Irreparable Massive Rotator Cuff Tears: Subacromial Balloon Surgical Technique

Massive irreparable rotator cuff tears pose a significant challenge for both the treating orthopedic surgeon and patient. Surgical treatment options for massive rotator cuff tears include arthroscopic debridement, biceps tenotomy or tenodesis, arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, partial rotator cuff repair, cuff augmentation, tendon transfers, superior capsular reconstruction, subacromial balloon spacer, and ultimately reverse shoulder arthroplasty. The present study will provide a brief overview of these treatment options along with a description of the surgical technique for subacromial balloon spacer placement

Modular Self-Driving and Sensor Packages for R/C Cars

In this project, we created a modular self- driving kit and a sensor kit that can be integrated into any scale RC car. The self driving kit works by processing images taken from the car through a neural network to adjust the car’s steering and throttle. The sensor kit records the speed of drive shafts, rotations around pitch and roll axes, and temperature of the motor’s batteries and sensor boards as the car is driving. These kits will be used in WPI’s Advanced Engineering Design course where students design scale cars. The modular self driving kit and sensor kit will provide students with exposure to real-time data collection, and enhance their understanding in both mechatronic systems and autonomous driving developments

Lettuce Use Hydroponics: Addressing Drought in Worcester by Improving Agricultural Water Use

https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/gps-posters/1513/thumbnail.jp

Boys and Girls Club IQP

For our IQP, our team worked to help the Boys and Girls Club of Worcester meet two goals: 1. help students and families learn about digital citizenship and internet safety and 2. help students increase their Microsoft Office program skillsets. To meet the first goal, our team developed a series of skits, a narrated PowerPoint presentation for families, and a website of resources to help students and families learn about this topic. To meet the second goal, we created a series of puzzles that teach students how to use Microsoft Word and Excel. All of these deliverables were made with sustainability in mind, in the hopes to let the tools be useful to the Boys and Girls Club for a long period of time

Structure of a trimeric bacterial microcompartment shell protein, EtuB, associated with ethanol utilization inClostridium kluyveri

It has been suggested that ethanol metabolism in the strict anaerobe Clostridium kluyveri occurs within a metabolosome, a subcellular proteinaceous bacterial microcompartment. Two bacterial microcompartment shell proteins [EtuA (ethanol utilization shell protein A) and EtuB] are found encoded on the genome clustered with the genes for ethanol utilization. The function of the bacterial microcompartment is to facilitate fermentation by sequestering the enzymes, substrates and intermediates. Recent structural studies of bacterial microcompartment proteins have revealed both hexamers and pentamers that assemble to generate the pseudo-icosahedral bacterial microcompartment shell. Some of these shell proteins have pores on their symmetry axes. Here we report the structure of the trimeric bacterial microcompartment protein EtuB, which has a tandem structural repeat within the subunit and pseudo-hexagonal symmetry. The pores in the EtuB trimer are within the subunits rather than between symmetry related subunits. We suggest that the evolutionary advantage of this is that it releases the pore from the rotational symmetry constraint allowing more precise control of the fluxes of asymmetric molecules, such as ethanol, across the pore. We also model EtuA and demonstrate that the two proteins have the potential to interact to generate the casing for a metabolosome

Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume I Introduction to DUNE

International audienceThe preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay—these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation, stands ready to capture supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector technical design report (TDR) describes the DUNE physics program and the technical designs of the single- and dual-phase DUNE liquid argon TPC far detector modules. This TDR is intended to justify the technical choices for the far detector that flow down from the high-level physics goals through requirements at all levels of the Project. Volume I contains an executive summary that introduces the DUNE science program, the far detector and the strategy for its modular designs, and the organization and management of the Project. The remainder of Volume I provides more detail on the science program that drives the choice of detector technologies and on the technologies themselves. It also introduces the designs for the DUNE near detector and the DUNE computing model, for which DUNE is planning design reports. Volume II of this TDR describes DUNE's physics program in detail. Volume III describes the technical coordination required for the far detector design, construction, installation, and integration, and its organizational structure. Volume IV describes the single-phase far detector technology. A planned Volume V will describe the dual-phase technology