School of Hard Knocks

School of Hard Knocks is a documentary film about concussions and the negative impact they have over many different athletes’ lives. The aim of this film keeps in mind the hypothesis of my research: The only way to decrease the harmful effects of concussions is to change attitudes of parents, athletes and coaches alike. This film aims to change those attitudes by telling the story of four athletes from high school, college and professional levels of sport. With the help of medical professionals, the topics range from the definition of a concussion, to second-impact syndrome, to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Through the interviews of Rachael Williams, Tori Bellucci, Bob Golic and Bernie Kosar, viewers begin to understand what it is like when an athlete receives a concussion. Dr. Richard Figler, Dr. Kirsten Hawkins, Michelle Fowler and Brittany Urbania explain the medical issues and treatment surrounding these head injuries. Click to view documentar

Assessment of Tree Health for Erie Street Cemetery and Cleveland State University

Please describe your digital work a.)What was the assignment prompt? b.)What tools did you use to create your digital project? a.) The group project requires completion of several related tasks, including collection of data from an urban greenspace, integration of that data with additional information from other sources (e.g., academic journals, government agencies, conservation non-profits), and creation of an end-product, such as a proposal to fund greenspace restoration, or a presentation or journalistic report on the status and potential futures of the ‘forest’ in a greenspace. b.) Excel, RStudio, ArcMap, QGIS, QField, i-Tree Eco, Google Docsc.) We collected and utilized tree health data from Erie Street Cemetery and Cleveland State University to create a health analysis of urban trees in downtown Cleveland. Our final products included two GIS posters and a summary of our study that included recommendations based on our findings

Manufacturing high purity chalcogenide glass

Chalcogenide materials are finding increasing interest as an active material in next generation optical and electronic devices. There wide range of properties, ranging from photosensitivity, ability to host rare earth ions, electrical conductivity, phase change, exceptional optical non-linearity's to name only a few are fueling this interest. Moreover, the ability to synthesize these materials in numerous forms as diverse as 2D monolayers, microspheres, optical fibres, nanowires, thin films as well as bulk glass ingots of over a kilogram in size ensures their application space is vast.We began preparation of chalcogenides, largely based on sulphides, in 1992 and since then have built up an extensive capability for their purification, synthesis and fabrication in various forms. A key aspect of this facility is the ability to process in a flowing atmosphere of hydrogen sulphide which provided the capability of synthesis from elemental, oxide or halide precursors, processing through various chemical vapour deposition reactions as well as post purification. In this talk we describe the range of materials we synthesize highlighting high purity sulphide bulk glass and transition metal di-chalcogenides for electronic applications, crystalline semiconductors for solar cell applications, low power phase change memory devices, switchable metamaterial devices as well as traditional chalcogenides glass and optical fibre

Oogenesis: Matrix Revolutions

SummaryThe mechanism of egg-chamber elongation during Drosophila oogenesis has always been mysterious. A new study shows that the egg chambers spin around their long axis laying down polarised extracellular matrix, which acts as a molecular corset to restrict radial expansion

A study of coupling reaction to synthesize diphenylmethane derivatives

The class of compounds having diphenylmethane framework occupy a distinct place in natural bioactive compounds and also serve as useful intermediates in various commercially important synthetic molecules. Conventionally, Friedel-Craft type reactions were used to synthesize such diphenylmethane derivatives. However, herein we report a unique approach in which, two benzyl alcohol molecules were coupled in the presence of different halogenating agents (SOCl2, PBr3 and MeSO2Cl) to afford the desired diphenylmethane derivative, bis(2,4-bis(benzyloxy)-5-methoxyphenyl)methane. It has been found that the coupling reaction is strongly influenced by the electronic effects and number of the substituents on the phenyl ring. The resultant compound, bis(2,4-bis(benzyloxy)-5-methoxyphenyl)methane, was obtained in excellent yield (83-85%) and completely characterize with different spectroscopic techniques

Lithography assisted fiber-drawing nanomanufacturing

We present a high-throughput and scalable technique for the production of metal nanowires embedded in glass fibres by taking advantage of thin film properties and patterning techniques commonly used in planar microfabrication. This hybrid process enables the fabrication of single nanowires and nanowire arrays encased in a preform material within a single fibre draw, providing an alternative to costly and time-consuming iterative fibre drawing. This method allows the combination of materials with different thermal properties to create functional optoelectronic nanostructures. As a proof of principle of the potential of this technique, centimetre long gold nanowires (bulk Tm = 1064°C) embedded in silicate glass fibres (Tg = 567°C) were drawn in a single step with high aspect ratios (>104); such nanowires can be released from the glass matrix and show relatively high electrical conductivity. Overall, this fabrication method could enable mass manufacturing of metallic nanowires for plasmonics and nonlinear optics applications, as well as the integration of functional multimaterial structures for completely fiberised optoelectronic devices

Engineering of composite metallic microfibers towards development of plasmonic devices for sensing applications

The paper discusses the analysis of tapered hybrid composite microfibers based on a metal-core and dielectric-cladding composite material system. Its advantages over the pure metal tips conventionally used, are the inherent enhanced environmental robustness due to inert borosilicate cladding and the capability of multiple excitation of the tapered nanowire through the length of the fiber due to the enabled total internal reflection at the borosilicate/air interface. Simulations through finite element method (FEM) have demonstrated an improved field enhancement at the tapered region of such microfibers. Furthermore, experimental results on tapering in copper based microfibers together with light coupling and propagation studies will be demonstrated revealing the potential for the development of plasmonic devices for sensing applications

Pharmacological Rescue of Synaptic Plasticity, Courtship Behavior, and Mushroom Body Defects in a Drosophila Model of Fragile X Syndrome

SummaryFragile X syndrome is a leading heritable cause of mental retardation that results from the loss of FMR1 gene function. A Drosophila model for Fragile X syndrome, based on the loss of dfmr1 activity, exhibits phenotypes that bear similarity to Fragile X-related symptoms. Herein, we demonstrate that treatment with metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) antagonists or lithium can rescue courtship and mushroom body defects observed in these flies. Furthermore, we demonstrate that dfmr1 mutants display cognitive deficits in experience-dependent modification of courtship behavior, and treatment with mGluR antagonists or lithium restores these memory defects. These findings implicate enhanced mGluR signaling as the underlying cause of the cognitive, as well as some of the behavioral and neuronal, phenotypes observed in the Drosophila Fragile X model. They also raise the possibility that compounds having similar effects on metabotropic glutamate receptors may ameliorate cognitive and behavioral defects observed in Fragile X patients

The All-Pay Auction with Nonmonotonic Payoff

I model innovation contests as an all-pay auction in which it is possible not to achieve successful innovation despite costly R&D investments, and as a result, there is no winner. In such a case, the winning payoff turns out to be nonmonotonic in own bid. I derive the sufficient conditions for the existence of pure strategy equilibria, and fully characterize the nondegenerate mixed strategy equilibrium. In the mixed strategy equilibrium, the support of the low-value bidder is not continuous, and both the high-value and the low-value bidders place an atom in the (distinct) lower bound of their respective support. Under symmetric valuation, both bidders place an atom at zero. These results can explain why one does not observe very low quality innovation in real life, or why even symmetric firms may stay out of an innovation contest