Physical therapy, especially for patients with spinal cord injuries, can be a difficult and tedious experience. This can result in negative health outcomes, such as patients dropping out of physical therapy or developing additional health problems. In this study, the authors develop and test a potential solution to these challenges: a mixed reality game called Skyfarer that replaces a standard physical therapy regimen with an immersive experience that can be shared with their friends and family. The findings of this study suggest that mixed reality games such as Skyfarer could be effective alternatives to conventional physical therapy.

Glioblastoma is a brain cancer caused by the presence of a fast-growing, malignant tumor in the brain. As of now, this cancer is universally lethal due to lack of efficacious treatment options. C-C chemokine receptor 1 (CCR1) is a G-protein coupled receptor that controls chemotaxis, the movement of cells in response to chemical stimuli. This research aims to synthesize potential CCR1 antagonists by coupling carboxylic acids with a triazole core. We synthesized these compounds using a simple carboxylic acid coupling and confirmed the identity of the final compounds using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.

Here, the authors sought to identify a method to optimize the lift generated by an airfoil based solely on its shape. By beginning with a Bernoullian model to predict an optimized wing shape, the authors then tested their model against other possible shapes by constructing them from Styrofoam and testing them in a small wind tunnel. Contrary to their hypothesis, they found their expected optimal airfoil shape did not result in the greatest lift generation. They attributed this to a variety of confounding variables and concluded that their results pointed to a correlation between airfoil shape and lift generation.

The authors investigate whether amylase or yeast had a more prominent role in determining the bioethanol concentration and bioethanol yield of banana samples. They hypothesized that amylase would have the most significant impact on the bioethanol yield and concentration of the samples. They found that while yeast is an essential component for producing bioethanol, the proportion of amylase supplied through a joint amylase-yeast mixture has a more significant impact on the bioethanol yield. This study provides a greater understanding of the mechanisms and implications involved in enzyme-based biofuel production, specifically of those pertaining to amylase and yeast.

In this study, the authors hypothesized that closed-circuit television images could be stored with improved resolution by using enhanced deep residual (EDSR) networks.

The goal of this project was to assess the relationships among low myopia, behavioral and demographic factors, and a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the TGFβ1 gene.

The purpose of this study was to test devices installed on a gabled roof to see which reduced the actual uplift forces best. Three gabled birdhouse roofs were each modified with different mitigation devices: a rounded edge, a barrier shape, or an airfoil. The barrier edge had no significant effect on the time for the roof to blow off. The addition of airfoil devices on roofs, specifically in areas that are prone to hurricanes such as Florida, could keep roofs in place during hurricanes, thus reducing insurance bills, overall damage costs, and the loss of lives.

This study is centered around developing biofortification methods: the authors test whether the amount of calcium available to growing crops translates into more calcium present in the crops.

In this study, the authors test ways to increase knowledge of green consumerism amongst high school students. Their knowledge was measured based on the New Ecological Paradigm Scale.

In this study, the authors seek to improve a machine learning algorithm used for image classification: identifying male and female images. In addition to fine-tuning the classification model, they investigate how accuracy is affected by their changes (an important task when developing and updating algorithms). To determine accuracy, a set of images is used to train the model and then a separate set of images is used for validation. They found that the validation accuracy was close to the training accuracy. This study contributes to the expanding areas of machine learning and its applications to image identification.