and external knowledge sharing is therefore conditional to optimising digital and social media use