Design and Analysis of Energy Recovery Methods for Reduced Aircraft Emissions
Aircraft flights are becoming an increasingly popular mode of transportation. However, their harmful impacts on the environment are a growing concern. To combat this issue, many engineers have worked on developing fully electric aircraft. Although they are much more sustainable, they encounter severe limitations imposed by current battery technologies. One alternative route engineers have taken is the development of energy recovery methods (ERM). These methods reduce the fuel consumption of aircraft without significantly changing their structure and functionality, making them an excellent short-term solution. The goal of this research is to add to the existing pool of ERM and analyze their performance to identify the most successful methods. To do so, we generated CAD models of common aircraft, as well as the new and existing ERM, using SolidWorks. We then tested these models in SolidWorks Flow Simulation to determine the drag force they experience. Lastly, we used MATLAB and Excel to develop a mathematical model that utilizes principles of thermodynamics and kinematics to calculate fuel consumption during a typical flight pattern. So far, the results have shown that the ERM are ineffective; however, this finding is not final as the research is in progress.

Continue reading Joshua Hauck »

Cocomposer: A Generative Approach to Electronic Music

The rapid advancement of hardware and software technologies over the past few decades has significantly influenced the evolution of electronic music, empowering producers to leverage these tools in crafting innovative rhythms, sounds, and patterns. Visual programming languages like Max/MSP have been utilized to create algorithmically generated sprawls that challenge the conventions of rhythm and structure to redefine the definition of music. In this context, this paper introduces Cocomposer, a novel framework and algorithm designed to facilitate the generation of non-deterministic electronic music that diverges from conventional music production paradigms. At its core, Cocomposer utilizes a state-based machine to schedule musical events, enabling users to generate MIDI notes through state transitions defined by the user. These transitions are constructed entirely from scratch, utilizing traditional MIDI note parameters while remaining fully mutable, offering real-time flexibility for the user. By assigning probabilities to state transitions, the framework allows for dynamic progressions from one state to another, accompanied by the playback of user-specified notes. This probabilistic approach creates generated music with an organic and algorithmic quality, as the output evolves in a manner that is both unpredictable and influenced by the user-defined parameters. Consequently, Cocomposer represents a significant step forward in the realm of algorithmic music composition, bridging the gap between structured creativity and emergent musical expression.

Continue reading Jackson Greninger »

Literature Review of Parenting Practices in Latinx Families

Parenting practices are strongly influenced by contextual factors and cultural values, especially among Latinx families in the United States. This literature review investigated how Latinx parenting is influenced by cultural values such as familismo and respeto, gender norms derived from marianismo and machismo, and larger sociopolitical factors such as immigration status and socioeconomic tensions. This review integrated findings from 31 peer-reviewed studies, analyzed through NVivo coding, to identify key themes in Latinx parenting research. The findings revealed that Latinx parents integrate warmth and discipline in a practice known as protective parenting; however, issues such as deportation and acculturative stress show an impact on family dynamics and parent-child interactions. In addition, parental expectations, particularly those surrounding masculinity and academic aspirations, play an important role in determining child development.

Continue reading Nicole Fernandez »

The Bittersweetness in Language Brokering Experiences of Latinx College Students

Latinx migrants are a culturally diverse group in which children commonly learn English more quickly than their parents. In light of their rapid language acquisition, children often become language brokers for their families. Language brokering (LB) is interpreting and translating for non-English-speaking family members. LB has been associated with both positive and negative experiences that relate to psychological well-being and family dynamics. However, little research has explored the role that the personality traits of the interpreter play in language brokering. This project intends to address this gap by investigating how personality traits and other psychosocial variables affect the psychological adjustment of Latinx individuals who broker for their families.

Continue reading Nicole Fernandez »

The Alien Language Game: The Developmental Trajectory of Auditory and Visual Statistical Learning

Statistical learning (SL) extends across multiple stimulus domains and modalities, including vision, audition, and touch. However, it remains to be seen whether SL is supported by a modality-general or modality-specific mechanism(s). Prior work examined this by varying the rate of presentation across modalities, finding evidence of modality-specific constraints on learning (Emberson, Conway & Christiansen, 2011). In a prior experiment, I extended this work by testing the effect of presentation rate in standardized audio and visual SL tasks. The results of this project provided evidence against modality constraints to SL, suggesting instead that the mechanism is modality-general in nature. However, SL’s developmental trajectories in school age children are highly debated and minimally researched, begging the question of whether modality constraints on statistical learning exist at any point during development. Utilizing a gamified version of the task used in my prior experiment, I was able to examine the mechanism’s performance in the visual and auditory domains at two rates of presentation in children 7- to 12- years-old. Performance in the auditory domain was significantly better than that of the visual domain, with performance in visual task at both rates of presentation at or below chance, suggesting the SL mechanism is better equipped to track temporal dependencies of auditory stimuli. However, performance at the slower rate of presentation in both the auditory and visual domaines improved with age. Thus, my results may provide evidence suggesting that modality constraints to statistical learning do not exist in school age children.

Continue reading Gwen Radecki »

Belonging Through Bourdieu: Belonging as a Community College

The study aims to understand the feeling of belonging as a community college transfer student that has transitioned to a four year university. Utilizing Bourdieu’s (1997) capital theory as a framework, this qualitative study seeks to answer what capitals students need to feel belonging, how to provide different types of capital to transfer students and fill the gaps students are experiencing. We find that the three capitals posed by Bourdieu (1997) (social, economic, and cultural) influence a student’s sense of belonging and that by providing different types of capital to transfer students and fill the gaps students are experiencing does successfully influence the feeling of belonging. Through articles, literature, and interviews we identify that capital, economic, and social capital all pose important roles in a transfer student’s experience and the presence of these capitals can improve the overall experience of a student’s transfer process. Students tend to come in with a variety of skill sets related to each of these capitals including self efficacy, resilience, and perseverance. However, these students also need help in obtaining the capitals that they are lacking. There are many actions that can be taken to help in improving each of these capitals including advising and mentorship programs, increasing opportunities for involvement in campus activities, expansion of scholarship programs, and the development of networks of support. In increasing the necessary capitals that enable transfer students to thrive we see that the sense of belonging in academic and social environments increase.

Continue reading Emily Rivera »

Linearizable Instances of the Quadratic Minimum Spanning Tree Problem on 3-Connected Graphs

The quadratic minimum spanning tree problem (QMSTP) is graph-based combinatorial optimization problem that, in general, is notoriously difficult to solve. We study special easily-solvable instances of the QMSTP that are known as linearizable, meaning that the quadratic objective can be equivalently rewritten as linear in a manner that preserves the objective function value of each feasible solution. Previous work has shown that a sufficient condition for linearizability is that the (symmetric) matrix of cost coefficients is a weak sum matrix. This work also showed that this sufficient condition becomes necessary for linearizability when the underlying graph is a complete graph. In our work, we broaden this result by proving that this sufficient linearizability condition is necessary if and only if the QMSTP instance is defined on a 3-connected graph.

Continue reading Dante Mancino »

A Glimpse into Race and Representation in Roman Artifacts

This research presents a Roman terracotta oil lamp, featuring the stylized head of a presumed African male, investigated for its cultural, anthropological, and artistic significance. The lamp, likely produced between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, was part of a private collection until its recent donation to the Samek Art Museum. Its iconography raises questions about Roman perceptions of identity and otherness, explored through comparative analysis with similar artifacts from the British Museum and other collections. By situating the lamp within the broader cultural milieu of Roman art and material culture, this research examines its role as both a functional object and a symbolic artifact. The analysis places the lamp in the context of Roman practices of representation, stereotyping, and cultural hybridity, highlighting how everyday objects serve as reflections of societal narratives. This research contributes to ongoing discourse on material culture and the artistic expression of identity in antiquity.

Continue reading Laura Ancuta »

Dream or Illusion? – Social Mobility in a Divided Era

The “American Dream” embodies evolving ideals of economic and social success in the U.S., rooted in the Declaration of Independence’s promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This research examines contemporary perceptions of the American Dream and its attainability today, focusing on how socioeconomic background, race, and gender shape individual interpretations of success and opportunity.
Drawing from historical and sociological frameworks, we integrate perspectives from American studies, social mobility research, and economic inequality discourse. A questionnaire conducted among college students from diverse backgrounds explored their perceptions of the American Dream and key attributes linked to achieving it. Qualitative coding identified recurring themes and emotions, while quantitative analysis examined correlations between responses and socioeconomic status.
Preliminary findings indicate that historical patterns persist, with white males often seen as the quintessential embodiment of the American Dream. However, views on attainability vary due to rising living costs and workplace diversity efforts. Our analysis revealed differences in expected income levels and lifestyle aspirations—some participants included vacations as part of their dream, while others omitted them, considering them either an unrealistic luxury or too normalized to be a goal.
Future research will expand data collection through in-depth interviews and archival analysis to refine these trends. By analyzing modern interpretations of the American Dream, this study contributes to discussions on social mobility and economic opportunity, offering insight into how diverse individuals navigate and redefine this evolving ideal.

Continue reading Emma Yorke »

Unbiased Characterization and Classification of Coffee

Traditional coffee quality assessment relies on certified sensory specialists, who are not easily accessible and can be subjective. These evaluations can lead to inconsistencies in coffee assessment, making it difficult to achieve reliable and standardized evaluations. The goal of this study is to leverage machine learning to objectively classify brewed coffee by brand, class, and roast level using physicochemical characterization. We studied a total of 144 brewed coffee samples from seven different coffee brands ranging across commodity, specialty, and premium classifications, at varying roast levels. For each sample, we measured: pH, color, turbidity, potassium, and total dissolved solids and manually labeled the brand, class, and roast level. We evaluated support vector machine (SVM), decision tree, and logistic regression models to predict coffee brand, class, and roast level. The SVM performed best with 100% accuracy using 10-fold cross-validation. Our ongoing research explores the use of cyclic voltammetry to analyze electrochemical properties of coffee. This work aims to develop a low-cost electrochemical analysis method to determine distinct characteristics of coffee, providing an objective alternative to traditional sensory evaluation. A screen-printed electrode can detect oxidation peaks of key coffee compounds. Our initial studies are focusing on estimating caffeine concentration. Features of the cyclic voltammetry curve are extracted and used to estimate the caffeine concentration, using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography to measure the ground-truth concentration. Further analysis will extend this approach to include chlorogenic acids, a major class of coffee components, to determine their electrochemical signatures.

Continue reading Ryan Koes »