2021 WSU Annual CGRS Abstracts

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    Understanding the physics of droplet electrocoalescence in a microtrap
    (Wichita State University, 2021-02-18) Memon, Faisal Bilal; Koppolu, Bhargav; Burugupally, Sindhu Preetham
    This work details a parametric study for merging microscale water droplets, using an electric field, in a microfluidic device. This device, titled TAP (Trapping and Assisted Pairing) is a cell handling platform for conducting cell-cell (plant cell-microbe) interaction studies for identifying symbiotic/parasitic relationships and to help plant biologists devise approaches to maximize the symbiotic functions and minimize the parasitic functions. This work stems from the big picture idea of smart and sustainable agricultural practices to meet the future global crop production demands in the era of ecosystem degradation and climate change. TAP leverages droplet microfluidics to efficiently electrocoalesce multiple pairs of droplets--one set of droplets containing individual plant cells and another set of droplets containing individual microbes--to initiate multiple cell-microbe interactions. As a first step, through numerical simulations we analyzed the physics of droplet merging and conducted a parametric study to analyze the effect of droplet/fluid properties and droplet gap on their behavior. This study resulted in the generation of a preliminary design-chart--a plot of the droplet fate (merged or non-merged) vs minimum droplet gap d--for a fixed actuation voltage (8 V) and fixed electrode gap (10 microns). We found that for successful merging of the aqueous droplets, the magnitude of the electric field strength E=V/d must be about 4.45 MV/m for γ =0.0025 N/m and about 17.8 MV/m for γ =0.04 N/m. These observations are in good agreement with the existing literature.
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    Optimizing the thermal performance of phase-change thermal management systems for utility-scale applications in Kansas
    (Wichita State University, 2021-02-18) Egbo, Munonyedi Kelvin; Hwang, Gisuk
    Unlike the conventional cooling systems, phase-change cooling systems using wicks offer reliable high and effective heat flux cooling capability. However, the thermal performance of these novel thermal management systems which find applications in both small- (e.g., concentrated heat-dissipating microelectronics) and utility-scale (e.g., power-generating plants) systems are still limited due to some technical challenges. Our research is focused on trying to understand, fundamentally, the physics behind these limitations and addressing them. We dedicate our study towards designing, fabricating, and assessing novel cooling systems that employ sintered-particle metallic wicks and take advantage of the large latent heat of vaporization of liquid coolants such as water. The state of Kansas has numerous utility-scale systems that could benefit from the outcome of this research. For example, the power stations, including nuclear and coal powered plants, such as the Wolf Creek Generating Station and the Wester-Jeffery Energy Centre, employ conventional cooling systems that reduce fuel efficiency and increase carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Therefore, employing these novel cooling systems would potentially increase fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. This is very important considering the fast-depleting energy fuel reserves and the imminent danger of global warming. The food, water, chemical, and material manufacturing industries in Kansas that require either efficient, reliable, and cheap heat dissipation and/or steam generation would also benefit from the success of this work. And finally, the aerospace industry, some of which are in Kansas, is desperately in demand of this technology, and the present study could be the answer.
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    Computerized sentence building as a treatment for aphasia
    (Wichita State University, 2021-02-18) Powell, Addison; Keese, Daphne; O'Bryan, Erin
    Acute cerebrovascular disease (stroke) is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and those who survive are often left with significant long-term disabilities. According to Kansas Health Matters, between 2016 and 2018, 14.7 out of every 10,000 Kansans were admitted to the hospital due to stroke. Aphasia, which frequently occurs secondary to stroke, results in loss of the ability to speak freely. One cause of difficulty producing conversational speech is an impairment in the ability to build sentences. Existing treatments have shown improvement in spoken language (e.g., Thompson et al., 1997; Doyle et al., 1987), but treatments may not reach full recovery potential. People with aphasia express eagerness to find new therapy approaches to improve communication abilities and to have home therapy programs in addition to in-person therapy. There continues to be a need for effective sentence production treatments that can be easily translated into a home program. This presentation reports results from a treatment study examining whether a computerized sentence building task has therapeutic value for people with aphasia. The treatment is based on a sentence processing task known as the word maze, first developed by Freedman and Forster in 1985. Seven people with aphasia performed the task once or twice per week in forty-minute long periods for a total of 6-8 sessions. All participants showed improved task accuracy and increased scores on the Assessment for Living with Aphasia. Two participants showed an 8-point increase on the Western Aphasia Battery-R Aphasia Quotient.
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    An energy consumption model under time-of-use rates for scheduling of manufacturing shops
    (Wichita State University, 2021-02-18) Mokhtari-Moghadam, Ali; Gupta, Deepak P.
    One of the most important contributors supporting economic prosperity in Kansas is attributed to manufacturing. It accounted for 16.30% of the output and 11.69% of the workforce (2020 Kansas Manufacturing Facts). In addition, small businesses employed 51% of the private workforce in 2016 (Kansas Small Business Profile, 2019). With such an importance of small businesses within Kansas, this research focuses on small manufacturing shops. Scheduling of manufacturing industries with the aim of minimizing makespan have been studied extensively over the last decades. Recently, green production scheduling considering energy efficiency is emerging as one of the important research areas. To address the critical issues concerning the increased energy consumption and environmental pollution, this research attempts to develop a multi-objective model for manufacturing shops, considering electric consumption cost under time of use (TOU) tariffs, worker's cost, and completion time of all products. Workforces with different performance are considered for machine tools adjustment. A multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is constructed to minimize not only completion time of all jobs, but also the total electricity costs (TEC) and worker's costs. In order to check the performance of the proposed algorithm, different scheduling test problems are designed and a comprehensive computational experiment is carried out. The results indicate that the proposed MOGA algorithm is able to constructs different optimal scheduling scenarios for manufacturing shops, by which products are completed in a shortest time interval. In addition, total cost including energy consumption and workforces' costs are reduced to a great extent.
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    What factors have an effect on the life expectancy of Kansas citizens?
    (Wichita State University, 2021-02-18) Vayda, Lisa; Pelkowski, Jodi E.
    Life expectancy is a common measure of public health and has been positively correlated with economic growth. This research focuses on how access to basic needs and socio-economic factors, often the focus of state-level programs and policies aimed at business and economic development, impact life expectancy of Kansas citizens. Information was collected on all 105 Kansas counties involving income, health care provider insufficiency, food insecurity, housing, living arrangements, computer & internet usage, education, transportation, insurance, metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and local health department funding. Multiple regression and individual single regression were used to analyze the magnitude and direction of the effect of the variables on life expectancy. Preliminary analysis suggests controlling for other factors that shortages in primary care providers, food insecurity, local health department funding, internet access, median home values, and incomes are significantly associated with life expectancy. These findings could be employed to advance the policies, economic development, and business opportunities which best support the significant factors and corresponding programs affecting Kansans.