Effect of Thiols for Nitrogen Reduction to Ammonia

Ammonia is an important chemical used for fertilizers and also a potential carbon-free hydrogen storage medium. The Haber-Bosch process is the main production process, which requires large energy- and capital-input. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an alternate scalable synthesis that provides a less energy intensive and more economical route for synthetic ammonia production. In this paper, a 1Fe1Ni film was functionalized with C3OH and C6OH for the electrochemical synthesis of ammonia. This work will provide some insight into how thiol ligands can increase the selectivity of the catalyst for nitrogen reduction reaction and can be improved on to provide a new synthesis for ammonia

Adam Smith\u27s Circle of Ambition

Adam Smith is often thought to be an unequivocal advocate of capitalism based on unfettered self-interest. Against this caricature, I argue that his attitudes towards commercial society are, in fact, more ambivalent. To ground this claim, I outline Smith’s account of ambition, a passion responsible for the dynamism of commercial economies but deleterious to individual happiness, and focus on the rhetoric Smith deploys in his portraits of three ambitious characters: the poor man’s son, the ambitious man, and the prudent man. Next, I challenge alternative interpretations. In particular, I contest Samuel Fleischacker’s view that Smith no longer sees ambition, motivated by vanity, as the driving force behind economic growth in commercial society by the time he writes the Wealth of Nations and, thus, is not meaningfully ambivalent. In the last section, I draw on recent work by Amelie Rorty to argue that Smith’s ambivalence towards commercial society is both appropriate and constructive

Effects of Video Technology on Cooking Self-Efficacy

College students, on average, have poor nutritional habits associated with increasing risk of obesity and chronic disease later in life. Today’s average student has low self-efficacy for cooking meals in the home and thus, is highly dependent on convenience-type food items. A valuable technique for improving cooking skill in individuals is through the use of video technology to teach cooking. Undergraduate students are likely Millennials, and prefer to use technology for learning purposes. The objective of this study was to test the effect of video technology on cooking self-efficacy in undergraduate college students living off-campus at a public Midwestern University. Two groups of undergraduate college students (n=71) were assessed for baseline self-efficacy for cooking skill and number of meals cooked per week using an online survey. One group received five weeks of a recipe card and survey assessing self-efficacy for cooking the meal and barriers to cooking in the home. The second group received five weeks of a recipe card and accompanying cooking video in addition to a survey assessing the same parameters. Participants were surveyed at the end of the study to assess changes in cooking self-efficacy, number of meals cooker per week, and differences between groups. There were significantly statistical improvements from pretest to posttest cooking self-efficacy scores for participants but no statistical difference between pretest and posttest number of meals cooked per week (p=.345). There were no statistical differences between intervention groups (p\u3e.05). Conclusions of the study found students reported confidence in cooking skill, but lacked time and equipment associated with cooking healthy meals. Overall, the use of video technology was effective at improving self-efficacy for cooking if: 1) Meals are simple, short, and specific. 2) Recipe videos are short to maintain viewer attention

Movie Manager

Despite the increase sales in entertainment options such as Video On Demand, digital purchases, and subscription streaming, physical disc media sales is still a multi-billion dollar industry. The purchase of physical media discs (such as Blu-rays and DVDs) continues to be a popular option for home entertainment [1]. Many consumers have created a vast collection of movies and it can be difficult to manage them all. These consumers may be asking the following questions. How many movies do I own? Do I already own that movie? Have I upgraded my DVD to a Blu-ray yet? If you own a collection of 30 or less movies these questions are easy to answer. But if you have a collection of several hundred these questions get more difficult. This is where the Movie Manager Android app comes in. It allows users to upload their movie collection to the cloud. Users can then rate movies, track whom they have lent a movie out to and manage what formats they own (Blu-ray, DVD, etc.). The app features a rich user interface that will allow users to see key information about a movie such as the release date, cast, MPAA rating, duration, synopsis, and more. This project involved the reimplementation of an Android app created for CIS 680 Mobile Application Development. The user interface was given a complete redesign and new features were added such as barcode scanning, cloud storage provided by https://parse.com/, user rating, and loan management. This study will also examine some of the analytics gathered after it was published to the Google Play Store

The Big Bang or a Black Hole? The Nexus Between Outer Space Patent Law and Commercial Investment in Outer Space

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Metastability and Dynamics of Stem Cells: From Direct Observations to Inference at the Single Cell Level

Organismal development, homeostasis, and pathology are rooted in inherently probabilistic events. From gene expression to cellular differentiation, rates and likelihoods shape the form and function of biology. Processes ranging from growth to cancer homeostasis to reprogramming of stem cells all require transitions between distinct phenotypic states, and these occur at defined rates. Therefore, measuring the fidelity and dynamics with which such transitions occur is central to understanding natural biological phenomena and is critical for therapeutic interventions. While these processes may produce robust population-level behaviors, decisions are made by individual cells. In certain circumstances, these minuscule computing units effectively roll dice to determine their fate. And while the 'omics' era has provided vast amounts of data on what these populations are doing en masse, the behaviors of the underlying units of these processes get washed out in averages. Therefore, in order to understand the behavior of a sample of cells, it is critical to reveal how its underlying components, or mixture of cells in distinct states, each contribute to the overall phenotype. As such, we must first define what states exist in the population, determine what controls the stability of these states, and measure in high dimensionality the dynamics with which these cells transition between states. To address a specific example of this general problem, we investigate the heterogeneity and dynamics of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). While a number of reports have identified particular genes in ES cells that switch between 'high' and 'low' metastable expression states in culture, it remains unclear how levels of many of these regulators combine to form states in transcriptional space. Using a method called single molecule mRNA fluorescent in situ hybridization (smFISH), we quantitatively measure and fit distributions of core pluripotency regulators in single cells, identifying a wide range of variabilities between genes, but each explained by a simple model of bursty transcription. From this data, we also observed that strongly bimodal genes appear to be co-expressed, effectively limiting the occupancy of transcriptional space to two primary states across genes studied here. However, these states also appear punctuated by the conditional expression of the most highly variable genes, potentially defining smaller substates of pluripotency. Having defined the transcriptional states, we next asked what might control their stability or persistence. Surprisingly, we found that DNA methylation, a mark normally associated with irreversible developmental progression, was itself differentially regulated between these two primary states. Furthermore, both acute or chronic inhibition of DNA methyltransferase activity led to reduced heterogeneity among the population, suggesting that metastability can be modulated by this strong epigenetic mark. Finally, because understanding the dynamics of state transitions is fundamental to a variety of biological problems, we sought to develop a high-throughput method for the identification of cellular trajectories without the need for cell-line engineering. We achieved this by combining cell-lineage information gathered from time-lapse microscopy with endpoint smFISH for measurements of final expression states. Applying a simple mathematical framework to these lineage-tree associated expression states enables the inference of dynamic transitions. We apply our novel approach in order to infer temporal sequences of events, quantitative switching rates, and network topology among a set of ESC states. Taken together, we identify distinct expression states in ES cells, gain fundamental insight into how a strong epigenetic modifier enforces the stability of these states, and develop and apply a new method for the identification of cellular trajectories using scalable in situ readouts of cellular state.</p

The Role of Authenticity in the Link Between Self-Determination, Gender Minority Stress, Psychological Well-being and Distress in Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Expansive Individuals

Transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive individuals (TNB and GE) have the same basic psychological needs (BPN) for self-determination as their cisgender counterparts yet face unique gender minority stressors (GMS) that may impact psychological distress and well-being. Authenticity is an important factor that may also affect psychological well-being and distress in TNB and GE people. Few research studies have examined BPN attainment or GMS factors and psychological well-being and distress. The role of authenticity, which is associated with psychological well-being in cisgender samples, has yet to be examined in TNB and GE people on the context of BPN attainment or GMS. The current dissertation addressed these gaps in research in a sample of 489 TNB and GE participants who were 18 to 61 years of age. Participants completed a survey assessing BPN attainment, GMS experiences, general and identity-specific authenticity, and psychological well-being measures (eudaimonic well-being, hedonic well-being) and psychological distress (depressive symptoms, anxiety, and negative affect). Six structural equation models explored these relationships. Findings indicated that higher BPN attainment was associated with more psychological well-being and less psychological distress. Proximal minority stressors were associated with less psychological well-being and more psychological distress. Distal gender minority stressors were unexpectedly associated with more psychological well-being and less psychological distress. General authenticity was an important mediator of these associations, and identity-specific authenticity was an important mediator between GMS and psychological well-being and distress. The current study documents the importance of BPN attainment on psychological well-being and distress in TNB and GE individuals and emphasizes the negative effect of proximal gender minority stressors. Further research on resiliency processes that mediate associations between distal gender minority stressors and psychological well-being and distress are suggested. This study highlights the importance of authenticity as an intervening factor that may contribute to the overall well-being of TNB and GE individuals

High-power deep-UV laser for improved and novel experiments on hydrogen

2019 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation details the design, performance, and cavity enhancement of a novel, high-power coherent 243.1 nm laser system, and through simulations, its ability to trap hydrogen in a magic wavelength optical trap. This wavelength of light is necessary to address the 1S–2S two-photon transition in hydrogen, and the primary motivation behind development of this laser system is obtaining high enough 243.1 nm powers for two-photon cooling of hydrogen. Due to the light mass of hydrogen, high precision spectroscopy of hydrogen is limited by unwanted motional effects, which could be mitigated with laser cooling and confinement in an optical trap. Besides laser cooling, a high power deep-UV laser system at this wavelength has great utility for improving spectroscopy of hydrogen and other exotic simple systems. High-power fiber lasers from 1-1.2 µm have flourished as a result of advances in ytterbium(Yb)-doped fiber amplifiers. In addition, high-power Yb-fiber lasers between 975-980 nm have also been developed—a notable accomplishment due to gain competition in the > 1 µm spectral region. These systems initially lacked sufficiently narrow spectral bandwidth for efficient harmonic generation, motivating further development since there is significant interest in frequency doubling and quadrupling these sources to produce coherent blue radiation and deep-UV radiation. Here, we generate coherent, high-power deep-UV radiation through frequency quadrupling of a high-power, highly coherent Yb-fiber amplifier at 972.5 nm. The Yb-fiber amplifier system consists of a frequency stabilized master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) that can be referenced to a coherent frequency comb. This MOPA can be amplified to > 10 W of narrow linewidth power at 972.5 nm in the Yb-fiber amplifier. This is a technically challenging and notable result for this wavelength as gain is much more readily obtained in Yb-doped fibers at the absorption/emission cross-section peak near 975 nm and in the > 1 µm spectral region where the emission cross-section is much larger than the absorption cross-section. This system successfully combated unwanted gain at these wavelengths by using a relatively short (≈ 10 cm), angle-polished Yb-fiber with a large core-cladding ratio, along with aggressive spectral filtering and large amounts of seed power at 972.5 nm. With this narrow linewidth Yb-fiber amplifier, efficient frequency conversion of high power 972-976 nm radiation to 243-244 nm radiation is possible through intracavity doubling. Through successive resonant doubling stages, this system demonstrates > 1 W of highly stable, continuous-wave (CW) 243.1 nm power. To the author's knowledge, this is a record amount of CW deep-UV power below 266 nm, and is made possible thanks to advances in the production of a relatively new non-linear crystal for robust deep-UV generation, cesium lithium borate (CLBO). The precise frequency control of this radiation is established via excitation of the 1S–2S transition in hydrogen, and the viability for two-photon laser cooling on this transition is shown through enhancement of this power to > 30 W of intracavity power in a deep-UV enhancement cavity. At these powers, UV-induced mirror degradation was observed and mitigated by flushing the enhancement cavity mirrors with ultra-pure oxygen. With these powers, rapid two-photon laser cooling of a hydrogen atomic beam approaches reality. The 243.1 nm powers offered by this laser system also offer unique methods for capturing hydrogen in an optical trap. Explored via simulations, single optical scatter capture of hydrogen in a magic wavelength dipole trap is demonstrated, promising exciting new avenues for high precision spectroscopy of hydrogen