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: Decentralized Electricity Grids: A Tool for Increasing Energy Efficiency and National Security While Empowering Local Economies; The current electrical system poses a variety of problems that severely threaten America's energy future and national security. Decentralizing our electricity grids will greatly reduce the severity of these threats while simultaneously encouraging the proliferation of renewable energy and stimulating local economies.

: Design and Beyond; "Upon entering Fort Lewis College, I spent previous semesters knowing I wanted to purse a career of spreading the word and planning events. Through extensive research I found my passion: graphic design. Design is the most powerful form of communication worldwide, a form of communication with the ability to link or change the client and intended audiences' perspective in the simplest way using images, words, graphics, typography, color, and styles. Design also empowers people. It engages audience to a point where they want to make that change in their community. An excellent design will make someone stop in their tracks and be part of something bigger than themselves. I want to contribute. I want to change a life. I want to change my life. Design holds a place in film, photography, drawing, building websites, and animation. Design gives me the chance to be more marketable because today, jobs in technology are skyrocketing and the more experience and skills an individual has with technology, the better off that person will be. I pursued film by obtaining the year-long Full Circle Fellowship with Sundance Institute, where I will be learning more about Production Design. To add to my marketability, I applied my sociocultural anthropology minor to study abroad adventure in Viterbo, Italy. Living in a foreign country for a semester and immersing myself into many European cultures had a lasting impact on me, especially my views as an artist. Graphic design is my own research that made me realize I can connect, inspire, persuade, and educate the world by breaking down problems to find the most understandable solutions. This deeper insight on the design world, current world events, and my Navajo culture led to my work over the years at San Juan Reproduction, Survival of the First Voices Festival, studying abroad, and the Sundance Institute. "

: Design and Development of a Sampling Platform to Study Long Distance Seed Dispersal; Recent theoretical research has shown that ocean currents and wind interact to disperse seeds over long distances among isolated landmasses. Dispersal of seeds among isolated oceanic islands, by birds, oceans and man, is a well-known phenomenon, and many widespread island plants have traits that facilitate this process. Crucially, however, there have been no mechanistic vector-based models of long-distance dispersal for seeds among isolated oceanic islands based on empirical data. Here, we propose an experimental methodology and present a novel sensor platform to circumvent these limitations and directly estimate a mechanistic, vector-based model of seed dispersal in the ocean. We have developed seed analogues, or pseudoseeds, outfitted with wireless sensor technology that will enable high-fidelity tracking as they disperse across large distances in the ocean. The pseudoseeds are precisely designed to mimic actual seed buoyancy and morphology enabling realistic and accurate, vector-based dispersal models of ocean seed dispersal over vast geographic scales.

: Design of a Fluid Level Indicator for Hazardous and High Temperature Liquids; Generator IV and other nuclear fast reactors have historically used liquid sodium as a coolant. The choice of coolant determines the main design approaches and the technical and economic characteristics of a nuclear power plant. Coolant fluids, such as liquid sodium, are often hazardous and exothermically reactive with oxygen and water which require them to be sealed in an oxygen free environment because liquid sodium burns when exposed to air releasing toxic aerosols and liquid sodium exposed to water undergoes an exothermic reaction generating sodium hydride and sodium hydroxide. It is desired to be able to measure the fluid level of liquid sodium without opening the vessel containing pyrophoric or anaerobic compounds. Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, is building a Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop (METL) with liquid sodium coolant (shown in appendix: Figure 1) which is the largest single sodium testing facility in the world. The METL system contains a sodium volume of 800 gallons and the design constraints for the system include a maximum operating pressure of 100 psig and a temperature of 600 °C. At the desired temperature, sodium vapor becomes a major issue for measuring devices. Sodium has a minor, but non-negligible, vapor pressure that increases as temperatures increases and can re-condense to form pockets of solid or liquid sodium. A practical method used for measuring high temperature fluid levels can be accomplished by using a pressure transducer which will allow for the device to reach the desired temperature and pressure constraints. Conducted research and relevant evaluations found that the limiting constraint for measuring the fluid level using a pressure transducer are the possibilities of plugging and corrosion. In order to combat these issues, the design utilizes enlarged tubing and 316 stainless steel material which is sodium compatible. The experimental outcomes resulted in an accuracy within 0.60% for continuous level measurement. Due to the danger and inability to acquire liquid sodium, testing was conducted with water because of the viscosity and density similarities to sodium. These accurate level measurements will aid in the advancements for the nuclear and solar industries in developing efficient heat transfer mediums used to produce energy for various applications.

: Design of a Hydraulic Intake Structure for Stream Diversion; More than 3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease, and 99% of these cases occur in the developing world. Implementing a water system that provides safe, potable water to communities in the developing world can decrease the occurrence of water-related diseases. The water intake structure is a critical component of a water system. It is used to divert water from a source into the system. Because of the difficulties associated with using a stream as a water source, there is no universally standard design for the intake structure. Difficulties include: sedimentation and the effects associated with the large variations in seasonal rainfall. The purpose of this project is to design and test a stream diversion intake structure for a gravity fed water system appropriate for rural communities in the developing world. In order for the structure to be appropriate for developing rural communities, it must provide enough water to meet the peak daily demand of the community, be low cost, low maintenance, and easily constructed with limited skilled labor in remote locations. Two variations of the intake structures were designed for the project. Preliminary laboratory testing was performed to analyze components and establish an optimum design suitable for field testing. Both designs were then constructed and tested in streams located in La Plata County. The intake structures were allowed to continuously run for 3 - 5 weeks in order to assess constructability, functionality, maintenance requirements, and potential failures. Both of the structures met all design requirements and project objectives. Having two designs allows for more versatility when selecting a site. This is especially important for implementations in remote, developing communities which frequently exhibit a wide range of stream types. The long-term goal of the project is to publish these designs along with their construction documents for use by nonprofit organizations working with water supply in the developing world.

: Design of a Low Cost, Field Constructed Pipe Entrance to Improve Flow Capacity; The Fort Lewis College Engineering Without Borders Program (EWB), works in developing countries around the world designing and constructing community improvement projects. Water systems are commonly designed and constructed as part of these projects. In at least one case, the water system that was constructed in an area had less capacity than desired. In examining the system for possible bottlenecks, the pipe inlet used was identified as a likely culprit. In this study, past research on pipe entrances' affect on pipe flow was explored. Based on the findings of past research, low cost, field constructed pipe inlet prototypes using improved pipe entrance designs were constructed. The prototypes were experimentally evaluated for their flowrate as a function of head and the minor head loss coefficients of the inlets were calculated. The minor head loss coefficients of each prototype were than compared to make a recommendation as to which prototype entrance design was superior. This recommendation can be used in designing new water systems and improving old ones.

: Design of a Rocket Propellant Feed System for Flow Analysis and Visualization; The goal of this project was to design a rocket propellant feed system to conduct water flow tests. This system will be used for flow analysis and visualization in order to assure that propellants will flow as expected. The system is required to be capable of performing two varieties of tests: Transient and Steady State tests. The Transient tests use regulated high pressure helium to pressurize a pressure rated cylinder filled with water. The system is capable of creating short duration bursts lasting from 10 milliseconds to 1 second while logging pressure data throughout the system. The Steady State tests include Resistance and Qualitative tests. The Resistance tests use the same regulated helium and cylinder that is used in the Transient tests, but is used for longer duration pulses. The system is capable of creating pulses lasting up to 10 seconds while logging pressure and flow rate data. The Qualitative tests use a pump to drive flow at a much lower pressure while maintaining a high flow rate. These tests can last for up to 30 minutes where pressure and flow rate data are logged. The system has undergone several test that include all three types of tests. The Transient and Resistance tests work as designed and record and save test data in real-time. This data has shown that the system can be used for flow analysis for a variety of different situations. The Qualitative test flows with minor system issues. Visualization and flow analysis can still be conducted using this system, but extensive troubleshooting of the system led to our recommendations for altering some aspects of the system. These alterations will lead to the Qualitative test system functioning as designed.

: Design, Synthesis, and Characterization Of Tetracationic Iodonium Macrocycles; The design and synthesis of mechanically interlocked molecules (e.g., catenated molecular structures) represents a unique challenge to the synthetic chemist. Central to this effort is the chemical generation of shape persistent molecular architectures. In particular, tetracationic iodonium macrocyclic structures have been experimentally shown to contain near perfect rectilinear geometries, making them potentially useful scaffolds for intermolecular catenation reactions. Our current efforts have focused on the expedient synthetic preparation of tetracationic iodonium macrocycles of various sizes. The successful synthesis of the bisphenylene-based macrocycle has allowed for initial studies into dynamic covalent catenation.

: Detecting and Hiding Text in Images Using Haar Wavelet Transform and Mathematical Morphology; X-rays, MRIs, and other medical images are distributed for the purposes of research and diagnosis. Often these images are distributed with critical personal information, but is it necessary to share that information? The goal of this presentation is to expand on the work of previous researchers in describing an automatable solution to hide personal information on medical images, specifically MRI images of the brain. This algorithm applies the Haar wavelet transform to color or grayscale medical images to locate text objects, embed the details within the image, and make the text illegible to unauthorized users. Application of this algorithm can produce an automated system for processing and distributing medical images which better protects the privacy of patients and relieves researchers and others from liability.

: Determinants of Cultural Sensitivity in Middle School Students; Cultural sensitivity is a hot topic in the news, in the work place and on the playground. This study looks at child development and life experiences to investigate determinants of cultural sensitivity in middle school students. Through questionnaire surveys, students provided information on life experiences and answered Likert-type items that assessed each student's sensitivity to culture and to gender. Findings suggest that there are some life experiences that coincide with increased levels of cultural sensitivity in middle school students.

: Determination of the HTLV-1 Pro-Pol Frameshift Site Secondary Structure; Human t-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that targets CD4+ T-cells in humans. Expression of human t-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) enzymes requires two -1 programmed ribosomal frameshifts (PRFs). These events occur between the gag-pro and pro-pol open reading frames. Each frameshift site includes a heptanucleotide slippery sequence followed by a downstream structure, which act in cis to produce specific frameshift efficiencies. While the -1 PRF and slippery sequences of these frameshift sites have been established in HTLV-I, the secondary structures have not been determined. In the pro-pol frameshift site, an RNA pseudoknot is predicted to fold downstream of the UUUAAAC slippery sequence. However, no structural data exists for this RNA. Here, we report a preliminary structure of the HTLV-1 pro-pol frameshift site RNA. Nucleotide reactivity data acquired from selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation experiments analyzed by primer extension (SHAPE) is consistent with a pseudoknot secondary structure. These results suggest the existence of a pseudoknot structure in the HTLV-1 pro-pol frameshift site.

: Determination of the Involvement of Aldolase in the Glycolytic Pathway of Acidobacterium Capsulatum Through GC-MS and 13C-NMR Spectroscopic Analysis; Acidobacterium capsulatum, a gram-negative, capsulated acidobacterium was initially isolated from acid mine drainage in Japan. Since then, genotypes of the acidobacteria have been identified in pristine aquatic and soil environments. The high diversity and the wide distribution of acidobacteria in pristine and contaminated environments suggest these organisms are involved in nutrient cycling in the environment and may have unique metabolic properties. For example, in glycolysis, the annotated genome shows no aldolase gene but has a transaldolase gene, suggesting an alternate to the standard glycolytic pathway. GC-MS and NMR analysis were used to determine if 13C-labeled metabolic products could be detected after being excreted from A. capsulatum grown with 13C[2]-labeled glucose as the sole carbon source. Cell supernatant was investigated after five different growth periods. The cells were removed by centrifugation and the supernatant was freeze-dried and acidified. The supernatant was then analyzed through 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and GC-MS to determine if any 13C-labeled carbon was excreted by the cells through metabolism in the form of metabolites or polymers. This showed that glucose is consumed, as determined by a 13C[2]-labeled acetate standard, though no significant amount of labeled metabolites was seen after 9 days of growth. Therefore, further research must be performed to determine glucose metabolism of A. capsulatum. Determination of whether a pathway, which does utilize the enzyme aldolase, is supported or whether an alternate pathway is supported is the inspiration for further investigation.

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