Nautical Research Platform for Water-Bound Experiments

Conducting research in lakes and rivers requires large crews and heavy-duty equipment, making even simple tests more costly and time consuming. Newer research methods are evolving constantly as new technology enables more precise and accessible experiments to be conducted. The need for simple execution of water-bound experiments exists and must be addressed to aid our understanding of these environments. We at the Microgravity Undergraduate Research Team have taken our previous research in autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) and applied our efforts to relieving this problem. Our current research aims to provide a universal platform for research and experiments to be conducted in lakes and rivers, where we can then expand our efforts to more broad applications. The design allows for remote-control navigation by one user and easy portability. To address precision in experimentation, we have integrated autonomous GPS waypoint navigation which removes user error in sensitive measurements. The most important factor in its design is modularity; the ability to accommodate a wide range of equipment for research. Our platform succeeds in making water-bound experiments more accessible and more precise for a multitude of potential applications

Single Crystal Casting

In the 1991 thriller Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger starring as Terminator T-800 faces off Terminator T-1000. The T-1000 is a liquid-metal robot, which can take on any arbitrary shape. Though the T-1000 may remain science fiction, shaping metals exist and are known as shape memory alloys. In the Magnetic Materials Laboratory, we synthesize and characterize magnetic shape-memory alloy Ni-Mn-Ga. We develop a processing method to create Ni-Mn-Ga with superior purity and homogeneity to enhance its performance. This new method consists of melting Ni-Mn-Ga in a crucible using a 3.5 kW induction furnace, then casting the molten material into a heated alumina mold. The mold contains an oriented seed crystal interfaced with a custom-built, water-cooled copper base system. Following casting, the resulting ingots were polished to remove surface stress. We then performed chemical analysis to reveal the chemical composition and etched the surface to reveal the microstructure. Optical images for the cross-section area of the etched surface showed elongated grains with an average length of 10 mm indicating directional solidification. The energy dispersive spectroscopy data showed minimal segregation along the solidification direction. The large grains, directional solidification, and minimal chemical segregation, are successful steps towards growing segregation-free single crystals

Genome-wide association study for alcohol-related cirrhosis identifies risk loci in MARC1 and HNRNPUL1

Background and Aims Little is known about genetic factors that affect development of alcohol-related cirrhosis. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of samples from the United Kingdom Biobank (UKB) to identify polymorphisms associated with risk of alcohol-related liver disease. Methods We performed a GWAS of 35,839 participants in the UKB with high intake of alcohol against markers of hepatic fibrosis (FIB-4, APRI, and Forns index scores) and hepatocellular injury (levels of aminotransferases). Loci identified in the discovery analysis were tested for their association with alcohol-related cirrhosis in 3 separate European cohorts (phase 1 validation cohort; n=2545). Variants associated with alcohol-related cirrhosis in the validation at a false discovery rate of less than 20% were then directly genotyped in 2 additional European validation cohorts (phase 2 validation, n=2068). Results In the GWAS of the discovery cohort, we identified 50 independent risk loci with genome-wide significance ( P Conclusions In a GWAS of samples from the UKB, we identified and validated (in 5 European cohorts) single-nucleotide polymorphisms that affect risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis in opposite directions: the minor A allele in MARC1:rs2642438 decreases risk, whereas the minor C allele in HNRNPUL1:rs15052 increases risk.</p