This invention is a National Science Foundation grant-funded semi-cooperative board game developed as an educational tool to teach players about the spread of invasive buffelgrass and fire risk management. Players assume different roles and earn points as individuals but may also work together cooperatively on shared goals to manage risk. This game would have an immediate audience in Southern Arizona to be distributed locally or nationally if possible.
Background:
Educational board games are a unique way to engage learners in fun, non-formal settings. Research has shown that game-based learning can help increase participation, foster social and emotional learning, and help players gain skills involving problem solving, interaction, and risk taking. Currently, there are little to no educational board games about invasive grass and fire risk management. The Grassvasion Board Game would fill this gap as a useful tool to teach players about buffelgrass and fire risk management.
Applications:
Advantages:
UW-Madison researchers have created structures and methods for AlGaN channel high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). Typically, extreme bandgap AlGaN channel HEMTs show very high ohmic contact resistance, which limits the transistor's performance as a power and RF device. Introducing partial relaxation in the epitaxial structure enables very low contact resistance without compromising the transistor's performance. Moreover, a fully relaxed regrown contact layer grown on a fully strained epitaxial structure of HEMTs reduces the contact resistance further.
A UW researcher has developed immune evading pluripotent stem cells by knocking down cell adhesion molecules in pluripotent stem cell lines. He differentiated those cells into cardiomyocytes or epithelial cells and observed that the target adhesion protein remained knocked down in the differentiated cells. He targeted the protein CD54 in initial experiments but plans to test p-selectin and e-selectin as targets for preventing immune cells recognizing differentiated pluripotent stem cells as foreign.
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The next steps for the inventor are to test the ability of immune cells to attach to the CD54- cells. He also plans to do animal testing using the humanized mice the core creates.Â
THE CHALLENGE
Water treatment of large volumes of liquids is a critical aspect of many industrial processes, notably in the chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries. With energy costs rapidly rising, it is highly desirable to improve the treatment efficiencies and adaptiveness with lower energy consumption.
OUR SOLUTION
Hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) is an energy and chemical saving water treatment technology that involves vaporization, bubble generation, and bubble implosion. The Coutier-Delgosha lab at Virginia Tech has developed a multifunctional HC device adaptive in various industrial scenarios, such as sterilization, degradation for antibiotics and other organic pollutants. The device can be 3D printed with modular-type replacements, allowing for lower manufacturing and maintenance costs. In addition to the cavitation device itself, the team has developed an operating system and methods to adjust cavitation intensity, thus optimizing the treatment efficiency, shortening working time, and reducing energy costs.
Diagram illustrating the 3D printable, modular, intensity adjustable cavitation generator developed.
Diagram demonstrating how adjusting the intensity within the cavitation device influences the rate of disinfection within a liquid.
Foam-blow molding is emerging as a more and more popular
fabrication method in the polymer manufacturing industry.
Polymer foams are needed in many applications including
insulation, biomedical, and footwear. The important properties of
a foamed polymer, such as low density or shape sustainability,
are controlled by the foaming process. New and improved
polymer foams can be achieved by gaining full control over the
conditions at which they are produced.
Kiran and his team have developed a novel mold for polymer foaming
that allows porous mold boundaries to expand along with the expanding
polymer. The new trend is to use physical blowing agents such as
carbon dioxide or nitrogen or their mixtures which are considered to be
environmentally safe and benign. This tool can be used to test different
blowing agents as well as adjusted for applications with different
shapes. The invention can help ensure homogeneity in the final product
while providing insights to physical effects of changes in the
manufacturing process. The mold is of extreme value for its potential to
translate the findings from laboratory evaluations to industrial scale
injection mold foaming. It will allow polymer foam manufacturers to
quickly bring new foams to production, giving them a major advantage
over competition.
Viability of solutions in robotics, especially multi-agent systems hosting multi-modal sensors are often limited by physical and environmental
constraints, computational resources for cooperative or isolated intelligence and inter-agent communication. Modern solutions and
applications including, but not limited to, Search and Rescue expect significant resources for visual cognition and augmenting human
understanding of the environment. Cloud computing, despite virtually limitless resources, tends to be impractical in remote or disrupted
environments. To cater to such a significant subset of problems in field robotics and multi-agent systems, we develop a wearable computing
backpack that comprises of a scalable array of specialised computers and a networking head. The computing array allows for distributed
processing and storage while leveraging networking capabilities to aid cooperative environmental or situational cognition. The form factor
and custom chassis renders the backpack rugged and weatherproof for ground operations such as search and rescue. The design ensures
scalability of the system and sufficiently provides for the electrical power demands of onboard equipment.
The proposed novel railroad energy-harvesting tie is capable of powering various trackside electrical and electronics equipment, including establishing remote charging stations for drones. The energy harvester tie (ETH) uses an electromagnetic generator that is coupled with an efficient motion transmission to convert the movement (kinetic energy) of the track due to passing train wheels into electrical energy in a reliable way. It enables generating power with every passing wheel, in a form and configuration that is robust to the railroad environment and is conspicuous to avoid theft and vandalism. The proposed ETH is able to have large average power output (tens of watts), which is sufficient for powering the vast majority of advanced wayside electrical equipment (such as hot box/bearing detectors, smart digital axle counting systems and wireless communication systems, etc) that the railroads desire to implement to improve safety, and autonomously/wirelessly charging drones to significantly extend their operational range.
TAVR requires precise placement of a new heart valve, but current imaging technology used during the procedure (mainly X-ray) isn't ideal because it only provides a two-dimensional view of the heart's complex three-dimensional anatomy. This can lead to incorrect valve placement, which might cause serious complications like blocking blood flow to the heart or causing heart rhythm problems. Once the valve is deployed, it's difficult or impossible to adjust its position if it's not placed correctly. This invention aims to address that issue by allowing the valve to be repositioned during the procedure.
Overall, this invention aims to improve the safety and effectiveness of heart valve replacement procedures by providing a way to adjust the position of the valve during the operation.