CA, United States of America

The Algebra and Geometry of Quasicategories

The inherent stability in algebraic K-theory proved in my previous paper suggests a general notion of stability in higher category theory. In this paper, I use the abstract notion of a scale…

The Other Side of Me: An Arduino Based Game for Bilateral Integration in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Second Award

Autism Spectrum Disorder affects one in sixty-eight children in the United States and awareness and coordination of the two sides of the body, known as mid-line awareness is a common issue.…

Using Artificial Intelligence Systems for Autonomous Visual Comprehension and Handwriting Generation

Neural networks have existed for a relatively short period of time. Thus, many of the best techniques in this field are only now being discovered. In this project, we discuss how a pipeline…

Using Machine Learning to Detect Computer Network Security Threats

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to find out if/how machine learning can be used to detect network security threats. Hypothesis: Using machine learning tools in the statistical comput…

Using Optical Flow Modeling Methods and Sensor Fusion to Create a Low-Cost, Competent Autonomous Emergency First Responder

Lack of efficient emergency response capabilities after a natural disaster causes an average of 100,000 deaths per year worldwide. Autonomous flying robots have tremendous potential to enhan…

Variations of Zeaxanthin epoxidase and Phosphoglucomutase in Landoltia punctata

While Landoltia punctata, commonly known as duckweed, has many potential uses, very little of its genome has been sequenced and cataloged. The purpose of this research was to sequence and an…

3D-Printed Bluetooth Android-Based Spirometer with HIPAA-Compliant Secured Cloud Data Storage

This project identifies a novel, inexpensive approach in the development and structure of a portable, compact spirometer; merging new technology such as 3D printing, Bluetooth, Android and C…

A Computer-Based Integrated Analysis of Genomic Signatures in Ovarian Cancer

Biomedical Engineering

Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest gynecological cancers as a result of a lack of robust early detection methods and high rates of resistance after initial chemotherapy. Many experiments…

Advancing Western Blotting: Improving the Sensitivity of Protein Detection with Smaller Well Engineering

Western Blotting is one of the most fundamental laboratory techniques used for identifying specific proteins and semi-quantifying protein amounts. As powerful and developed as the procedure…

A Handheld Hematology Analyzer Using Acoustic Enhanced Blood Smear Devices

Systems Software Third Award

Blood analysis is a primary test for disease diagnostics. Most conventional blood analyzers are expensive and bulky, limiting their use in clinical central laboratories. In this project, I d…

A Novel and Efficient Method for the Synthesis of Fe-TiO2 Nanoparticles for Enrichment of Phosphorylated Proteins

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design

Objective: There are currently not many efficient methods for enrichment of phosphorylated proteins in complex biological samples. However, phosphoproteins play a significant role in several…

A Novel Method to Immobilize Ionic Liquid in Alginate-Gelatin Polymer Beads for Heavy Metal(s) Extraction

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design

The purpose of this scientific study was to design a novel, effective, and highly efficient immobilized ionic liquid CYPHOS® IL 104 (IL) approach towards removal of heavy metal(s) from an aq…

Antimicrobial Properties of Stingray Mucus

Animal Sciences

Previous research has suggested that wound healing properties in stingrays may be due to an antimicrobial substance in the animal’s epidermal mucus. To investigate this, the minimum inhibito…

A Rapid Field Detection of Liberibacter Bacteria using Lateral Flow Technology

First Award

Citrus huanglongbing (HLB) is a serious disease that threatens the multi-billion dollar California citrus industry. Within ten years of introduction, it killed over fifty percent of the indu…

Artificial Injectable Bone: A Regenerative Stem Cell Treatment for Osteoporosis and Bone Fracture Healing through an Injectable Nanocomposite Orthopedic Implant and Dynamic Ultrasound Radiation

Biomedical Engineering Fourth Award

Over two hundred million people suffer from osteoporosis, a severe bone degenerative disease which damages bone tissue, leading to high rates of non-healing fractures and bone defects. There…

A Search for Exoplanets in the Open Star Clusters Messier 35 and Koposov 62 Using A Novel Large-Scale Photometric Algorithm for the "Crippled" Kepler Mission

First Award

To date, over 5000 exoplanet candidates have been discovered orbiting around isolated stars. All of these stars once existed in open star clusters, yet the existence of exoplanets in open cl…

A Wireless Smartphone-Based System for Diagnosis of Pulmonary Illnesses

The prevalence of respiratory illnesses such as Asthma and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) has been growing rapidly across the world. The spirometry equipment used in hospitals…

BitAV: Fast Anti-Malware by Distributed Blockchain Consensus and Feedforward Scanning

First Award

The prevalence of malicious computer viruses has exploded in recent years. Anti-malware software, the natural defensive corollary, has not innovated on the same level, leading to the need fo…

Cancer Targeting Activity of Salmonella Invasion Protein A (SipA)

Systems Software

Due to the fact that current conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, lack specificity, the development of new forms of therapy is essential to decreasing…

Can I See It If I Cannot Hear It? Real-Time Visualization of Incoming Sound for People with Hearing Disabilities or Ear Obstruction

According to World Health Organization, over 360 million people have disabling hearing loss, and it is expected to get worse with the younger generation due to exposure to loud music. The pu…

Characterization and Utility of Resistance Sources Against Resistance-Breaking Rhizomania in Sugar Beet

Third Award

Rhizomania, a severe disease caused by beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV), causes significant damage to sugar beet worldwide, not only physically harming the sugar beet root but also re…

Characterizing the Constructible N-Division Points of the Rational C-Hypocycloids through Straightedge and Compass Constructions

One of the most famous mathematical problems concerns constructing figures with the aid of an unmarked straightedge and compass, specifically constructing regular polygons. Such construction…

Comparative Studies of Gold Nanoparticles as Chemical Sensing Materials: Electronic Tongue vs. Electronic Nose, Year Three

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design Second Award

This is a continuation project (Year 3). Two types of simple, cost-effective, reusable electrochemical sensors were created with functionalized gold nanoparticles (~1.6 nm core diameter) for…

Computational Cardiology: An Automated Algorithm for Heart Murmur Detection

My eleven-year-old sister, Kate, was born with a heart condition which causes her to have a heart murmur. Kate’s pediatrician first diagnosed her by carefully listening to her murmur several…

Correlating the Bandgaps of Earth-Abundant Metal Oxides to Photocurrent Generation for Water Splitting Applications

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design Fourth Award

Providing sustainable energy globally is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Health and climate risks associated with combustion of fossil fuels threaten global stability, de…

Design and Synthesis of a Novel Biosensor Platform for Health Diagnostics

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design Second Award

Biosensors are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society with applications in health diagnostics, bio warfare detection, water quality monitoring, and food safety. Currently in heal…

Development of New Primers and TaqMan® Probes for the Detection of Grapevine Viruses Associated with Red Blotch and Leafroll by qPCR and Digital PCR

TaqMan® assays are highly sensitive and specific in the detection of infectious agents. In this research TaqMan® probes and primers were developed for the detection of several new genetic va…

Discrete Markov Chains: A Novel Approach to Tumor Angiogenesis

Third Award

Angiogenesis, the development of new vasculature, is a critical process in the growth of new tumors. Driven by a goal to understand this aspect of cancer proliferation, I developed a discret…

Enabling Precision Medicine with Big Data: A Cross-Platform Framework to Computationally Characterize Gene Presence and Function

First Award

The current design of gene expression studies makes data sets susceptible to bias and hinders cross-platform comparison. To address these issues, an unprecedented global-scale meta-analysis…

Fuzzy Structures with Application to Differential Topology, Manifold Learning, and Specialized Concepts in Mathematics

The main purpose of the project is to introduce a notion of Differential Topology in the setting of Fuzzy Set Theory, introduced by Zadeh in the 1960's. As Fuzzy Set Theory is just a general…