Ping Pong Trainer

This is a ping pong trainer. It shoots out ping pong balls to red targets using computer vision techniques

JCATI Base Plate

Students of the Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) program at Central Washington University have contributed to an ongoing Carbon Fiber Recycler project funded by the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI). The goal of this project was to modify the existing recycling system to produce a higher success rate of recycled carbon composite material. This report focuses on increasing the rigidity of the crushing gears so that the deflection occurring among the components during operation was below 0.005 inches to ensure proper operating conditions. The operating speed of the crushing gears was 2.5 rpm with a crushing load of 10,500 pounds. A base plate design ensured the rigidity of all components operating on a singular plane. Flat plate analysis was conducted to determine the thickness of the plate required of ASTM A36 Steel to produce a deflection less than the required value. Plate models run in Autodesk Nastran provided stress and deflection results used to confirm green sheet calculations and assembly modifications. Testing consisted of using dial indicators to determine deflections at various locations of the base plate and confirmed the deflection of the plate to be 0.003 inches within the required maximum deflection of 0.005 inches. All testing, manufacturing, and analyses took place in the Hogue Technology Building at Central Washington University with the help of MET Faculty

DNA damage response in in vitro matured oocytes

The reproductive lifetime of a woman is limited primarily by her age. The state of an oocyte represents the central determinant of the fate of an ovarian follicle as well as embryo development throughout maturation. Oocyte reserve and oocyte quality are two major determinants of the likelihood of achieving pregnancy for a woman. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has provided a valuable alternative for women attempting to conceive at an older age, however even with ART the likelihood of a live birth also decreases with increased age. Mammalian oocytes undergo meiotic maturation in preparation for ovulation and fertilization. Throughout most of its lifetime the oocyte remains arrested in the dictyate stage of prophase of meiosis I (MI), also called the germinal vesicle (GV) stage, until the follicle receives a hormonal signal to progress through meiosis. Only a small fraction of the follicles present in the ovaries receive this signal, while the rest remain unresponsive. The DNA damage response (DDR) is activated in the presence of double stranded breaks (DSBs) in DNA and can induce various cellular responses including senescence or cell cycle arrest, and/or apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Telomeres mediate senescence in most cells. Telomeres consist of tandem DNA repeats and associated proteins, which cap and protect chromosome ends. Telomeres and their associated proteins form a loop at the ends of chromosomes, which buries them. This telomere complex is called shelterin. Shelterin prevents the ends of chromosomes from triggering a DNA damage response. However, with each round of DNA replication chromosomes lose small segments of their telomeres. Telomere attrition also can arise in non-dividing cells via the action of oxygen radicals. We hypothesize that germinal vesicle arrest, which occurs in some oocytes retrieved for ART that fail to progress through meiosis, is associated with telomere attrition and the associated cellular senescence pathway induced by DNA damage. Previous studies have identified higher levels of DNA damage foci in isolated GV arrested oocytes compared to those that progress through the meiotic cell cycle. Our studies confirm the presence of the DNA damage response (DDR) regulator, ATM, at higher levels in GV stage oocytes versus those that have matured to later stages. Immunostaining shows a near 50% increase in presence of ATM in arrested oocytes. Confirming the role of the DDR in cell cycle arrest during oocyte maturation could highlight a new target for strategies to improve ART technology and increase the likelihood of achieving pregnancy later in life

Student Career Preferences: In Support Of A New Learning Paradigm

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, throughout their careers, college graduates change multiple jobs and several careers, often remotely related to one another or to their major field of study. Experts project that the majority of newly created jobs requiring college education would involve extensive and prolonged on-the-job training of new hires, with soft skills gaining more prominence as determinants of professional success. Conversely, over the past several decades, higher education has followed a trend of compartmentalization of college education into narrowly defined disjointed disciplines each with a strict degree program. Such one-size-fits-all educational programs are unlikely to prepare prospective professionals for gainful employment in the emerging economy considering the new success indicators. This study presents a comparative exploratory analysis of accounting students’ career preferences by gender, age, grade point average, and academic classification. The study reveals notable differences in career preferences among students enrolled in the same academic program due to differences in gender, age, and academic classification

Continuing Education: A Vital Ingredient Of The Success Plan For Small Business

In a recent Journal of Business & Economics Research article, Atamian, et. al. (2009) provided practical advice for individuals considering forming a small business.  In that article, the authors observed that a major factor in avoiding failure is to “plan for success.”  The authors further noted that operating even the smallest of businesses calls for a multiplicity of skills seldom found in one individual.  This article discusses the knowledge and skills that the small business owner must have in order to combat risk of failure.  Furthermore, it encourages small business owners to recognize the necessity of including a viable continuing education element in their plans for success.  It concludes with an expanded discussion of how small business owners can continually acquire knowledge and skills to sustain the vitality of their businesses

A Microbiome Engineering Framework to Evaluate Rhizobial Symbionts of Legumes

Background For well over a century, rhizobia have been recognized as effective biofertilizer options for legume crops. This has led to the widespread use of rhizobial inoculants in agricultural systems, but a recurring issue has emerged: applied rhizobia struggle to provide growth benefits to legume crops. This has largely been attributed to the presence of soil rhizobia and has been termed the ‘rhizobial competition problem.’ Scope Microbiome engineering has emerged as a methodology to circumvent the rhizobial competition problem by creating legume microbiomes that do not require exogenous rhizobia. However, we highlight an alternative implementation of microbiome engineering that focuses on untangling the complexities of the symbiosis that contribute to the rhizobial competition problem. We outline three approaches that use different starting inocula to test hypotheses to overcome the rhizobial competition problem. Conclusions The approaches we suggest are targeted at various stages of the legume-rhizobium symbiosis and will help us uncover underlying molecular mechanisms that contribute to the rhizobial competition problem. We conclude with an integrative perspective of these different approaches and suggest a path forward for future research on legumes and their complex microbiome

The Effects of Gibberellic Acid and Auxin Hormones on Heliotropism in Sunflowers

Sunflowers are one of many different plant species that are able to track and face the sun in order to optimize the amount of sunlight they are exposed to. This process of orienting towards the sun is called Heliotropism. Sunflowers are able to effectively orient themselves towards the sun because the growth rate on the East and West side of the stem alternates depending on the time of day. At dawn, the East facing stem will grow at a faster rate than the West facing side, resulting in the flower orienting towards the West. This alternating and uneven growth is what allows the sunflower to track the sun during the day and reorient at night to face the East in preparation for sunrise. Not much is known about the biological processes that induce heliotropism. In our study, we focused on two known growth inducing hormones in plants that are present in sunflowers, Gibberellic Acid and Auxin, and their importance to heliotropism. Because of their prevalence in sunflowers and their known ability to induce growth in plants, we hypothesized that Gibberellic Acid (GA) and an Auxin hormone, Indole-3-Acetic Acid (IAA), play a significant role in sunflower’s ability to perform heliotropism

Virtual and In Vitro Screening of Natural Products Identifies Indole and Benzene Derivatives as Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease (M\u3csup\u3epro\u3c/sup\u3e)

The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in serious health, social, and economic consequences. While the development of effective vaccines substantially reduced the severity of symptoms and the associated deaths, we still urgently need effective drugs to further reduce the number of casualties associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections. Machine learning methods both improved and sped up all the different stages of the drug discovery processes by performing complex analyses with enormous datasets. Natural products (NPs) have been used for treating diseases and infections for thousands of years and represent a valuable resource for drug discovery when combined with the current computation advancements. Here, a dataset of 406,747 unique NPs was screened against the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) crystal structure (6lu7) using a combination of ligand- and structural-based virtual screening. Based on 1) the predicted binding affinities of the NPs to the Mpro, 2) the types and number of interactions with the Mpro amino acids that are critical for its function, and 3) the desirable pharmacokinetic properties of the NPs, we identified the top 20 candidates that could potentially inhibit the Mpro protease function. A total of 7 of the 20 top candidates were subjected to in vitro protease inhibition assay and 4 of them (4/7; 57%), including two beta carbolines, one N-alkyl indole, and one Benzoic acid ester, had significant inhibitory activity against Mpro protease. These four NPs could be developed further for the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms

\u3cem\u3eDe novo\u3c/em\u3e Sequencing and Analysis of \u3cem\u3eSalvia hispanica\u3c/em\u3e Tissue-Specific Transcriptome and Identification of Genes Involved in Terpenoid Biosynthesis

Salvia hispanica (commonly known as chia) is gaining popularity worldwide as a healthy food supplement due to its low saturated fatty acid and high polyunsaturated fatty acid content, in addition to being rich in protein, fiber, and antioxidants. Chia leaves contain plethora of secondary metabolites with medicinal properties. In this study, we sequenced chia leaf and root transcriptomes using the Illumina platform. The short reads were assembled into contigs using the Trinity software and annotated against the Uniprot database. The reads were de novo assembled into 103,367 contigs, which represented 92.8% transcriptome completeness and a diverse set of Gene Ontology terms. Dierential expression analysis identified 6151 and 8116 contigs significantly upregulated in the leaf and root tissues, respectively. In addition, we identified 30 contigs belonging to the Terpene synthase (TPS) family and demonstrated their evolutionary relationships to tomato TPS family members. Finally, we characterized the expression of S. hispanica TPS members in leaves subjected to abiotic stresses and hormone treatments. Abscisic acid had the most pronounced eect on the expression of the TPS genes tested in this study. Our work provides valuable community resources for future studies aimed at improving and utilizing the beneficial constituents of this emerging healthy food source

Quality of Service System Approximation in IP Networks

This paper is sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Bulgaria in the framework of project No 105 “Multimedia Packet Switching Networks Planning with Quality of Service and Traffic Management”.This paper presents Quality of Service analyses in wired and wireless IP networks based on the three popular techniques – RSVP, IntServ, and DiffServ. The analyses are based on a quick approximation schema of the traffic system with static and dynamic changes of the system bounds. We offer a simulation approach where a typical leaky bucket model is ap- proximated with a G/D/1/k traffic system with flexible bounds in waiting time, loss and priority. The approach is applied for two cascaded leaky buckets. The derived traffic system is programmed in C++. The simula- tion model is flexible to the dynamic traffic changes and priorities. Student criterion is applied in the simulation program to prove results. The results of the simulation demonstrate the viability of the proposed solution and its applicability for fast system reconfiguration in dynamic environmental circumstances. The simulated services cover a typical range of types of traffic sources like VoIP, LAN emulation and transaction exchange