Engineering – Page 11 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Engineering

Percolation modeling

Under Professor Ziff, our research group devised various methods of modeling types of percolation. These models were initially based in C and were unoptimized for large-scale run times. We rewrote these programs in C++ and implemented various algorithms and memory structures which helped reduce the runtime of the simulation algorithms. These small improvements yielded a boost in productivity as percolation models have to be run for hours on end to yield large enough outputs to provide viable research data. These small improvements are very important, as improvements in program runtime compounded over hours can have a huge impact and allow researchers to get more done in less time.

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Percolation modeling

Under Professor Ziff, our research group devised various methods of modeling types of percolation. These models were initially based in C and were unoptimized for large-scale run times. We rewrote these programs in C++ and implemented various algorithms and memory structures which helped reduce the runtime of the simulation algorithms. These small improvements yielded a boost in productivity as percolation models have to be run for hours on end to yield large enough outputs to provide viable research data. These small improvements are very important, as improvements in program runtime compounded over hours can have a huge impact and allow researchers to get more done in less time.

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Wicked Solutions Domain

Rohan Agrawal Pronouns: he/him/his Research Mentor(s): Audrey Bennett, Professor Research Mentor School/College/Department: Stamps School of Art & Design, Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 Session: Session 2 (11am – 11:50am) Breakout Room: Room 19 Presenter: 2 Event Link Abstract Authors: Rohan Agrawal, Tawsif Habib, Audrey Bennett Research Method: Survey Research

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Wicked Solutions Domain: Building a Data Modeling and Visualization Tool

The solutions to the problems that plague our society today arguably are rooted in data. This research will go through the development of a platform that allows for the collection, analysis, and interactive display of data as it relates to societal issues, similar to the Hopkins Medicine COVID-19 platform. To do this, scholarly articles relating to similar projects were assessed to understand what frameworks to use/what functionalities were important and then replicated to match the problems being focused on by the WISDOM research team, which are sustainability, obesity, and poverty. As a result of this, a website-based platform was created where users could interact with data collected about these issues with the intent that it would inform users about the problem and provide insights to enable change. This allows for smarter problem-solving for issues that impact large groups of people and will be accessible to the masses. This will likely help make huge strides in solving problems because it will provide evidence to inform the methodology upon which users can act. The main purpose of the research project is to help users find interventions to wicked societal problems and in return enable them to add their interventions. A digital platform that enables participants to find the solution to their problem will also help designers refine the solution to wicked problems and implement it in the digital platform.

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Evaluating computational methods for predicting protein stability changes upon mutations

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are central in biological processes. Most proteins are marginally stable to perform their functions such as binding. Amino acid mutations taking place on proteins may change the protein stability and the affinity of a binding process, which further affects their biological functions. It is reported that amino acid mutations at protein-protein interfaces are frequently implicated in many diseases, including cancer. Therefore, it is of great significance to quantitatively predict the change of protein stability and binding affinity upon mutations, denoted as ddG_stability and ddG_binding. Many tools have been developed for ddG prediction, but there is lacking in a comprehensive comparison of their predictive powers. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive accuracy of a variety of widely used tools for ddG_stability and ddG_binding estimation on a large scale benchmark, placing a guidance on choosing the most accurate tool for ddG prediction.

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Nanoparticle Synthesis

Many engineering problems stem from the issue of weight. Engines can only give so much propulsion, buildings can only hold so much weight, and wings can only provide so much lift. The Hammig Research Group is currently researching nanoparticle synthesis. The group already has basic recipes for them, but experimentation is needed. Several syntheses have taken place, including one lead-telluride sample and three aluminum samples.

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Solar Optics Active Nanostructures and their Applications

Water scarcity is a pressing issue that impacts over two thirds of the global population. With populations growing and atmospheric temperatures rising, this problem will only worsen with time. Desalination is considered to be a great solution to this issue, but it can be very costly and energy intensive. This study was carried out to determine the viability of solar optics active nanostructures in water desalination. These nanoparticles have the ability to generate intense localized heat when exposed to sunlight. By creating a panel containing these nanoparticles, we could convert the heat into usable energy. These panels have the potential to power individual, decentralized water treatment plants. In this project, we envisioned the technology to be used for this application by review the current solar water treatment technologies. Furthermore, we created an engineering design for the nanostructure panel by computer-aided design method. We anticipate that our approach could help address the water scarcity issue in addition to being a more sustainable option.

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Nanosemiconductor-base Sensor Development

Existing sensors of x-rays and nuclear radiation suffer from either poor energy resolution or high cost or both. Solution-based synthesis allows one to achieve facile, scalable, low-cost synthesis. Nanosemiconductors allow one to control the thermal noise in the material which governs the energy resolution. We therefore have developed nanosemiconductor, solution-based sensors composed of lead telluride (PbTe) nanoparticles to create high resolution, low cost radiation detectors. We make PbTe nanoparticle semiconductors via an aqueous process, with particles that are then filtered through an aramid nanofiber (ANF) to create a semiconductor. The resulting solid is then tested after creating an electric field across the material. The nanocomposite detectors are exposed to gamma-ray sources and the resulting spectral distributions are measured. Our bare PbTe-ANF detectors have energy resolutions comparable to single-crystalline cadmium-telluride detectors. We have also developed conductive contacts composed of copper and lead nanoparticles that are under optimization, the goal of which is to improve the uniformity of the electromagnetic field and thereby increase the intrinsic detection efficiency of the solids.

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Data mining for modeling drivers’ responses to cutting-in and out of traffic

Human drivers often perform and react to high speed maneuvers unpredictably, cutting in and out of traffic on highways with varying rates, acceleration, reaction time, and more. By analyzing naturalistic driving data from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute database, it is possible to determine some relevant distributions and tendencies of these variables. Data was queried from a large database with Structured Query Language, and then processed in MATLAB to find instances of vehicles cutting in and out. After the cutting events were manually verified, culminating in 857 cut in events and 866 cut out events, the variables associated with the events, including range, range rate, lateral rate, and average acceleration were analyzed using methods from statistics and machine learning, including logistic regression, support vector machine, and decision trees. Correlations between key variables were found, as well as models for predicting the impact of cutting events on traffic. More specifically, range and range rate were found to be significant variables in determining the braking behavior of a vehicle in response to a cut in, with decision trees and variants being used to predict the behavior. These results have implications on future design of autonomous vehicles, such as the safe integration with human drivers and minimizing risk during partially unpredictable events.

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Improvements to the design of a low cost, smart, and easy to build Geiger-Müller radiation detection system for use in the classroom

This project was created to develop a simple, smart, and low cost alternative to the commercially available Geiger-Müller (GM) radiation detection systems for use in the classroom. Unfortunately, the complexity of circuitry and software of professional grade equipment is too large for most students. A kit was developed that consists of GM tubes recovered from fallout shelters, a Raspberry Pi computer, assorted basic electronics components (resistors, capacitors, inductor, transistors), and a printed circuit board (PCB). All components have through hole technology (THT) mounting to facilitate students learning soldering. The limited number of components allows for an affordable design that someone with basic electronics knowledge can build and understand. The system features a command line interface and smartphone application, enhancing opportunities for students learning not present with commercial systems. The original design for the project had a flaw where the circuit would attempt to put 5V on a 3.3V GPIO pin on the Raspberry Pi which would damage it. This work reports on a new design that has a reworked circuit that uses an operational amplifier to protect the general purpose input output (GPIO) of the Raspberry Pi and add stability to the circuit to ensure the components operate in their intended voltage regions. In addition, there were test points that were added to help debug the circuit and the PCB was redesigned to make it easier to solder. The smartphone application was also improved for publication on both Android and iOS platforms.

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