Fairmont State University

To facilitate the delivery of drugs into the skin structure, microneedles play a pivotal role. Unlike conventional hypodermic syringes, microneedles penetrate only the dermis layer, avoiding nerve receptors and resulting in a painless injection. However, when a drug is administered into the skin, microneedles may undergo bending and buckling, leading to structural failure. Such failure can cause the drug to remain beneath the skin, potentially creating complications. Preventing the catastrophe of microneedle failure necessitates a close examination of parameters involved in the bending and buckling process. In this paper, we focus on buckling analysis, as the majority of microneedle failures are attributed to the buckling effect. We perform buckling analysis through finite element analysis to predict the critical buckling load (Pcr). This analysis helps determine the maximum load that a microneedle can withstand. We conduct this analysis using two modes: linear and non-linear (post-buckling analysis). By varying the tip diameter of the microneedle (20µm, 40µm, 60µm, 80µm, 100µm), we can identify the safe insertion load.

Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, is a two-block entertainment district and National Historic Landmark known for blues history and live music. At night, the street comes alive with bright neon signs, clashing sounds emanating from 14 live music venues, and novelty-sized to-go drinks. It is the most visited tourist destination in the state. Beale is a complicated and misunderstood place. It is a physical manifestation of the confluence of several forces in contemporary American life that shape and attempt to define it: urban renewal and slum clearance; the white curation of blues into a claimed collective American heritage; tips-based labor; and the touristic impulse to discover the authentic. This confluence creates a unique economic and cultural zone: a historically Black site in a majority-Black city that is managed by largely white operators catering to tourists. The musical labor force depends upon tips and is, thus, influenced by expectations of and requests from tourists. And these tourists, more often than not, have a superficial or skewed understanding of the traditions and aesthetics of Beale Street. Journalists, scholars, and tourists often describe Beale as “inauthentic,” citing as their proof Beale’s bands, who play too much blues, not enough blues, or not the right kind of blues. In this chapter, I use my research with Beale Street musicians and my experience performing on Beale to speak back to the dominant narrative that posits Beale as inauthentic. I shift the focus to the overlooked material conditions of working on Beale. I ask why musicians make the repertoire and aesthetic choices they do and I analyze the physical and economic aspects of laboring in a tips-based, music tourist enclave with a complex racial legacy. Finally, I provide actionable steps for more ethical and equitable scholarship, reportage, and tourist consumption.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) return to play (RTP) factors and proportions across all National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) sports. DESIGN: Systematic review with prognosis and etiology components. LITERATURE SEARCH: Two independent reviewers searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases using terms related to RTP, ACLR, and NCAA for articles published up to June 30, 2023. STUDY SELECTION CRITERIA: Articles were included if: RTP proportions or factors affecting RTP were reported and if the study population included NCAA collegiate athletes recovering from an ACLR. DATA SYNTHESIS: The proportion represents the total number of athletes who returned to play after ACLR over the total number of ACLR athletes from each cohort. The cumulative proportion represents the aggregated total from each included study. When eligibility information was available (i.e., athletes in their final year of eligibility), RTP proportions were adjusted. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was used to assess the study quality and scored by two raters. RESULTS: Nine studies were included. RTP criteria varied across the studies. Proportions of RTP ranged from 69% to 92%, with a cumulative RTP proportion after ACLR of 84% (628/745). The primary factors associated with the proportion of RTP were scholarship status, competitive eligibility remaining, depth chart position, and surgical graft type. CONCLUSIONS: The cumulative proportion of RTP was 84% and was associated with patient-specific and operative factors. Psychological and functional factors were not routinely reported, and rehabilitation protocols were unknown. Data were not explicitly available for any athletes outside of Division I. The criteria for RTP after ACLR varied.

Context Individuals with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) often fail to return to their previous level of sport performance. Although multifaceted, this inability to regain preinjury performance may be influenced by impaired plyometric ability attributable to chronic quadriceps dysfunction. Whole-body vibration (WBV) acutely improves quadriceps function and biomechanics after ACLR, but its effects on jumping performance outcomes such as jump height, the reactive strength index (RSI), and knee work and power are unknown. Objective To evaluate the acute effects of WBV on measures of jumping performance in those with ACLR. Design Crossover study design. Setting Research laboratory. Patients or Other Participants Thirty-six individuals with primary, unilateral ACLR. Intervention(s) Participants stood on a WBV platform in a mini-squat position while vibration or no vibration (control) was applied during six 60-second bouts with 2 minutes of rest between bouts. Main Outcome Measure(s) Double-leg jumping tasks were completed preintervention and postintervention (WBV or control) and consisted of jumping off a 30-cm box to 2 force plates half the participant’s height away. The jumping task required participants to maximally jump vertically upon striking the force plates. Results Whole-body vibration did not produce significant improvements in any of the study outcomes (ie, jump height, RSI, and knee work and power) in either limb (P = .053–.839). Conclusions These results suggest that a single bout of WBV is insufficient for improving jumping performance in individuals with ACLR. As such, using WBV to acutely improve jumping performance post-ACLR is likely not warranted. Future research should evaluate the effects of repeated exposure to WBV in combination with other plyometric interventions on jumping performance.

Over the past several decades, there has been a significant surge in interest regarding the use of organic–inorganic hybrid polymers and nanocomposite membranes. The reasons for this are improved attributes, reduced costs, and the additional stability the influence membrane provides. This Review outlines the various techniques and methodologies used to prepare Nafion and its composites, delineating the promising benefits of the electrospinning process. Electrospinning has emerged as a versatile and promising technique for fabricating nanofibers with unique properties and wide-ranging applications. This study explores the electrospinning of Nafion, a perfluorosulfonic acid polymer widely known for its exceptional proton conductivity and chemical stability, into nanofibrous structures, unlocking new possibilities yet unknown features of its inherent properties. The morphology and chemical structure of the resulting nanofibers is analyzed. A thorough bibliographic analysis of electrospun Nafion was presented using the PRISMA approach for methodically presenting the report. Network visualization of connected authors and categorizing application-specific publications are also discussed. Moreover, the electrospinning parameters and blends are systematically investigated to optimize the production of Nafion nanofibers for various applications in fuel cells, water treatment, actuators, sensors, and energy harvesting. The challenges involved in electrospinning Nafion, Nafion nanocomposites, and their variants are also presented, with a discussion delineating the future scope. This work concludes by emphasizing the interdisciplinary character of the Nafion polymer and its composites, connecting materials science and the intricate issues presented by various sectors.

This paper proposes a convolutional neural network (CNN) model of the signal distribution control algorithm (SDCA) to maximize the dynamic vehicular traffic signal flow for each junction phase. The aim of the proposed algorithm is to determine the reward value and new state. It deconstructs the routing components of the current multi-directional queuing system (MDQS) architecture to identify optimal policies for every traffic scenario. Initially, the state value is divided into a function value and a parameter value. Combining these two scenarios updates the resulting optimized state value. Ultimately, an analogous criterion is developed for the current dataset. Next, the error or loss value for the present scenario is computed. Furthermore, utilizing the Deep Q-learning methodology with a quad agent enhances previous study discoveries. The recommended method outperforms all other traditional approaches in effectively optimizing traffic signal timing.

This article details the existing wearable assistive devices that could mimic a human’s active range of motion and aid individuals in recovering from stroke. The survey has identified several risk factors associated with musculoskeletal pain, including physical factors such as engaging in high-intensity exercises, experiencing trauma, aging, dizziness, accidents, and damage from the regular wear and tear of daily activities. These physical risk factors impact vital body parts such as the cervical spine, spinal cord, ankle, elbow, and others, leading to dysfunction, a decrease in the range of motion, and diminished coordination ability, and also influencing the ability to perform the activities of daily living (ADL), such as speaking, breathing and other neurological responses. An individual with these musculoskeletal disorders requires therapies to regain and restore the natural movement. These therapies require an experienced physician to treat the patient, which makes the process expensive and unreliable because the physician might not repeat the same procedure accurately due to fatigue. These reasons motivated researchers to develop and control robotics-based wearable assistive devices for various musculoskeletal disorders, with economical and accessible solutions to aid, mimic, and reinstate the natural active range of motion. Recently, advancements in wearable sensor technologies have been explored in healthcare by integrating machine-learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyze the data and predict the required setting for the user. This review provides a comprehensive discussion on the importance of personalized wearable devices in pre- and post-clinical settings and aids in the recovery process.

The contemporary vampire story is an apt place to explore immortality, the afterlife and other dimensions in general. Additionally, there are numerous parallels between the vampire story and the Christian story. The vampire’s ‘maker’, for example, can be compared to God, also known as ‘maker’, and a vampire’s immortality offers a relevant parallel to the Christian idea of immortality in the afterlife. The CW network series The Vampire Diaries (2009–17) houses various narratives offering such comparisons, especially with regards to alternative dimensions (‘worlds’) that can potentially be construed as commentary on the afterlife. Interestingly, though, I believe that the most compelling narrative in this regard involves the witch Bonnie Bennett and not an actual vampire. Also interestingly, Bonnie often seems to hold more power than the vampires, even though she is not necessarily immortal (she is, however, considered a supernatural being). She perpetually saves her friends throughout the series, regularly willing to sacrifice her life for theirs and actually dies in Season 4 in effort to bring Jeremy Gilbert back to life. She embodies the New Testament verse in the book of John that states, ‘[g]reater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’. Despite that she is dead, she lives in a concurrent dimension, and only Jeremy is aware of her and can hear her. She is with him in the present. I posit that the storyline pertaining to Bonnie’s character and her death in Seasons 4 and 5 in particular offers a possible and even compelling read on the biblical description of heaven and the afterlife – and God on the whole – per Judeo-Christian scripture and scriptural interpretation.

Poems by Dean Rader, Montana Ray, Danez Smith, Brian Turner, and Elizabeth Willis register a perplexing trend in American poetry: the use of gun and bullet tropes in poems indirectly or not at all about guns. Many of the poets employing these tropes publicly oppose gun violence and promote poetry as a refuge from it, yet their poetry, paradoxically, affirms guns’ literary power. The five poets selected for this study represent different styles emitting from diverse histories, ages, and literary backgrounds. Their poems likewise branch across a range of contexts and levels of abstraction. Studied together, their poetry exposes the centrality of guns not only to US America's collective self-image as a social body and national power but also to the American literary imagination. In light of this apparent contradiction, this essay considers what the pervasiveness of gun and bullet tropes suggests about the efficacy of poetry as enemy, accomplice, or rival of guns.

This article presents an experimental analysis of several cybersecurity risks affecting the human attack surface of Fairmont State University, a mid-size state university. We consider two social engineering experiments: a phishing email barrage and a targeted spearphishing campaign. In the phishing experiment, a total of 4,769 students, faculty, and staff on campus were targeted by 90,000 phishing emails. Throughout these experiments, we explored the effectiveness of three types of phishing awareness training. Our results show that phishing emails that make it through IT’s defenses pose a clear and present threat to large educational organizations. Moreover, we found that simple, visual, instructional guides are more effective training tools than long documents or interactive training.

Long-and middle-wavelength cone photoreceptors, which are responsible for our visual acuity and color vision, comprise ~95% of our total cone population and are concentrated in the fovea of our retina. Previously, we characterized the disease mechanisms of the L/M-cone opsin missense mutations N94K, W177R, P307L, R330Q and G338E, all of which are associated with congenital blue cone monochromacy (BCM) or color-vision deficiency. Here, we used a similar viral vector-based gene delivery approach in M-opsin knockout mice to investigate the pathogenic consequences of the BCM or color-vision deficient associated L-cone opsin (OPN1LW) mutants K82E, P187S, and M273K. We investigated their subcellular localization, the pathogenic effects on cone structure, function, and cone viability. K82E mutants were detected predominately in cone outer segments, and its expression partially restored expression and correct localization of cone PDE6α’ and cone transducin γ. As a result, K82E also demonstrated the ability to mediate cone light responses. In contrast, expression of P187S was minimally detected by either western blot or by immunohistochemistry, probably due to efficient degradation of the mutant protein. M273K cone opsin appeared to be misfolded as it was primarily localized to the cone inner segment and endoplasmic reticulum. Additionally, M273K did not restore the expression of cone PDE6α’ and cone transducin γ in dorsal cone OS, presumably by its inability to bind 11-cis retinal. Consistent with the observed expression pattern, P187S and M273K cone opsin mutants were unable to mediate light responses. Moreover, expression of K82E, P187S, and M273K mutants reduced cone viability. Due to the distinct expression patterns and phenotypic differences of these mutants observed in vivo, we suggest that the pathobiological mechanisms of these mutants are distinct.

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology is used to create a component by adapting layer by layer method. The adroitness of additive manufacturing in creating a complex geometry as a whole is very much harnessed by the aerospace Industry. Generating a component using additive manufacturing involves optimal design, methods, and processes. This review gives a broad knowledge in developing a part or product by choosing the appropriate design, method, and processes. The end-to-end flow process (from scratch to finished model) for developing a component by additive manufacturing is described with a detailed flow diagram. The flow process proposed in this review will act as a primary source for manufacturing any component as per the industry standards. Also, the role of additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry is the need of the hour and greatly in demand of innovative ideas. But as an infant technology, AM for aerospace has its fair share of issues The paper discusses issues and challenges of AM for aerospace applications to enable the widespread adoption of additively manufactured components in the aerospace industry.

This research paper presents an investigation into the use of generative design for the optimization of hexacopter chassis. Hexacopters, which are six-rotor aircraft, have a wide range of applications in areas such as aerial photography, search and rescue, and package delivery. The use of generative design in this study aims to improve the performance of the hexacopter chassis while reducing material usage and cost. The optimization process involved comparing various properties such as weight, factor of safety, von Mises stress, and material used. A static simulation was also conducted to evaluate the performance of the optimized chassis. The results of the study demonstrate that generative design can effectively optimize the hexacopter chassis for improved weight-to-strength ratio, an increased factor of safety, and reduced von Mises stress. Additionally, the study shows that the use of generative design can lead to a significant reduction in material usage, resulting in cost savings. The benefits of using generative design in this study include the ability to explore a large number of design options, optimize for multiple objectives simultaneously, and generate designs that are not feasible to create manually. Overall, this research provides valuable insights into the use of generative design for the optimization of hexacopter chassis and highlights the potential of this design approach for other aerospace and mechanical engineering applications.

In this research, Wire arc additively manufactured IN625 alloy was subjected to different heat treatments and compared with the unheated alloy. All three samples were solution treated to a temperature of 980 °C followed by furnace cooling. S1 and S2 denote the solution-treated sample with a soaking period of 30 min and 1 hour respectively, whereas, S4 represents the sample which is aged for 8 hours at 720 °C respectively after the 1-hour solution treatment. The columnar and dendritic structures were visible in the parent additively manufactured (S1) specimen. These structures cannot be seen in the wire, which is used as the feed material for WAAM. The microstructure of the solution heat-treated specimen (S2) was seen with clear grain boundaries and precipitates. The micrograph confirms the uniform grain structure and more dispersed precipitates when compared to the unheated specimen. Though the average grain size remains the same, there were visible coarse grains in the 1-hour aged sample when compared to the 30-minute aged sample. The microhardness of the different heat-treated samples was measured using a Rockwell hardness tester to study the influence of heat treatment. The results revealed that the heat treatment significantly improved the hardness of the specimen.

Since electrical discharge machining (EDM) is utilised in numerous manufacturing industries, it is crucial to optimise the process mechanism to the greatest extent feasible. Incorporating additively manufactured tool electrodes into a process can effectively improve quality standards. In the present study, an effort was made to enhance the performance parameters of the EDM process with an additive manufacturing copper tool electrode when machining titanium (Ti-6Al-4V) specimens. The effect of input parameters such as gap voltage, peak current, and duty factor on performance indicators such as material removal rate and overcut has been evaluated. It was discovered that additively manufactured electrodes for tools could effectively enhance quality measures. Taguchi-DEAR analysis determined the optimal arrangement of input factors in the EDM process to be 80v (Vg), 6A (Ip), and 80 (DF) with an error accuracy of 1.6%.

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is gaining popularity among other additive manufacturing processes for the manufacture of large-scale components. The microstructural evolution of the solidification process in WAAM depends on the amount of heat input and the layering sequence. To examine the effect of layering sequences on the development of grain growth, microstructure, and mechanical properties, Inconel 825 alloy was deposited in various sequences for layering by WAAM using GMAW in this work. Several layering sequences were developed to prevent columnar grain production from oscillation beads and many passes in a single layer. The single direction of heat conduction promotes the growth of grains in that direction from bottom to top by linking grains at fusion boundaries. At the fusion border between the previously solidified bead and liquid metal, nucleation and epitaxial grain growth likely to develop. Hence, the transverse columnar grains are determined by the grain size of the previous layer. Traditional stacking sequence in one direction yields columnar grains, however zigzag layering sequence refined the grain growth. The zigzag layering sequence mostly disrupted the direction of heat conduction and grain development. The smaller size of fragmented grains improves the isotropic characteristics. The anisotropic behavior of additively manufactured deposits has been shown to depend on grain growth direction and size, which are affected by the layering sequence. Hardness and tensile strength of WAAM deposits with zig-zag layering sequence were found to be superior to standard layering sequence methods. Moreover, the zigzag layering sequence improves the resolution of deposited walls having a linear shape.

This chapter reflects on some of the major themes of this volume, as it takes up the question: is truth a value in political discourse? As a preliminary step, we evaluate a view of political discourse that answers this question negatively: the identity-expression view. According to this view, political claims function to express commitments central to an individual’s political self-conceptions, rather than to state truths in the political domain. While we often assess political claims as true or false, the identity-expression view maintains that such assessments are nothing more than our way of affirming or rejecting such claims—assessments of truth in politics are themselves only ways of expressing the political identity of the assessor. We explore the implications of the identity-expression view for the analysis of political disagreement and argue that, while some political disagreements may be best modeled this way, it is not clear that all of them are: at least sometimes, political disagreements are clearly responsive to the exchange of truth-apt reasons. Indeed, the structure of political disagreements (and some cases of polarization) suggest that truth continues to play an important aspirational role in many political exchanges. This leads us to embrace a pluralist picture of the function of political discourse: political discourse performs multiple functions, including reaching political decisions based on a public exchange of truth-apt reasons, and motivating political action via expressions of identity-forming political commitments. We also draw some broader implications of this pluralist position about the function of political discourse for theories of truth. This includes deflationist approaches to truth making a good fit for expressive uses of political claims in disagreement in attitude, whereas substantive theories of truth appear better suited to explain factual political disagreements.