Due to increasing food demand, food insecurity, and environmental concerns, there has been growing interest in local food production. These systems, such as greenhouses and local farmers markets, often claim to be more sustainable than conventional centralized agriculture. There is a common preconception that conventional agriculture has a high environmental impact from transportation emissions. However, other factors throughout the life cycle may outweigh transportation impacts depending on location. Through life cycle assessment methodology, the global warming potential (GWP) of conventional lettuce production in the Central Coast of California was calculated along with added transportation emissions to market, ranging from 0.37 to 1.22 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce across the contiguous US. Local growth model results in a range of GWP between 0.36 to 1.60 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce across the contiguous US. Location specific results show some tradeoffs between choosing local or conventional lettuce. In Fort Collins, CO, the GWP of local lettuce production is 0.43 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce versus 0.68 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce for conventional production. Alternatively, in Washington, DC, the GWP of local lettuce production is 0.41 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce compared to 1.05 kg CO2-eq/kg lettuce for conventional lettuce production. However, water impacts show contrasting results. In Fort Collins, the water footprint is larger for local production versus conventional production, at 0.30 m3/kg lettuce and 0.07 m3/kg lettuce, respectively. In Washington, DC, the water footprint is smaller for local production compared to conventional production, resulting in values of 0.03 m3/kg lettuce and 0.10 m3/kg lettuce, respectively. The results suggest that GWP is heavily influenced by transportation emissions, whereas water impacts are affected predominantly by soil and rainfall variation. This research gives a regionalized understanding to comparative GWP and water impacts between local and conventional lettuce production systems.

Renewable energy production methods such as wind and solar are available in a wide variety of locations but have an inherently intermittent nature on when they generate power. Energy storage will be important for large adoption of wind and solar technologies as grid demand must be met regardless of renewable energy output. Green hydrogen can be used as a method to chemically store renewable energy. This research proposes using a Balance of Plant model, created using the software Simulink, to optimize the system level efficiency and promote the use of green hydrogen generation systems at scale. Data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is used to investigate the transient behavior of a green hydrogen generation system.

Lower back pain is the leading cause of disabilities worldwide. Approximately 31 million Americans suffer from it at any given time, resulting in the loss of 264 million workdays annually and incurring $100 billion in costs each year. The Orthopaedic Bioengineering Research Laboratory is developing a novel, tissue engineered scaffold to replace current, palliative treatment methods. Integration of the repair patch into the intervertebral disc proves challenging using current surgical tools at our disposal. Bioadhesives, or biocompatible glues, offer a potential solution, as they may be applied easily and flexibly. Therefore, the objective of this research was to characterize various bioadhesives including fibrin glue variants and mussel-inspired bioadhesives. Lap shear testing was performed using combinations of ovine annulus fibrosus tissue samples and crosshatched, polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold strips. Using a prescribed protocol, ultimate adhesion strength, yield strength, and linear joint modulus were evaluated. The most effective fibrin glue was chosen for PCL plug pushout testing and compared to a cyanoacrylate baseline. Overall, bioadhesives tested were weak, failing to breach 100 kPa in strength. Adhesives demonstrated improved mechanical properties when binding scaffold joint combinations as compared to tissue joint combinations. The cyanoacrylate baseline withstood a significantly higher pushout stress as compared to the chosen fibrin glue. Ultimately, bioadhesive technology must progress in order for them to become clinically appealing enough to use for scaffold implementation.

Hydrogen-natural gas fuel blending on a spark ignited stoichiometric engine with the goal of studying the effects on the 3-way catalyst, lowering emissions, and improving engine operation. This research also intends to explore advanced air/fuel ratio controls and spark timing variation to further improve operation.

In-Cylinder Methods for Fugitive Methane Reduction in a 4-Stroke Natural Gas Engine

This research aims to compare the cost and environmental effects of four different EV charging systems. The goal of this comparison is to inform policy makers on the environmental and economic tradeoffs of the implementation of different charging systems. Life cycle and techno-economic analysis models were used to analyze each system. The models consider how different times of use for each charging system effect both price and emissions based on local grid mixes and electrical pricing. The systems are compared on a state-by-state basis for the year 2020 and 2050. This work will be the first to compare all currently developed charging technologies and how their specific use schedules effect emissions and lifetime costs. Furthermore, through this research lifecycle and techno-economic models were built that will allow for the comparative analysis of future systems. This work found that based on current energy grid pricing and emissions that the PC home charging network is the optimal system to deploy in 2020. With a cleaner energy grid in the future, the WPT system will be the cleaner technology to deploy; however, the WPT system may still be economically unfeasible unless costs are reduced.

Molten salts are positioned to revolutionize technologies such as nuclear reactors, renewable energy storage, and the recycling of nuclear fuel [1]. However, current density values lack essential certainties for preliminary computer modeling in these applications. Neutron radiography is a prime candidate for measuring these density values but has its own faults. The primary obstacle is a two-dimensional neutron image being taken of a three- dimensional volume [2]. To mitigate these uncertainties, a 360o rotational component will be added to the experiment. Project Statement: Design/deploy a 1200° C capable furnace, with temperature monitoring and the ability to support the neutron imaging of radiological samples while rotating the sample containment.

Cell migration is a fundamental process in normal physiology and pathology. The cell nucleus is emerging as a key mediator in this process. Being the largest and stiffest organelle in eukaryotic cells, the nucleus acts as a limiting factor during cell migration. The role of nuclear mechanics in cell migration is therefore a topic of recent interest to both the basic science and clinical research communities. The objective of this work is to study how nuclear mechanical properties and chromatin remodeling affect collective cell migration using a model system of the scratch wound assay. A quantitative understanding of collective cell migration has been obtained using live time lapse imaging of cells with modified nuclear stiffness and altered chromatin remodeling abilities.