As humans move through an environment, particles are released from the skin and deposited behind them due to their trailing aerodynamic wake. Mapping the contamination spread behind notional geometries provides a way to understand and characterize the impact on the surrounding environment. This work aims to create a scalable model that maps the particle settling from these trailing wakes that can characterize the contamination spread in various environmental and atmospheric conditions. Preliminary small-scale testing currently utilizes an airbrush, as a simple and notional contamination source, to emit paint droplets which ultimately settle onto a surface in a characteristic pattern. Image processing techniques are utilized to measure the contamination pattern in each experimental condition. The experiments aim to identify the governing non-dimensional number that influences the contamination spread behind various notional geometries moving through a fluid system. Large-scale testing utilizes human subjects walking through a controlled environment to verify the validity of the small-scale testing.

So far NASA has sent orbiters, rovers, and drones to the surface of Mars. However, these missions were slow and focused on exploring the surface. The harsh conditions on Mars create constraints for what the robotic explorers can or can’t do. One limiting factor is Mars’s rough terrain and harsh environment limit rovers to incredibly low speed. Exploration at low speeds increases mission cost and timeline. However Martian winds are capable of reaching speeds of more than 60 miles per hour, a Martian resource that can be utilized to conduct exploration much faster if the robotic system is designed to utilize it. A Dandelion-inspired robot will utilize the Martian winds to collect various types of data such as climate monitoring to assist in planetary exploration and scientific experimentation. Dandelion seeds are capable of traveling from a few meters to a few kilometers all through wind energy. The vortex generated by a dandelion seed recycles the wind and pushes on the bristles with just enough force to keep the Dandelion seed stable and afloat. A mechanical design that takes inspiration from a dandelion’s geometry can benefit from Martian winds. Micro sensors can be placed in these dandelion-inspired designs and gusts of winds on Mars will carry them forward both in Martian lava tubes where exploration with a rover is challenging and above surface at higher speeds than conventional exploration vehicles are capable of. The micro sensors would be released from a drone or capsule designed for flexibility in the mission requirements.

Multidrug-resistant bacteria can cause lifelong infections in immunocompromised patients and limit their quality of life. With antibiotic resistance surging, opportunistic pathogens like Pseudomonas aeruginosa are a rising concern. For patients with cystic fibrosis, P. aeruginosa produces biofilms in the lungs that make conventional therapies difficult and ineffective. One alternative to antibiotics is phage therapy, in which viruses called bacteriophages (phages) are used to target the bacterial pathogen. Multiple phages can be combined to make a cocktail to treat these infections more broadly. Our lab has previously analyzed both engineered and environmental phages for potential use in a phage therapy cocktail. However, many clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa proved resistant to all the phages tested. To broaden the host range of the cocktail, new environmental phages were isolated from raw sewage taken from the Socorro Wastewater Treatment Plant. The phages were characterized using plaque assays, sequencing, and TEM. One phage, named SP6, was isolated on a strain from the tested 21 resistant clinical isolates. The host range of this phage was determined by comparing the efficiency of plating on 95 multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa. SP6 infected 3 strains that are found in a distant clade compared to the other isolates. It has been suggested that these strains (AR356, AR441, and AR449) are from a completely separate species called Pseudomonas paraeruginosa. This is the first tectivirus known to infect P. aeruginosa or P. paraeruginosa.

Schlieren Imaging in conjunction with a high-speed camera was used to observe the behavior of metered helium plumes as they transition from laminar to turbulent flow in an air environment. The plumes were visualized at twelve jet reynolds numbers ranging from 200 to 2980. The fractal dimension of the flow was obtained by applying a boxcounting algorthm to the recorded schlieren images. The results were analyzed to determine the correlation between Reynolds number of a flow and the fractal dimension of the observed turbulence. A trend of increasing fractal dimension with increasing Reynolds number was observed for several different types of schlieren cutoffs including horizontal knife edge, vertical knife edge focused shadowgraphy and de-focused shadowgraphy. The vertical knife edge and focused shadowgraphy imaging methods showedd the most consistent results for the fractal dimension characterization during the laminar to turbulent transition. For transitional plumees, it was also observed that fractal dimension increased with distance from the jet outlet.

Birds are masters of flight and take advantage of the aerodynamic forces that act on them. Being able to harness the ability to fly a flapping wing drone is a difficult task. By studying the bird's flight profile, a mechanical replica can be constructed to imitate the a bird's flight. A flapping wing drone can monitor wildlife without the added noise of a quadcopter buzzing overhead. A flapping wing drone can also aid in decreasing the amount of bird strikes at airports minimizing damage and hazards. Developing a flapping mechanism is the main component of the ornithopter and comes at a price with the weight playing a role in steady flight. A transverse mechanism is made to be able to handle the load of a large winged bird such as Mallard Duck. The mechanism will be placed within the body and tested in flight. An analysis will be conducted of the ducks aerodynamic capability and be applied to the components of the ornithopter to get a higher rate of success on flight. Once the flight profile is achieved, other components can be added such as legs for perching, helical gears for reduction in sound, camera lens for eyes, and flight modes for different flight maneuvers.

Lightning plays an important role in the atmospheric system: thunderstorms and lightning are the electrical current source for the global electric circuit, lightning is the main non-anthropogenic source of nitrogen oxide in the troposphere and a source of forest fires, lightning is an essential climate variable, being both a symptom and a cause of climate change. Flash frequency maps with cloud-to-ground, positive cloud-to-ground and total distributions of lightning in New Mexico can provide insight to understand how lightning relates to the surface geomorphology of the Southwest region of the United States. The spatiotemporal scales of interest shall range from diurnal rates to a 20-year period across the entire state. This analysis utilizes 20 years of lightning location data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) managed by Vaisala Inc. The findings will allow us to understand what regions of New Mexico are most affected by the deleterious effects of lightning, what types of thunderstorms produce lightning, and the local distribution of lightning over time.

During an underground mine fire, the presence of smoke and toxic gasses, low visibility, and unfavorable changes in the airflow quantity in the ventilation system can significantly impede the identification of the optimal evacuation measures as well as the optimum path to safety. This study presents a framework that couples data from mine fire simulator software with a graph-based optimized algorithms for solving fire evacuation routes considering the distribution of toxic gasses inside the mine in real time. The proposed algorithm identifies the viable evacuation paths considering the cost of exposure to unhealthy conditions. The algorithm quantifies safety parameters on nodes and edges of a graph which model the escape routes through the mine layout. By accumulating the quantified effect of the safety values in an iterative manner and updating the network depending on the mine conditions, different escape routes can be computed and evaluated in real-time. The algorithm is demonstrated through fire simulation rig data acquired from a model developed in New Mexico Tech. Data such as air quantity flow, heat, gas concentrations, around an incident zone are acquired from the device and input into the proposed algorithm. Based on the spatiotemporal distribution of the quantified hazards, the algorithm computes optimal evacuation paths. The computed evacuation routes minimize the exposure to dangerous toxic gas concentrations, as the algorithm prioritizes the health of the trapped miners, even at the expense, at times, of evacuation time.

One effective and long-term strategy to help contribute to greater energy output is the production of syngas from biomass. Dry reforming is a cutting-edge innovation due to its utilization of the two major greenhouse gases: methane, and carbon dioxide, thus lowering carbon emissions. Due to the reverse water gas shift reaction that occurs in dry reforming, the H2/CO ratio is closer to unity, making it ideal for the Fischer-Tropsch process that converts gaseous fuels to liquid fuels. Ni metal catalysts have recently gained much interest for dry reforming due to their low cost and reaction activities. However, due to the formation of carbon and sintering that occurs while utilizing Ni catalysts, dry reforming on nickel suffers from short lifetimes. The performance of catalysts used for the dry reforming of methane strongly depends on the synthesis method, metal dispersion, support types, as well as reaction conditions. My research focus is on using low cost and effective Ni as an active metal on zeolite support for dry reforming of methane reaction. Specifically, I am using a natural clinoptilolite zeolite (never used for DRM in research works) mined in Winston, NM, and a synthetic HZSM-5 zeolite. Briefly on synthesis done so far in the lab, a 5% Ni/Zeolite (HZSM, WZ) catalyst was synthesized using incipient wet impregnation, dried, calcinated, and reduced. Hydrogen Chemisorption, CO2 and NH3 TPD were conducted to characterize the catalyst. Activity and stability tests as well as TPO and TGA were performed on the catalysts to compare their efficiency.

R-loops are RNA-DNA hybrids with a displaced single strand of DNA that arise naturally during transcription and are a potent source of DNA damage. Unresolved R-loops promote replication stress and DNA breaks that can lead to pathological conditions such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and autoimmune disorders. At the cellular level, R-loops are tightly regulated by a large number of proteins and enzymes. DNA topoisomerase 1 (TOP1) is one of the major enzymes involved in R-loop metabolism. TOP1 prevents R-loop formation and consequent DNA damage by restoring the DNA topology. Our previous work identified a novel interaction of TOP1 with transcription termination factor Kub5-Hera (K-H) that is also known to regulate R-loops and preserve genomic stability. Based on the potential interaction of TOP1 with K-H and their involvement in R-loop metabolism, we hypothesized that these proteins work in an epistatic manner within the cell to prevent aberrant R-loops and genomic instability. To test this hypothesis, we used a wide range of biochemical and cellular approaches. At the cellular level, we found that K-H cooperates with TOP1 to prevent R-loops and DNA damage. At the biochemical level, our data strongly suggest that K-H modulates the enzymatic activity of TOP1. Altogether, our data provide a novel insight into cellular strategies to prevent R-loops and genomic stability.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a useful tool yet to be rigorously applied to the manufacturing of energetic materials. A material with high viscosity and yield stress is required for the AM of energetics. The goal of the project is to develop an energetic initiator ink with easily customizable parameters such as composition and print speed. The ink will be used to ignite less sensitive energetics. This project focuses on characterizing the viscosity of an energetic initiator ink using a Brookfield rotational viscometer, Ares parallel plate rheometer, and Syringe Pump. Changes to the particle size ratios, binder system, and catalyst concentration will be done to optimize printability for given applications. The data indicates changes to particle size ratios dramatically affect the resultant viscosity of the ink and its ability to be used in AM. Additionally, catalyst concentration is shown to significantly impact the cure rate in a linear fashion.

The widespread integration of electronic control units (ECUs) into vehicles has highlighted the security vulnerabilities in the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol. The protocol's limitations expose them to cyberattacks. The conventional anomaly detection approaches, such as Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), rely on sequential data processing. However, the limited scope of feature extraction may overlook critical contextual information. To address these challenges, we introduce a hybrid approach that combines an anomaly detection system that harnesses graph and temporal features through a Transformer-based Attention Network (TAN). Unlike RNNs, this approach uses the self-attention mechanism of transformers to achieve comprehensive attack detection. The experimental findings reveal that this model significantly exceeds existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving an impressive 97.43% effectiveness in detecting the anomalies. To identify the source of the attacks, our method exploits the unique clock skew deviations caused by manufacturing imperfections in ECU oscillators. We compute the clock skew of the sender ECU by comparing the actual length of a single CAN frame, derived from its electrical signal, to its nominal length. The nominal length is calculated as the product of nominal bit time and the number of bits. Our preliminary findings appear to be quite encouraging. This research has profound implications for automotive security, offering a dual-layered defense mechanism against cyber threats. Integrating graph-based anomaly detection with clock skew-driven ECU identification sets a new benchmark for securing in-vehicle networks against increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks.

Schlieren imaging is useful for imaging refractive disturbances, but it does not provide information about the chemical composition of a flow. Here a method for simultaneous schlieren and imaging spectroscopy is developed to provide the ability to visualize and interpret a chemically complex environment with multiple gas species. Tests were conducted utilizing laminar helium gas plumes infused with iodine. Using the schlieren and spectroscopy techniques simultaneously allowed for direct comparison between the refractive index changes seen in the schlieren images and the spectral changes associated with local gas species observed through the imaging spectrometer. The presence of iodine was tracked through the helium gas plume over time using absorption spectroscopy. The intensity changes in the absorption spectroscopy images allow calculation of a local iodine concentration. These iodine containing locations were directly connected to locations of refractive index changes measured through schlieren imaging. Implementation of quantitative schlieren imaging allows measurement of the local refractive field which is used with the local iodine concentration to develop a measurement of the density field through the plume.