United States of America

Tracing Evolutionary Patterns in West Africa: A Phylogenetic Analysis of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 Strains

Third Award

The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is responsible for causing the AIDS pandemic and killing millions of people around the world. This project seeks to shed light on the evolutionary r…

Tracking the Spread of Potato Late Blight (Phytopthora infestans) on a Regional Scale

Third Award

Potato late blight, spread by Phytopthora infestans, caused the Irish Potato Famine and still causes about $7 billion of annual crop damage. Tracking and predicting its spread remains proble…

Traffic Camera Dangerous Driver Detection (TCD3): Contextually Aware Heuristic Feature & OFA Density-Based Computer Vision with Movement Machine Learning Analysis of Live Streaming Traffic Camera Footage to Identify Anomalous & Dangerous Driving

Third Award

The goal of the TCD3 project is to identify anomalous and dangerous driving patterns from traffic camera feeds. Successful execution can improve road safety by assisting law enforcement catc…

True-HEV: An Innovation for Hybrid Electric Engines

Third Award

In the modern world, fossil fuels have ignited an overwhelming concern for pollutants emitted through the burning of gasoline and other non-renewable resources in vehicles, industry, and oth…

Turning Probiotics into Antibiotics: Engineering a Broad-Spectrum Antibacterial Probiotic via Inclusion of Antimicrobial Peptide-Encoding DNA, Year Two

Second Award

Probiotics were engineered to deliver antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that show promise as an alternative to antibiotics. This work involved designing a broad-spectrum Escherichia coli Nissle…

Turning the Red Planet Green: Study of Cyanobacteria/Algae Growth Kinetics Coupled with Hydroponics Applications for Terraforming and Settling on Mars

Third Award

This project examined how cyanobacteria/algae might exist under Martian simulated conditions, helping convert Mars’ most abundant gas CO2 into oxygen; thus paving the way for possible settle…

Two-Dimensional Mapping of Energy Transfer in Graphene/MoS2 Photodetectors

Fourth Award

Single-atom thick crystals have the potential to be used in smaller, faster electronics, replacing the silicon-based semiconductors found in current computers. In particular, graphene, a sin…

Two Transistor Ternary Random Access Memory

Fourth Award

The limitation of the speed of a computer is the access speed of its Random Access Memory (RAM). The growing disparity between CPU speed and RAM access times in computation is known as the m…

Ultrasonic Levitation

The goal of this project was to create a standing acoustic wave at a high frequency in order to suspend small, lightweight object, such as Styrofoam, in midair. To do this the student was gi…

Ultrasound Remediation of Oil Contaminated Sand in Simulated Wet and Dry Sand Evironments

Oil spills critically damage the environment. Spilled oil can be removed from water, but oil contaminated sand is dumped into landfills. The oil from the contaminated sand can leach into gro…

Understanding Heat Transfer Mechanisms in Forest Fire Spread: Convection, Radiation, Fluid Dynamics, and Their Applications for Firefighter Protection in a High Temperature Fine Fuel Particle Environment

Second Award

The purpose of this experiment was to study the interactive effects of radiation, convection, and fluid vortices in a forest fire heat transfer environment. Applying these principles to fire…

Understanding Parkinson's Disease: Basal ganglia Dysfunction's Role in the Visual Adaptation of Speech

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disorder caused by loss of dopamine cells in the basal ganglia region of the brain. Not only does the loss of motor control affect lim…

Unmanned Explosive Disposal

Robots used by Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Specialists in the United States Army specialize in transport and detonation of unexploded ordinance, improvised explosive devices, and weap…

Untangling the Mystery: The Link between Variations in the Oxytocin Receptor Gene and Trichotillomania

Biomedical Engineering Third Award

Trichotillomania is a psychological condition that has no known causes or cures. While this condition, which causes people to compulsively pull out their hair, is believed to be multifactori…

User Authentication Based on Gait Analysis

Fourth Award

The purpose of this project is to increase user security by adding gait analysis to the iPhone security system. Present biometric authentication relies on a fingerprint, but this is not fool…

Use the Force, Lyapunov! A Novel Quadcopter Motor Controller Using Force Sensor Feedback

Second Award

Quadcopter drones are poised to become a widely used technology with important humanitarian, civil and military applications. However, these flying robots face significant and complex aerody…

Using Alum Synthesized from Recycled Scrap Aluminum to Investigate a Purification Method for Phosphate-Enriched Freshwater Ecosystems

The purpose of the experiment was to synthesize an alum from recycled aluminum materials and investigate its use in purifying phosphate-enriched Chlorella cultures. A protocol was followed t…

Using an Inertial Measurement Unit to Objectively Quantify Symptoms of Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s Disease

Present tremor measurements of Parkinson’s and essential tremor are based on subjective visual observation scales; clinical evaluations may vary between reviewers. A standardized, quantitati…

Using an Isolated Gain System to Heat a Traditional Home

Rural communities across Native American reservations are held back by traditional heating sources like coal and wood. This project serves to provide an alternative heating source for these…

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 Chevron Wing Extenders to Stabilize Plank Style Flying Wings

Plank style flying wings have many advantages over traditional aircraft, or traditional flying wings. As opposed to traditional aircraft, they are aerodynamically cleaner. No tail and no fus…

Using Data-Driven Frequency Analysis Techniques to Detect Seizures and Falls

Second Award

Over 70 million people worldwide and 5 million in the U.S. have epilepsy and millions of people fall each year with hundreds of thousands hospitalized. Despite the high number of fatal falls…

Using Gene Expression Analysis to Identify Tumor Evolution across Cancer Types

Fourth Award

Despite extraordinary efforts to profile cancer genomes, interpreting the vast amount of genomic data in the light of cancer evolution remains challenging. In malignancies we identified as e…

Using Machine Learning and Image Segmentation to Analyze Retinal Blood Vessel Densities

Abnormal growth of the blood vessels in the retina of the eye is associated with vision loss; therefore, methods to identify or measure abnormal blood vessels is important in research. One s…

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 Modified S100A9 Monoclonal-Antibody-Infused Field Effect Transistors to Accurately Detect the Presence of Early Stage Renal Cell Carcinoma

Fourth Award

Renal Cell Carcinoma is a deadly form of cancer that is asymptomatic almost always until it is metastatic and terminal for the patient, explaining why the 5 year survival rate is less than 8…

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…

Using Patterns Found in the Distribution of Prime Numbers to Assist in Writing a Very Efficient Prime Sieve

Prime numbers are integers that only have 2 factors, one and themselves. The sequence of prime numbers are very strange, with no known formula to predict or calculate prime numbers without r…

Using Pharmacogenetics to Determine the Role of the Orexin System in Panic-Associated Behavior and Physiology

Biochemistry

Background: Orexin is a neuropeptide that is exclusively synthesized in the perifornical hypothalamus, which is a brain region that when stimulated elicits panic-associated behavior in roden…

Utilization of Freeze Protocols to Improve Seed Viability to Enhance Reclamation

This research began over three years ago. During the summer of 2012 numerous bare patches were noticed in the hills that were mined before reclamation was mandatory. The problem that is bein…