Tag Archives: Ohio State University

Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) and its president’s (Andrew Petter) dream colloquium: women in technology

I’m a little late with this event news (sadly,. I only received the information yesterday, Sept. 20, 2017) but even with two event dates already past (happily, videos for the two events have been posted), there are still several “Women in Technology” events to attend or view live according to the Simon Fraser University (SFU) President’s Dream Colloquium: Women in Technology; Attaining, Retaining, and Promoting Diverse Talent’s webpage text by Wan Yee Lok,

Women in Technology: Attracting, Retaining and Promoting Diverse Talent is a seven-part public [emphasis mine] lecture series beginning on Sept. 13. Key experts from around the world will identify challenges to gender equity and discover solutions for improving recruitment, retention and leadership options for women.

Diversity and inclusion are critical to high-tech corporate success. Yet statistics reveal that less than 25 per cent of those working in the science, technology, engineering and math sectors (STEM) are women, and that they earn seven-and-a-half per cent less than men.

“There is a crucial need to achieve gender equality in the tech sector, especially at a time when it is growing faster than ever,” says colloquium organizer Lesley Shannon, an SFU engineering science professor. She holds the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

“We hope the colloquium will help people engage in a multidisciplinary dialogue about the value of creating more space in technology for women and other under-represented groups.”

Six of the lectures are free, except for Cathy O’Neil’s lecture on Oct. 26.

The President’s Dream Colloquium schedule is as follows:

Sept. 13: SFU KEY presents: We the Data
Juliette Powell, founder, Turing AI and WeTheData.org, author of 33 Million People in the Room

Sept. 14: Diversity 101: The Case for Diversity in Technology
Maria Klawe, president, Harvey Mudd College

Sept. 21: Women in Media and Advertising
Shari Graydon, catalyst, Informed Opinions

Oct. 12: Social Psychological Phenomena
Steven Spencer, the Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Chair in Social Psychology, Ohio State University

Oct. 26: Gender and Bias in Algorithmic Design
Cathy O’Neil, author, Weapons of Math Destruction [tickets are $5 for students; $15 for the rest of us; go here to buy tickets, click on green button in the upper right, below the banner; the event will be held at SFU’s Harbour Centre Vancouver location]

Nov 9: Gendered Language
Danielle Gaucher, associate professor, Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg

Nov. 23: Women as Leaders and Innovators
Jo Miller, founder, Be Leaderly

Lectures will be webcast live and available on the President’s Dream Colloquium website, www.sfu.ca/womenintech.

SFU engineering science professor Lesley Shannon is the colloquium organizer as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

 

As a part of the colloquium, students can enroll in a graduate course covering a broad range of topics related to diversity in the technology sector. Shannon says the course will focus on women and their role in technology as well as issues that affect other under‐represented groups.

“I hope the course will establish a foundation for future managers, supervisors, sponsors, mentors and others wanting to pursue leadership roles to work towards creating a level playing field in technology and other industries,” says Shannon.

The colloquium course (SAR 897) is still accepting students. Visit go.sfu.ca to enroll.

A reminder after the last few paragraphs of the event text, you don’t actually have to be a student to attend the lectures although for anyone who doesn’t want to make the trek up the hill (SFU is located on a hill in Burnaby, BC) for the majority of the events, there is the livestream video. For those who can’t make the scheduled times, given that both the Sept. 13 and Sept. 14, 2017 event videos have been posted, they are being pretty quick about uploading the videos afterwards.

I have mentioned Cathy O’Neil here a couple of times, more substantively in a Feb. 28, 2017 posting about a major’ big data’ collaboration between the province of BC and the state of Washington (for Cathy O’Neil, scroll down to the subsection titled: Algorithms and big data) and briefly at the end in a May 24, 2017 posting that was chiefly concerned with bias in algorithms.

English ivy’s stickiness may be useful

Researchers have discovered the secret to English ivy’s stickiness and they hope that secret will lead to improved wound healing and more according to a May 24, 2016 news item on Nanowerk,

English ivy’s natural glue might hold the key to new approaches to wound healing, stronger armor for the military and maybe even cosmetics with better staying power.

New research from The Ohio State University illuminates the tiny particles responsible for ivy’s ability to latch on so tight to trees and buildings that it can withstand hurricanes and tornadoes. (Not to mention infuriate those trying to rid their homes of the vigorous green climber.)

The researchers pinpointed the spherical particles within English ivy’s adhesive and identified the primary protein within them.

A May 23, 2016 Ohio State University news release (also on EurekAlert) by Misti Crane, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

“By understanding the proteins that give rise to ivy’s strength, we can give rise to approaches to engineer new bio-inspired adhesives for medical and industry products,” said Mingjun Zhang, the biomedical engineering professor who led the work.

“It’s a milestone to resolve this mystery. We now know the secret of this adhesive and the underlying molecular mechanism,” said Zhang, who focuses his work on finding answers in nature for vexing problems in medicine.

“Ivy has these very tiny hairy structures that have a wonderful interaction with the surface as the plant climbs. One day I was looking at the ivy in the backyard and I was amazed at the force,” Zhang said.Like many scientists before him, Charles Darwin among them, Zhang found himself captivated by English ivy – the physics of it, the sheer strength of it. The study appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s very difficult to tear down, even in a natural disaster. It’s one of the strongest adhesive forces in nature.”

When he and his team took a look at the ivy’s glue with a powerful atomic-force microscope, they were able to identify a previously unknown element in its adhesive.

Zhang said particles rich in those proteins have exceptional adhesive abilities – abilities that could be used to the advantage of many, from biomedical engineers to paint makers.The tiny particles inside the glue on their laboratory slides turned out to be primarily made up of arabinogalactan proteins. And when the scientists investigated further, they discovered that the driving force behind the curing of the glue was a calcium-mediated interaction between the proteins and pectin in the gelatinous liquid that oozes from ivy as it climbs.

Zhang, a member of Ohio State’s Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, is particularly interested in bioadhesives that could aid in wound healing after injury or surgeries. Others, notably the U.S. military, are interested in surface-coating applications for purposes that include strengthening armor systems, he said.

Many plants are excellent climbers, but scientists have had limited information about the adhesives that enable those plants to affix themselves to walls, fences and just about anything in their way, he said.

“When climbing, ivy secretes these tiny nanoparticles which make initial surface contact. Due to their high uniformity and low viscosity, they can attach to large areas on various surfaces,” Zhang said.

After the water evaporates, a chemical bond forms, Zhang said.

“It’s really a nature-made amazing mechanism for high-strength adhesion,” he said.

The glue doesn’t just sit on the surface of the object that the ivy is clinging to, he said. It finds its way into openings invisible to the naked eye, further solidifying its bond.

To confirm what they found, Zhang and his collaborators used the nanoparticles to reconstruct a simple glue that mimics ivy adhesive. Advanced bioadhesives based on this research will take more time and research.

In addition to its strength, ivy adhesive has other properties that make it appealing to scientists looking for answers to engineering quandaries, Zhang said.

“Under moisture or high or low temperatures, it’s not easily damaged,” he said. “Ivy is very resistant to various environmental conditions, which makes the adhesive a particularly interesting candidate for the development of armor coatings.”

Ivy also is considered a pest because it can be destructive to buildings and bridges. Knowing what’s at the heart of its sticking ability could help scientists unearth approaches to resist the plant, Zhang said.

Zhang and his work have been featured here before in a Jan. 7, 2013 posting about flesh-eating fungus and in a July 22, 2010 posting about English ivy and sunscreens.

Here’s a link to and a citation for Zhang’s latest paper,

Nanospherical arabinogalactan proteins are a key component of the high-strength adhesive secreted by English ivy by Yujian Huang, Yongzhong Wang, Li Tan, Leming Sun, Jennifer Petrosino, Mei-Zhen Cui, Feng Hao, and Mingjun Zhang. PNAS [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] 2016 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1600406113 Published ahead of print May 23, 2016,

This paper is behind a paywall.

Embroidering electronics into clothing

Researchers at The Ohio State University are developing embroidered antennas and circuits with 0.1 mm precision—the perfect size to integrate electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing. Photo by Jo McCulty, courtesy of The Ohio State University.

Researchers at The Ohio State University are developing embroidered antennas and circuits with 0.1 mm precision—the perfect size to integrate electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing. Photo by Jo McCulty, courtesy of The Ohio State University.

An April 13, 2016 news item on Nanowerk describes an advance in the field of wearable electronics,

Researchers who are working to develop wearable electronics have reached a milestone: They are able to embroider circuits into fabric with 0.1 mm precision—the perfect size to integrate electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing.

With this advance, the Ohio State University researchers have taken the next step toward the design of functional textiles—clothes that gather, store, or transmit digital information. With further development, the technology could lead to shirts that act as antennas for your smart phone or tablet, workout clothes that monitor your fitness level, sports equipment that monitors athletes’ performance, a bandage that tells your doctor how well the tissue beneath it is healing—or even a flexible fabric cap that senses activity in the brain.

That last item is one that John Volakis, director of the ElectroScience Laboratory at Ohio State, and research scientist Asimina Kiourti are investigating. The idea is to make brain implants, which are under development to treat conditions from epilepsy to addiction, more comfortable by eliminating the need for external wiring on the patient’s body.

An April 13, 2016 Ohio State University news release by Pam Frost Gorder, which originated the news item, expands on the theme (Note: Links have been removed),

“A revolution is happening in the textile industry,” said Volakis, who is also the Roy & Lois Chope Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering at Ohio State. “We believe that functional textiles are an enabling technology for communications and sensing—and one day even medical applications like imaging and health monitoring.”

Recently, he and Kiourti refined their patented fabrication method to create prototype wearables at a fraction of the cost and in half the time as they could only two years ago. With new patents pending, they published the new results in the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

In Volakis’ lab, the functional textiles, also called “e-textiles,” are created in part on a typical tabletop sewing machine—the kind that fabric artisans and hobbyists might have at home. Like other modern sewing machines, it embroiders thread into fabric automatically based on a pattern loaded via a computer file. The researchers substitute the thread with fine silver metal wires that, once embroidered, feel the same as traditional thread to the touch.

“We started with a technology that is very well known—machine embroidery—and we asked, how can we functionalize embroidered shapes? How do we make them transmit signals at useful frequencies, like for cell phones or health sensors?” Volakis said. “Now, for the first time, we’ve achieved the accuracy of printed metal circuit boards, so our new goal is to take advantage of the precision to incorporate receivers and other electronic components.”

The shape of the embroidery determines the frequency of operation of the antenna or circuit, explained Kiourti.

The shape of one broadband antenna, for instance, consists of more than half a dozen interlocking geometric shapes, each a little bigger than a fingernail, that form an intricate circle a few inches across. Each piece of the circle transmits energy at a different frequency, so that they cover a broad spectrum of energies when working together—hence the “broadband” capability of the antenna for cell phone and internet access.

“Shape determines function,” she said. “And you never really know what shape you will need from one application to the next. So we wanted to have a technology that could embroider any shape for any application.”

The researchers’ initial goal, Kiourti added, was just to increase the precision of the embroidery as much as possible, which necessitated working with fine silver wire. But that created a problem, in that fine wires couldn’t provide as much surface conductivity as thick wires. So they had to find a way to work the fine thread into embroidery densities and shapes that would boost the surface conductivity and, thus, the antenna/sensor performance.

Previously, the researchers had used silver-coated polymer thread with a 0.5-mm diameter, each thread made up of 600 even finer filaments twisted together. The new threads have a 0.1-mm diameter, made with only seven filaments. Each filament is copper at the center, enameled with pure silver.

They purchase the wire by the spool at a cost of 3 cents per foot; Kiourti estimated that embroidering a single broadband antenna like the one mentioned above consumes about 10 feet of thread, for a material cost of around 30 cents per antenna. That’s 24 times less expensive than when Volakis and Kiourti created similar antennas in 2014.

In part, the cost savings comes from using less thread per embroidery. The researchers previously had to stack the thicker thread in two layers, one on top of the other, to make the antenna carry a strong enough electrical signal. But by refining the technique that she and Volakis developed, Kiourti was able to create the new, high-precision antennas in only one embroidered layer of the finer thread. So now the process takes half the time: only about 15 minutes for the broadband antenna mentioned above.

She’s also incorporated some techniques common to microelectronics manufacturing to add parts to embroidered antennas and circuits.

One prototype antenna looks like a spiral and can be embroidered into clothing to improve cell phone signal reception. Another prototype, a stretchable antenna with an integrated RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip embedded in rubber, takes the applications for the technology beyond clothing. (The latter object was part of a study done for a tire manufacturer.)

Yet another circuit resembles the Ohio State Block “O” logo, with non-conductive scarlet and gray thread embroidered among the silver wires “to demonstrate that e-textiles can be both decorative and functional,” Kiourti said.

They may be decorative, but the embroidered antennas and circuits actually work. Tests showed that an embroidered spiral antenna measuring approximately six inches across transmitted signals at frequencies of 1 to 5 GHz with near-perfect efficiency. The performance suggests that the spiral would be well-suited to broadband internet and cellular communication.

In other words, the shirt on your back could help boost the reception of the smart phone or tablet that you’re holding – or send signals to your devices with health or athletic performance data.

The work fits well with Ohio State’s role as a founding partner of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America Institute, a national manufacturing resource center for industry and government. The new institute, which joins some 50 universities and industrial partners, was announced earlier this month by U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.

Syscom Advanced Materials in Columbus provided the threads used in Volakis and Kiourti’s initial work. The finer threads used in this study were purchased from Swiss manufacturer Elektrisola. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation, and Ohio State will license the technology for further development.

Until then, Volakis is making out a shopping list for the next phase of the project.

“We want a bigger sewing machine,” he said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Fabrication of Textile Antennas and Circuits With 0.1 mm Precision by A. Kiourti, C. Lee, and J. L. Volakis.  IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (Volume:15 ) Page(s): 151 – 153 ISSN : 1536-1225 INSPEC Accession Number: 15785288 DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2435257 Date of Publication: 20 May 2015 Issue Date: 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Citrus canker, Florida, and Zinkicide

Found in Florida orchards in 2005, a citrus canker, citrus greening, poses a serious threat to the US state’s fruit industry. An April 2, 2105 news item on phys.org describes a possible solution to the problem,

Since it was discovered in South Florida in 2005, the plague of citrus greening has spread to nearly every grove in the state, stoking fears among growers that the $10.7 billion-a-year industry may someday disappear.

Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded the University of Florida a $4.6 million grant aimed at testing a potential new weapon in the fight against citrus greening: Zinkicide, a bactericide invented by a nanoparticle researcher at the University of Central Florida.

An April 2, 2015 University of Central Florida news release by Mark Schlueb (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the problem and the solution (Zinkicide),

Citrus greening – also known by its Chinese name, Huanglongbing, or HLB – causes orange, grapefruit and other citrus trees to produce small, bitter fruit that drop prematurely and is unsuitable for sale or juice. Eventually, infected trees die. Florida has lost tens of thousands of acres to the disease.

“It’s a hundred-year-old disease, but to date there is no cure. It’s a killer, a true killer for the citrus industry,” said Swadeshmukul Santra, associate professor in the NanoScience Technology Center at UCF.

The bacteria that causes HLB is carried by the Asian citrus psyllid, a tiny insect that  feeds on leaves and stems of infected citrus trees, then carries the bacteria to healthy trees.

Zinkicide, developed by Santra, is designed to kill the bacteria.

The $4.6 million grant is the largest of five totaling $23 million that were recently announced by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The evaluation of Zinkicide is a multi-institute project involving 13 investigators from six institutions. Evan Johnson of UF’s [University of Florida] Citrus Research and Education Center at Lake Alfred is the project director, and there are a dozen co-principal investigators from UF, UCF, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Auburn University, New Mexico State University and The Ohio State University.

”Managing systemic diseases like HLB is a difficult challenge that has faced plant pathologists for many years,” said Johnson “It is a privilege to work with an excellent team of researchers from many different disciplines with the goal of developing new tools that are both effective and safe.”

A portion of the grant money, $1.4 million, flows to UCF, where Santra leads a team that also includes Andre Gesquiere, Laurene Tetard and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory collaborator, Loukas Petridis.

HLB control is difficult because current bactericidal sprays, such as copper, simply leave a protective film on the outside of a plant. The insect-transmitted bacteria bypasses that barrier and lives inside a tree’s fruit, stems and roots, in the vascular tissue known as the phloem. There, it deprives the tree of carbohydrate and nutrients, causing root loss and ultimately death. For a bactericide to be effective against HLB, it must be able to move within the plant, too.

Zinkicide is a nanoparticle smaller than a single microscopic cell, and researchers are cautiously optimistic it will be able to move systemically from cell to cell to kill the bacteria that cause HLB.

“The bacteria hide inside the plant in the phloem region,” Santra said. “If you spray and your compound doesn’t travel to the phloem region, then you cannot treat HLB.”

Zinkicide is derived from ingredients which are found in plants, and is designed to break down and be metabolized after its job is done. [emphasis mine]

It’s the first step in a years-long process to bring a treatment to market. UF will lead five years of greenhouse and field trials on grapefruit and sweet orange to determine the effectiveness of Zinkicide and the best method and timing of application.

The project also includes research to study where the nanoparticles travel within the plant, understand how they interact with plant tissue and how long they remain before breaking down. [emphasis mine]

If effective, the bactericide could have a substantial role in combatting HLB in Florida, and in other citrus-producing states and countries. It would also likely be useful for control of other bacterial pathogens infecting other crops.

The Zinkicide project builds as a spinoff from previous collaborations between Santra and UF’s Jim Graham, at the Citrus Research and Education Center to develop alternatives to copper for citrus canker control.

The previous Citrus Research and Education Foundation (CRDF)-funded Zinkicide project has issued three reports, for June 30, 2014, Sept. 30, 2014, and Dec. 31, 2014. This project’s completion date is May 2015. The reports which are remarkably succinct, consisting of two paragraphs, can be found here.

Oddly, the UCF news release doesn’t mention that Zinkicide (although it can be inferred) is a zinc particulate (I’m guessing they mean zinc nanoparticle) as noted on the CRDF project webpage. Happily, they are researching what happens after the bactericide has done its work on the infection. It’s good to see a life cycle approach to this research.

Researching a curcumin delivery system—a nutraceutical story

A Nov. 6, 2014 news item on ScienceDaily features research on delivering curcumin’s (a constituent of turmeric) health benefits more efficiently (there is a twist; for the impatient, you may want to scroll down to where I provide an excerpt from the university’s news release) from Ohio State University (US),

The health benefits of over-the-counter curcumin supplements might not get past your gut, but new research shows that a modified formulation of the spice releases its anti-inflammatory goodness throughout the body.

Curcumin is a naturally occurring compound found in the spice turmeric that has been used for centuries as an Ayurvedic medicine treatment for such ailments as allergies, diabetes and ulcers.

Anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests curcumin promotes health because it lowers inflammation, but it is not absorbed well by the body. Most curcumin in food or supplements stays in the gastrointestinal tract, and any portion that’s absorbed is metabolized quickly.

A Nov. 6, 2014 Ohio State University news release by Emily Caldwell (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, explains the interest in curcumin in more detail and describes the research in more detail,

Many research groups are testing the compound’s effects on disorders ranging from colon cancer to osteoarthritis. Others, like these Ohio State University scientists, are investigating whether enabling widespread availability of curcumin’s biological effects to the entire body could make it useful both therapeutically and as a daily supplement to combat disease.

“There’s a reason why this compound has been used for hundreds of years in Eastern medicine. And this study suggests that we have identified a better and more effective way to deliver curcumin and know what diseases to use it for so that we can take advantage of its anti-inflammatory power,” said Nicholas Young, a postdoctoral researcher in rheumatology and immunology at Ohio State and lead author of the study.

Curcumin powder was mixed with castor oil and polyethylene glycol in a process called nano-emulsion (think vinaigrette salad dressing), creating fluid teeming with microvesicles that contain curcumin. This process allows the compound to dissolve and be more easily absorbed by the gut to enter the bloodstream and tissues.

Feeding mice this curcumin-based drug shut down an acute inflammatory reaction by blocking activation of a key protein that triggers the immune response. The researchers were also the first to show that curcumin stops recruitment of specific immune cells that, when overactive, are linked to such problems as heart disease and obesity.

Young and his colleagues, including co-senior authors Lai-Chu Wu and Wael Jarjour of the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, now want to know if curcumin in this form can counter the chronic inflammation that is linked to sickness and age-related frailty. They have started with animal studies testing nano-emulsified curcumin’s ability to prevent or control inflammation in a lupus model.

“We envision that this nutraceutical could be used one day both as a daily supplement to help prevent certain diseases and as a therapeutic drug to help combat the bad inflammation observed in many diseases,” Young said. “The distinction will then be in the amount given – perhaps a low dose for daily prevention and higher doses for disease suppression.”

The term nutraceutical refers to foods or nutrients that provide medical or health benefits.

This news release notes the latest research is built on previous work,

The curcumin delivery system was created in Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy, and these researchers previously showed that concentrations of the emulsified curcumin in blood were more than 10 times higher than of curcumin powder suspended in water.

A more precise description of the current research is then provided (from the news release),

… From there, the researchers launched experiments in mice and cell cultures, generating artificial inflammation and comparing the effects of the nano-emulsified curcumin with the effects of curcumin powder in water or no treatment at all. [emphasis mine]

The researchers injected mice with lipopolysaccharide, a bacteria cell wall extract that stimulates an immune reaction in animals. Curcumin can target many molecules, but the research team zeroed in on NF-kB, a protein that is known to play an important role in the immune response.

In a specialized imaging machine, mice receiving plain curcumin lit up with bioluminescent signals indicating that NF-kB was actively triggering an immune response, while mice receiving nano-emulsified curcumin showed minimal signs – a 22-fold reduction – that the protein had been activated at all.

Knowing that curcumin delivered in this way could shut down NF-kB activation throughout the animals’ bodies, researchers looked for further details about the compound’s effects on inflammation. They found that nano-emulsified curcumin halted the recruitment of immune cells called macrophages that “eat” invading pathogens but also contribute to inflammation by secreting pro-inflammatory chemicals. And in cells isolated from human blood samples, macrophages were stopped in their tracks.

“This macrophage-specific effect of curcumin had not been described before,” Young said. “Because of that finding, we propose nano-emulsified curcumin has the best potential against macrophage-associated inflammation.”

Inflammation triggered by overactive macrophages has been linked to cardiovascular disease, disorders that accompany obesity, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes and lupus-related nephritis.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Oral Administration of Nano-Emulsion Curcumin in Mice Suppresses Inflammatory-Induced NFκB Signaling and Macrophage Migration by Nicholas A. Young, Michael S. Bruss, Mark Gardner, William L. Willis, Xiaokui Mo, Giancarlo R. Valiente, Yu Cao, Zhongfa Liu, Wael N. Jarjour, and Lai-Chu Wu. PLOS ONE Published: November 04, 2014 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111559

This paper is open accesss.

I have an Oct. 1, 2014 posting which features research on curcumin for healing wounds and on tumerone for stimulating the formation of stem cells in the brain.