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ItemIdentifying Fungal Pathogens in the Air of Atlanta(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05) Erb, CaseyThe atmosphere is a vastly understudied habitat for airborne microbial communities invisible to the naked eye. Very little is known regarding the microbial composition of these airborne communities and how composition varies across different meteorological conditions. Even less is known regarding the potential impact of these bioaerosols on human health. Capturing a representative sample of the microbes present in the air is technically challenging, and traditional culture-based methods often capture <1% of the total airborne cells. To circumvent these limitations of culturing, this study employed nucleic acid-based analysis of microbial cells recovered directly from the sample filter. The goal of the study was to provide snapshots of the airborne microbial community in Atlanta’s air throughout a time series of two consecutive years. Polymerized chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify the highly conserved ITS regions of fungal genomes. The resulting sequences were analyzed using established bioinformatics pipelines in order to identify the microbes present. The analysis revealed several fungal species representing common pathogens of plants to be present in these samples as well as species associated with respiratory events in humans with asthma or other upper respiratory conditions. Future work to expand the time series and the breadth of the study to include viruses could answer the epidemiological mystery surrounding the cause of seasonality in respiratory infections (e.g., whether or not they are airborne), and it could build a more complete picture of the inherent health risks of breathing open air.
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ItemOptimization of Point Absorber Design in Ocean Wave Energy(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-08) Mckie, Taylor SherisseThe purpose of this study is to analyze the factors that affect the efficiency of a wave energy conversion device and design an optimal point absorber float geometry considering the various factors. Factors to be analyzed in the study include damping system design, resonance, float geometry, and the kinematics of the device. This study will utilize Fusion 360, Nemoh, and Wec-Sim to achieve the objectives. Fusion 360 will be used to design point absorber float geometries. Nemoh will be used to simulate the hydrodynamic response of each float design. Wec-Sim will be used to vary the wave conditions and calculate the efficiencies of the various designs based off of the response generated in Nemoh. From this, trends will be observed and an optimal geometry can be determined. The results of this study can be used to further optimize point absorber systems and provide solutions to minimize the difficulty of extracting energy from ocean waves.
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ItemA comparative analysis of occupancy data collectors for the user profile of the I-85 HOV-to-HOT conversion(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-12-02) Edwards, D. Kemp
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ItemAerobic biodegradation of diphenylamine(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-12-20) Kim, Jenny Gi YaeDiphenylamine (DPA) is a primary pollutant used as a stabilizer and as precursor for pesticides, pharmaceutical products and dyes. It has recently been found that a dioxygenase enzyme is responsible for the ability of bacteria to biodegrade diphenylamine (8). Despite our understanding of the degradation pathway of DPA, important questions remain regarding the evolutionary origin of the gene that encodes the dioxygenase. The answers to these questions will help future efforts to biodegrade this hazardous pollutant. Through selective enrichment, isolation and genetic screening, aniline degrading bacteria have been discovered to be responsible for the genes that encode the lower part of the DPA degradation pathway. Using the same technique of enrichment, isolation and genetic sequencing, we screened for candidates for the origin of the genes that encode DPA dioxygenase. Our hypothesis is that carbazole dioxygenase is the progenitor of DPA dioxygenase at the Repauno site. Comparison of the dioxygenase genes will allow us to test the hypothesis that horizontal gene transfer facilitated assembly of the pathway. We have also hypothesized that DPA degrading bacteria will not be able to degrade carbazole as a sole carbon, nitrogen and energy source to determine whether or not degrading bacteria are capable of having two pathways of degradation. We will test DPA degraders to determine whether or not they are able to degrade carbazole. Analyzing carbazole degradation will allow us to test the hypothesis that DPA degrading bacteria will not have retained the ability to degrade carbazole during the evolution of DPA dioxygenase due to our hypothesis that DPA dioxygenase originated from carbazole dioxygenase. In our future studies we are hoping that a carbazole degrader will encode a carbazole dioxygenase that will show significant similarities to DPA dioxygenase. We hope to develop results what will suggest that the dioxygenase gene originated from carbazole degraders through horizontal gene transfer. Experiments revealed that carbazole was not degraded by DPA degraders. The data support our hypothesis that DPA degrading bacteria did not retain the carbazole degradation pathway from carbazole degrading bacteria during the evolution of DPA dioxygenase.
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ItemStudy of Copper-Nickel Systems Using Magnetic Quartz Crystal Microbalance(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-05-12) Vavra, Kevin ChristopherIt is known that copper and nickel deposited at specific ratios results in alloys that exhibit magnetic properties. The objective of our study is to prepare the Cu-Ni alloys with different magnetic properties and investigate the resulting mechanical properties. To this end, thin alloy films were potentiostatically deposited on gold coated 10MHz piezoelectric quartz crystal microbalances (QCM). Selected deposition potentials varying from -850mV to -1300mV yielded alloys containing varying NixCuy compositions. Additional studies used alternating pulses of applied voltage that yielded definable pulse widths and heights or an alternate bath that allowed for further investigation on the presence of counterions. Magnetic property characterizations of these depositions were performed using the magnetic quartz crystal microbalance (MQCM) instrument. Preliminary results have demonstrated that the resonant frequency does not change during the application of a magnetic field to homogenous layers of paramagnetic or ferromagnetic materials. However, dispersions of Ni in a non-magnetic Cu matrix produced changes in resonant frequency. Such nickel dispersions can be electrochemically fabrication thereby affecting the magnetically induced QCM resonance shift and admittance magnitude.