NC, United States of America

Isomer Chemistry: Design Ligands to Adjust Thermodynamics and Kinetics for Rare-Earth Metal Extraction and Rhodium Catalyzed Hydroformylation

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design

There is a clear lack of a systematic method to develop ligands for scientific and industrial applications in drug delivery, nanomaterial engineering, disease treatment and solar energy. By…

Low-cost Heteronanostructure Semiconductor Uses Visible Light Energy to Efficiently Degrade Toxins Threatening Aquatic Life

First Award

Daily human activities produce TCDD, one of 12 most concerning toxins, which enters rivers, lakes, and eventually drinking water. Research shows that TCDD accumulates for over 15 years in hu…

Novel Application of Microwave Power Transfer for the Recharging of Batteries in Biomedical Devices

Third Award

Implanted biomedical devices, such as pacemakers use batteries as power sources. These batteries run out over time and patients must undergo surgery to replace these batteries. Due to the hi…

Optimization and Understanding of Exciton Diffusion in Organic Solar Cells via Novel Monte Carlo Modeling

Organic photovoltaics are at the forefront of renewable energy because of cheap cost, nontoxicity, scalability, and rising efficiencies. However, PCBM (phenyl- C61-butyric-acid methyl ester)…

Reducing Power Consumption using an Arduino Based Relay Light-Switch through a Dual Laser Tripwire System

Humans have been using switches for controlling lights, and other power sources, for a long time. When people leave their rooms, they often forget to turn off these switches resulting in the…

Synthesis of Thinner Electrodeposited Polymer Solar Cell Interfaces in Organic Photovoltaics (OPVs)

OPVs (Organic Photovoltaics) are highly tunable based on monomer composition. In other studies, PEDOT:PSS or (poly-3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene:poly-styerenesulfonate) has been championed ove…

The Mechanistic Basis for Recombinase Upregulation in CD4+CD8+ Thymocytes

Translational Medical Science

Lymphoid-specific recombinases RAG1 and RAG2 act synergistically to generate a diverse T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire by catalyzing V(D)J Recombination, a site-specific recombination proce…

The Search for Pityophthorus juglandis and Associated Geosmithia morbida in Transylvania County, NC

Biochemistry

Geosmithia morbida, Thousand Cankers Disease (TCD), is a fungal pathogen that has been associated with the decline of the Black Walnut tree population across the United States. TCD is spread…

Understanding Parasitism: Plant Transcription Factor Is Regulated in a Strain-Dependent Manner by Root-Knot Nematode

One major challenge in the 21st century is increasing crop yield to feed the world’s growing population on diminishing arable land. Plant parasitic nematodes, including the Root-Knot Nematod…

A Novel Eye Blinking Based HCI with Statistical Prediction for Wearable Computing

Embedded Systems Second Award

One of the key challenges of wearable computing is to increase the efficiency and usability of human–computer communication, without burdening people with keyboards. This project proposed a…

Antibiotic Resistance Dissemination Increased by High Frequency of Conjugating Bacteria in Escherichia coli Populations

Mathematics

According to the World Health Organization, the total societal cost of antibiotic resistance amounts to over $35 billion dollars per year in the United States alone when accounting for lost…

Atherosclerosis-Inducing Cytotoxin 7-Ketocholesterol Is Mitigated by Exposure to 70-Kilodalton Heat Shock Protein in THP-1 Human Monocyte Cells

Mathematics

The 70-kilodalton heat shock protein (HSP70) is a cytoprotective protein produced at an elevated concentration in individuals afflicted with atherosclerosis and has been linked to reduced ri…

Computational Analysis of the Dynamics in Single-Chain FV Fragments of the Anti-lymphotoxin-ß Receptor Antibody upon Various Amino Acid Mutations

Energy: Physical

The focus of this research was to computationally elucidate the change in dynamics in single-chain FV fragments (scFV) of the anti-lymphotoxin-ß receptor antibody upon various amino acid mut…

Gold-Catalyzed Hydroamination of Methylene Cyclopropanes in Enantioselective Drug Synthesis

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Enantioselective drug synthesis is a critical research problem as evidenced by the billions of funding the field gets. In this research, a novel method of enantioselectively synthesizing dru…

Keeping It Cool with Nanoparticle Technology

Physics and Astronomy

Keeping it Cool with Nanoparticle Technology This experiment studied the effects of a magnetic field on the heat conductivity of a ferrofluid interface. The hypothesis of this study was that…

MUC1 as a Biomarker for TGF-ß1 Inhibition: Investigating the Role of MUC1 in the Switch of TGF-ß1 Function from a Tumor Suppressor to a Tumor Promoter in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Mathematics Second Award

With a 5-year survival rate of only 6%, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is the 4th leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States. Transforming Growth Factor-ß1 (TGF-ß1),…

Olfactometer and GC/MS Evidence for (E)-2-hexenal as a Semiochemical in the Defensive Secretions of the Kudzu Bug, Megacopta cribraria

Plant Sciences

Megacopta cribraria is a newly invasive stink bug species significantly reducing soybean crop yield across the southeastern United States. Chemical pesticides are a limited method of control…

The Antimicrobial Efficacy of Nitric Oxide based on Release Rate from Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles on A. actinomycetemcomitans and S. mutans

Mathematics

Steptococcus mutans and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (AA) are bacterial strains commonly found in the dental plaque biofilm and which cause conditions such as dental caries, gingivi…

The Effect of Heat Stress on Constitutively Expressed Flowering Inhibitor Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana and the Onset of Early Bolting

Physics and Astronomy

Early bolting is the process by which plants flower prematurely in response to stress factors such as extreme heat or drought. In Brassicaceae crops such as cabbage and broccoli, this heat s…

The Quantum Hall Effect and Electron Interactions in Graphene Monolayers

Robotics and Intelligent Machines

Quantum transport is a point of focus for researchers today because it plays a large role in determining the physical and chemical properties of materials. Studies on graphene have the poten…

Trail Avoidance, Spatial Pattern Recognition, and Tubule-crossing Efficiency in the True Slime Mold Physarum polycephalum

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Fourth Award

True slime molds exhibit memory and navigation that may resemble the precursors to functions performed by our complex cognition networks. Physarum polycephalum has been shown to use its trai…

Trailblazer: Cooperative, Infrastructure-Independent Generation of Indoor Floor Maps using Handheld Android Mobile Devices

Embedded Systems Third Award

Recent developments concerning indoor mapping and navigation have relied primarily on preexisting or manually developed floor plans, a condition precluding such improvement to locations wher…