Indicators of the Metroscape: Radon

Brief discussion and mapping of radon emanation in different areas of Portland, Oregon

The Design and Implementation of an Extensible Brain-Computer Interface

An implantable brain computer interface: BCI) includes tissue interface hardware, signal conditioning circuitry, analog-to-digital conversion: ADC) circuitry and some sort of computing hardware to discriminate desired waveforms from noise. Within an experimental paradigm the tissue interface and ADC hardware will rarely change. Recent literature suggests it is often the specific implementation of waveform discrimination that can limit the usefulness and lifespan of a particular BCI design. If the discrimination techniques are implemented in on-board software, experimenters gain a level of flexibility not currently available in published designs. To this end, I have developed a firmware library to acquire data sampled from an ADC, discriminate the signal for desired waveforms employing a user-defined function, and perform arbitrary tasks. I then used this design to develop an embedded BCI built upon the popular Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller platform. This system can operate on multiple channels simultaneously and is not fundamentally limited in the number of channels that can be processed. The resulting system represents a viable platform that can ease the design, development and use of BCI devices for a variety of applications

Supporting Medicaid in Virginia

This report analyzes Medicaid in Virginia, the needs-based social health insurance program providing health coverage to children, pregnant women, working parents, the disabled, and elderly who cannot afford health costs on their own. It supports the value of the Medicaid program to these beneficiaries’ long term health, the healthcare sector, cost control and Virginia’s economy. Additionally, it analyzes healthcare policy looking at what effects the Affordable Care Act has had in improving healthcare access and what effects healthcare reform under president-elect Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican controlled 115th United States Congress might have targeting healthcare cost. Ultimately this leads to a recommendation that in order to protect those who are most at risk of harm amidst transition and in order to protect Virginia’s long term solvency, any efforts that put federal Medicaid funding at risk should be opposed

Cold-formed Steel Design by Spreadsheet Program

This paper demonstrates how to use advanced features of a spreadsheet program to design cold-formed steel members efficiently. The example presented in the paper concerns a hat section in flexure which is to be designed for maximum bending strength with a restriction on the total amount of steel that can be used. The nature of the formulas and data entered into the spreadsheet program are presented

Living on the Move: Kinna, Kenya

People who live a life on the move are aware that they are often seen as undesirable and dangerous. The 23 people gathered at the riverside to inform the Bellagio initiative dialogue on philanthropy and development want to put the record straight. In different ways, they each live life on the move, some driven by war and violence, others choosing economic migration, yet others are born into a mobile life. Their movement encompasses Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia, UK and beyond. As each one speaks it becomes increasingly clear that a successful life on the move is not a selfish thing. It generates a remarkable philanthropy.The Rockerfeller Foundatio

The Effects of Social Media & Web Development on Product Promotion & The Effects of Branding on Sales and Building a Startup

The purpose of this study was to identify the key components needed to make a startup. This included created making a landing page and also driving traffic to the page through Facebook. On the landing page section, there was a test to see what would provide the best user experience using Squarespace. This entailed looking into different layouts and using analytics to determine how effective the landing page was in converting customers. In terms of Facebook research, went into looking into creating a method into driving leads into the prospect pipeline. A campaign was run to gather all the data needed and to see how the audience would react to the campaign from beginning to the end of the pipeline. Facebook analytics helped get effective results especially coupled with the analytics found on Squarespace. The results of this study helped create a methodology in which a startup can use Facebook to drive traffic to a landing page. The results showed that when targeting using t-shirts, males ages 35-54 were the most receptive to that type of product. The end result was a 1.8% click-through rate, which was lower than ideal, but could be improved with more testing