COVID-19, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Right to Science

Across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated long-standing inequalities in access to treatment (such as vaccinations), access to reliable scientific information, scientific literacy, and much more. One promising approach to chart a more equitable response to the pandemic and future international health crises is to articulate the connections between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a human right that has garnered increased attention among scholars, activists, and the human rights community: the right to science. Both the SDGs – adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015 – and the right to science, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, look to a future where all people enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new obstacles for this vision, from reinforcing disparate access to scientific education between men and women to generating new challenges for international scientific cooperation. Featuring representatives from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program and other experts (to be invited) on the right to science, this session will discuss the potential opportunities and concerns involved in connecting the SDGs and the right to science. How can human rights activists use these linkages to push the international community to confront the problems COVID-19 has laid bare? What do government actions on cross-cutting issues such misinformation/disinformation, scientific freedom, and international cooperation during the pandemic mean for the future? The discussion will share perspectives across sectors and, in conversation with audience members, define actions that attendees can take to advance a human rights-based vision for science

Some Thoughts on the Search for 5×55 \times 5 and 6×66 \times 6 Additive-Multiplicative Magic Squares

An additive-multiplicative magic square is a square grid of numbers whose rows, columns, and long diagonals all have the same sum (called the magic sum) and the same product (called the magic product). There are numerous open problems about magic squares by Christian Boyer on multimagie.com. One such problem is to construct or prove the impossibility of a $5 \times 5$ or $6 \times 6$ additive-multiplicative magic square of distinct positive integers. Here, we present a possible approach to this problem and some partial results. We observe that such a square can be described by a form determined by the prime factorizations of its entries and that identifying these forms might be helpful in finding such a square or ruling out specific magic products.Comment: This paper has 10 pages and 3 figures. It is currently accepted, finalized, and in press at the Minnesota Journal of Undergraduate Mathematic

Weld microfissuring in Inconel 718 minimized by minor elements

Manganese, silicon, and magnesium markedly reduce the tendency of Inconel 718 to weld microfissuring. By combining a manganese, 0.20 percent by content, with silicon, greater than 0.25 percent content, or by adding 20 ppm of magnesium, the weld microfissuring decreased in the standard alloy

Rambling Through Robinson

An Account of the Home of the Department of Mechanical Engineerin

IMPROVING VENTRICULAR CATHETER DESIGN THROUGH COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts are fully implantable medical devices that are used to treat patients suffering from conditions characterized by elevated intracranial pressure, such as hydrocephalus. In cases of shunt failure or malfunction, patients are often required to endure one or more revision surgeries to replace all or part of the shunt. One of the primary causes of CSF shunt failure is obstruction of the ventricular catheter, a component of the shunt system implanted directly into the brain\u27s ventricular system. This work aims to improve the design of ventricular catheters in order to reduce the incidence of catheter obstruction and thereby reduce overall shunt failure rates. Modern CSF shunts are the result of six decades of neurosurgical progress; however, in spite of revolutionary advances in engineering, the ventricular catheter remains largely unchanged in its functionality and performance from its original design. A thorough review of the history of ventricular catheter design, and the contemporary efforts to improve it, have given valuable insight into the challenges still remaining. One of the challenges is to better understand shunt flow in order to improve the flow performance of ventricular catheters. To characterize CSF flow through catheters, this work integrated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling with experimental validation. A fully-parametrized, 3-dimensional CFD catheter model was developed that allowed for exploration of the geometric design features key to the catheter’s fluid dynamics. The model was validated using bench tests and advanced fluid imaging techniques, including positron emission particle tracking (PEPT). Once validated, the model served as a basis for automated, iterative parametric studies to be conducted. This involved creating a coupled framework between the CFD simulations and a parametric analysis toolkit. Sensitivity analyses and optimization studies were performed with the objective of improving catheter flow patterns. By simulating thousands of possible geometric catheter designs, much insight was gathered that can provide practical guidelines for producing optimal flow through ventricular catheters. Ultimately, those insights can lead to better quality of life for patients who require shunts, by reducing ventricular catheter obstruction rates and the need for revision surgeries

Gender effects in venture capital - examining the causal relationship between gender and venture capital decision-making

This thesis examines whether gender impacts venture capitalists' decision-making. Based on a literature review, this study poses the hypothesis female founders receive less venture capital funding than male founders. Further, it is hypothesized there is an interaction effect between founder and investor gender on the funding such that founder-investor gender congruence will lead to more funding than founder-investor gender incongruence. The analysis does not show a significant relationship between gender and venture capital decision-making. Still, insignifi cant mean comparisons can be made to aid later considerations. This contributes to the literature on the existing gender gap in venture capital funding