A theme prevalent throughout condensed matter physics is that microscopic fluctuations manifest as macroscopic behaviors. GdCo, for instance, exhibits the �magnetocaloric effect�, whereby the application of a magnetic field induces temperature changes in certain alloys, currently subject to ongoing research by General Electric. The Heisenberg Spin Hamiltonian is an operator used to calculate the total energy of a magnetic system, given matrices which represent �spin� magnetic moments of constituent, interacting atoms within a lattice.

World Trade Center (WTC) disaster responders were exposed to psychological trauma due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As a result, many continue to suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychological distress which can worsen after exposure to subsequent traumatic events such as Hurricane Sandy. Preexisting data were obtained from a study group of anonymous WTC responders both before and after Hurricane Sandy. Statistical analyses concluded that higher levels of hurricane exposure were associated with increased symptoms of PTSD and distress following Sandy.

The world is in a state of environmental disarray and one way this can be fixed is through looking at past thriving ecosystems and using this information in order to inform future policies. I remember a time before hurricane Sandy, and everything, at least within my community had appeared environmentally sound. I remember the night when Sandy hit, wind incessantly pounded on my window, beckoning to come in, and the sound of torrential down-pour and emergency vehicles filled the night.

The future of science and technology lies in the quantum properties of matter, with fields such as condensed matter physics having already produced innovation like nanotechnology and quantum computation. Superconductivity, the property of some materials to show no electrical resistance at extremely low temperatures, and magnetic exchange coupling, the interaction of ferromagnetic materials over space, have in past research shown tendencies to interact with one another in interesting ways. Should that relationship be better understood, it would enable us to utilize them to improve practical applications of technologies such as maglev trains.

A recently emerging and novel method of the observation of galaxies is through Integral Field Unit (IFU) Spectroscopy. Spectroscopy - in contrast to photometry which measures the total brightness or flux of light - allows us to see the amount of light observed at each discrete wavelength within the observed range. Accordingly, since many physical processes are associated with the absorption or emission of light at specific wavelengths, we are able to measure these processes in distant objects through spectroscopy … In this work, I seek to apply some of the unique forms of analysis permitted by IFU spectroscopy to the phenomena of dwarf interactions.

One weekend, I was out for a game of soccer with my friends. The temperature was a blazing 95?, and I began to feel light headed. I thought to myself: Why am I experiencing these symptoms? During halftime, I checked Google on my phone, and I learned that as I played, I excreted fundamental electrolytes, such as sodium, and water. However, I was only ingesting water, which resulted in a decrease in my body’s sodium levels, also known as hyponatremia.

Previous studies have shown that the cosmic expansion is accelerating despite the gravitational attraction between matter, caused by a mysterious source of energy denoted as dark energy. A cosmographic test of whether it exists in the form of a cosmological constant or more general dark energy was performed with Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms using the SCP Union2.1 supernova compilation. By fitting polynomials to Hubble series expansions, the Hubble Constant (H0), the deceleration parameter (q0), and the jerk parameter (j0) can be estimated … This study focuses on the effects of MCMC algorithms and model-building uncertainty the dependence of results based on fitting functions used.

Physicians in the US currently rely on two guidelines for asthma diagnostics: the EPR-3 and the GINA report. Due to the ten year difference in publication time, a comparison between both guidelines is necessary. Additionally, while the guidelines include defined parameters for impairment factors, patient-specific risk factors remain unparameterized. By parameterizing the risk factors and following a phenotype-oriented diagnostic approach, clinicians may be may be able to improve asthma diagnostics with respect to speed and accuracy consistency.

My study looked at neural activity during different types of visual depth perception in 8 subjects using an EEG, mainly focusing on how we perceive depth in real life. There are two different types of visual depth - pictorial depth (depth on a two-dimensional plane, induced by pictorial depth cues such as shading) and stereo depth (true three dimensional depth believed to be induced by binocular disparity). In real life, pictorial depth cues and binocular disparity are both present in our daily experiences, which leads to the simultaneous perception of stereo and pictorial depth.

Last year, the researcher outlined the mathematical basis of a new quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol. QSDC protocols are methods of information transfer which gain security from the use of quantum mechanical effects. Due to the measurement principle, quantum communication reveals eavesdroppers with a probability arbitrarily near unity. In a world where traditional encryption is increasingly threatened by quantum computers and Shor’s Algorithm, QSDC protocols provide impregnable security to banking transfers, diplomatic wires, and general communications.

As I entered high school I became interested in learning about different areas of mathematics but I was also interested in the research process. It was one thing to read about mathematics, but what was inventing it like? Eventually, this path led me to the MIT PRIMES program where I was paired up with a graduate student to work on a project in combinatorics. The problem I worked on was a conjecture by Prof.

Our understanding of particle physics began with atmospheric studies. Victor Hess’s balloon flights in 1911 kicked off this revolution when he discovered a new type of radiation [1]. By distinguishing ground radiation and extrasolar radiation, mainly from the sun, the new field of astroparticle physics was created. As detectors increased in their capabilities, individual cosmic ray showers could be spotted by coupling Geiger counters and cameras to photograph a cloud chamber [2].

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that affects millions of people globally. It targets the neurons of the CNS and destroys their myelin sheaths, or the fatty layer of insulation around them. This can lead to loss of motor function, deteriorating vision, loss of balance, and muscle weakness. In addition, recent studies have shown mounting evidence of crosstalk between the cellular pathways of MS and osteoporosis, a disease of the degeneration of bone and loss of bone density.

That squirrel over there has a funny looking mouth because she is stuffing too many acorns into her cheeks. It’s not a knee-slapper but it makes you want to smile. And when your neighbor takes the garbage out and smiles at you, I bet you smile back. A smile is critical in communication. A lack of smiling can be symptomatic of autism, depression, and schizophrenia. My experiment investigated the difference between brain activity while a person smiles in an interaction with another person and the brain activity while a person smiles from a non-human stimulus.

Climate change impacts all people living on the Earth. The El Ni�o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a system which influences the climate around the globe. For this reason, it would be helpful to create a procedure for predicting ENSO each year, allowing the population to understand and prepare for a potential climate in their area, months in advance. This study developed a procedure to create predictions of ENSO every year. This procedure is simple, using basic statistics and computer science to create forecasts more accurate than those currently existing.

The goal of my research is to find out the effects of showing different people various privacy suggestions in a Facebook-like system. In theory, this understanding could provide tools that allow users who want different amounts of privacy to achieve it conveniently. To adapt to users, however, one needs a model of the users. We picked Privacy Profiles, a previously established user model. Privacy Profiles basically categorize users of a social network based on the privacy features they use and are aware of.

Last year, my father and I were displaced by a hockey puck the artificially intelligent Amazon Echo Dot. As my family was getting ready to go to my uncle’s house, my sister asked my father how cold it was outside. My father in response told her that it wasn’t too chilly out and that she wouldn’t need to wear her coat. Immediately afterwards, however, my sister asked the Amazon Echo Dot also known by her wake word “Alexa” what the temperature was.

Preliminary diagnosis of lung cancer has led to countless cases of overtreatment due to false positive classifications made by physicians and radiologists. Most commonly, the misclassification of a benign pulmonary nodule (PN) as malignant from chest X-ray images initiates this process for patients. In the advent of promising machine learning and computer vision models, we investigate the optimization of benign and malignant PN classification using deep convolutional neural networks through transfer learning by fine tuning its convolutional layers.

Then finally, after several years of messing around in the theoretical space inside my head, I came across a specific topic where further research could be of legitimate use: space based solar power (SBSP). SBSP is exactly what it sounds like: solar power but in spaaace! Large solar panels are launched into orbit, specifically geosynchronous Earth orbit, and beam collected energy, via microwaves, back down to Earth for use. It’s clean and efficient; considering the existential threat of climate change, it’s exactly the kind of energy source we need.