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"Regardless of income level, I found that couples are uncertain about money—whether that's how to put food on the table or whether to sell a second home," says Lynsey Romo, an assistant professor of communication at NC State. "During tough financial times, communication can help people cope."
In the wake of the recession, Romo interviewed 40 individuals, each of whom was either married or cohabitating. The interviews uncovered three general strategies for dealing with uncertainty: reducing uncertainty, maintaining uncertainty, or adapting to it.
Reducing uncertainty was the most common approach, used by those who viewed uncertainty as a negative. This approach was implemented in several ways.
People who wanted to reduce uncertainty would often: seek out information from sources like financial advisors and news outlets; talk about financial topics with family and acquaintances; and draw on their own experiences to try to better understand their financial circumstances and determine how to move forward.
Those trying to reduce uncertainty about their partner's financial practices also used "strategic communication" techniques with their significant other. Strategic communication involved tailoring talk about spending and financial planning to their partner's needs in order to minimize conflict. For example, some found that taking a coldly logical approach was most effective for their spouse, laying out budgets and numbers. But others found it most effective to appeal to a partner's emotions, such as by pointing out that an expensive purchase would mean they would have less money to spend on their children. Taking the time to figure out how to talk – and manage conflict – in a way that resonated with one's spouse was critical.
A major uncertainty reduction technique was the use of communal coping, in which the couple viewed uncertainty as both of their problems and something they needed to address as a team. For example, the couple would jointly develop a financial plan, set priorities, goals, and rules, and make spending decisions together. This kept any one partner from bearing the brunt of the stress or being overwhelmed.
Not all participants wanted to reduce uncertainty. Some sought to maintain uncertainty by avoiding information. They preferred uncertainty to acknowledging their dire financial situation.
Other participants adapted to uncertainty. These individuals came to terms with uncertainty by turning to religion and focusing on daily tasks rather than planning for the future. For example, one interviewee reported that, when she lost her job, "the first thing we said [was], 'Okay, God didn't want me there for some reason.'"
As much as some participants wanted to manage uncertainty, they were not always successful. Romo's research also identified four barriers to successfully managing uncertainty:
"The biggest takeaway here is that there are things people can do to help deal with financial uncertainty," Romo says. "Seeking out information, talking about money with your partner, working as a team, and becoming financially literate can reduce uncertainty – and the related stress that uncertainty can cause in a relationship.
"This study suggests that America's money taboo needs to be dismantled. People who never learned about money while growing up often didn't know how to communicate about it with their romantic partner. These couples were less financially and relationally strong. Financial talk is good for couples' pocket books and relationships."
The paper, "An Examination of How People in Romantic Relationships Use Communication to Manage Financial Uncertainty," was published July 31 in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"An Examination of How People in Romantic Relationships Use Communication to Manage Financial Uncertainty"
Author: Lynsey K. Romo, North Carolina State University
Published: July 31, Journal of Applied Communication Research
Abstract: Money is critical for financial and relational well-being, yet financial communication is often considered taboo, and most Americans receive little financial guidance. Not surprisingly, romantic couples experience financial uncertainty, which has been negatively correlated with satisfaction and trust. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 40 individuals in married or cohabitating relationships and the lens of Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT; Brashers, 2001), this investigation examines how people are (un)able to manage financial uncertainty. The study uncovers tangible ways individuals can negotiate financial uncertainty via uncertainty reduction, maintenance, and adaption, as well as information, communication, time-management, and/or sociocultural barriers that can impede uncertainty management. The investigation suggests the extension of UMT to consider the role of the dyad and offers practical implications for financial literacy and communication efforts.]]>
That's the idea behind Nicotrax – a smart cigarette case that communicates with a smoker's smartphone to record who the smoker is with as well as where and when a smoker reaches for a cigarette. That data is used to identify triggers for smoking – the specific circumstances in which a smoker is more likely to light up. Nicotrax then uses that information to develop a custom profile to help the smoker cut back or quit entirely.
"For example, let's say John has a cigarette every day at 6 p.m. Our technology can learn this habit and interrupt it at 5:50 p.m., right before he is tempted to smoke. At that time, we can send John a picture of his kids to use as motivation or to provide John with a distraction to keep him from smoking," says Kyle Linton, CEO of Nicotrax.
Nicotrax also has a Web platform that allows users to share information with counselors and physicians if they want help developing customized plans to help them quit.
"This concept, alongside tailored cessation plans or available cessation products, could greatly benefit the public at large," says Jed Rose, director of Duke's Center for Smoking Cessation.
The idea for Nicotrax was developed by four undergraduates as part of NC State University's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. After graduation, one of those students – Suraaj Doshi – decided to stick with the idea, and Nicotrax was born. Doshi is chief technology officer of the company, and he recruited Linton, a fellow NC State grad from the class of 2014, to be CEO.
The two are fellows in the university's Entrepreneurship Initiative program, which provided a stipend, guidance and support while they worked to get Nicotrax off the ground.
In January, Nicotrax partnered with DX Labs, a Raleigh-based company that supported their hardware and software design with a heavy focus on user experience.
"We now have a fully functional prototype and plan to begin manufacturing by the end of August," Linton says. "And we plan to have products into the hands of consumers by December."
The company launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo Aug. 2 to raise awareness of the product, defray manufacturing costs and give consumers the opportunity to purchase Nicotrax.
When users get their Nicotrax pack, they fill out an initial questionnaire that provides background information, including how much they want to reduce their smoking, the time frame for reaching that goal, and a list of social contacts that each smoker can turn to for support in kicking the habit.
"To break habits, you've got to understand them – and we're optimistic that Nicotrax can help a lot of people break their addiction to tobacco," Linton says.
And Linton notes that NC State has played an important role in getting Nicotrax off the ground.
"We've gotten tremendous support, advice, and connections from NC State and the Entrepreneurship Initiative, and we're putting what we learned in the classroom to use every day. We have the opportunity to help millions of people live healthier lives," Linton says. "Maybe one day we will create a smoke-free Tobacco Road."]]>
The campaign, which began in 2010, uses various communication tools to keep students, staff and faculty informed of emergency situations on and near campus, from wallet cards to video shorts to WolfLine bus posters.
New employees are educated about WolfAlerts with orientation presentations, while students can rely on a variety of integrated multimedia tools, including text messaging, student publications and broadcast outlets.
For more about how to use WolfAlerts in an emergency situation, go here.
"We started this project because we wanted to better understand the relationship between stomach acidity, diet and the microbes that live in the guts of birds and mammals," says DeAnna Beasley, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper on the work. "Our idea was that this could offer some context for looking at the role of the human stomach in influencing gut microbes, and what that may mean for human health."
The research team – including scientists from Washington University and the University of Colorado, Boulder – examined all of the existing literature on stomach acidity in birds and mammals, and found data on 68 species. They then collected data on the natural feeding habits of each species. The researchers then ran an analysis to see how feeding behavior was related to stomach acidity.
The researchers found that scavengers, or species that eat food at high risk of microbial contamination, have more acidic stomachs. This acidity allows the stomach to act as a filter, effectively controlling which microbes can pass through the stomach to the gut.
"The finding confirms our hypothesis, but you have to get that confirmation before moving forward," Beasley says. "The next step will be for scientists to examine the microbial ecosystems in the guts of these animals to see how these ecosystems have evolved. Do animals with high stomach acidity have smaller or less diverse populations of gut microbes? Or do they simply host microbes that can survive in acidic environments?"
One surprise was that, while the researchers classified humans as omnivores, human stomachs have the high acidity levels normally associated with scavengers. Meanwhile, the literature shows that medical treatments – from surgery to antacids – can significantly alter the acidity in a human stomach.
"This raises significant questions about how humans have evolved, our species' relationship with food over time, and how modern changes in diet and medicine are affecting our stomachs, our gut microbes and – ultimately – our health," Beasley says. "Those are questions the research community is already exploring, and the answers should be interesting."
The paper, "The Evolution of Stomach Acidity and Its Relevance to the Human Microbiome," will be published July 29 in the journal PLOS ONE. The paper was co-authored by Rob Dunn of NC State, Amanda Koltz of Washington University, and Joanna Lambert and Noah Fierer of UC Boulder.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"The Evolution of Stomach Acidity and Its Relevance to the Human Microbiome"
Authors: DeAnna E. Beasley and Rob R. Dunn, North Carolina State University; Amanda M. Koltz, Washington University; Joanna E. Lambert and Noah Fierer, University of Colorado, Boulder
Published: July 29, PLOS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0134116
Abstract: Gastric acidity is likely a key factor shaping the diversity and composition of microbial communities found in the vertebrate gut. We conducted a systematic review to test the hypothesis that a key role of the vertebrate stomach is to maintain the gut microbial community by filtering out novel microbial taxa before they pass into the intestines. We propose that species feeding either on carrion or on organisms that are close phylogenetic relatives should require the most restrictive filter (measured as high stomach acidity) as protection from foreign microbes. Conversely, species feeding on a lower trophic level or on food that is distantly related to them (e.g. herbivores) should require the least restrictive filter, as the risk of pathogen exposure is lower. Comparisons of stomach acidity across trophic groups in mammal and bird taxa show that scavengers and carnivores have significantly higher stomach acidities compared to herbivores or carnivores feeding on phylogenetically distant prey such as insects or fish. In addition, we find when stomach acidity varies within species either naturally (with age) or in treatments such as bariatric surgery, the effects on gut bacterial pathogens and communities are in line with our hypothesis that the stomach acts as an ecological filter. Together these results highlight the importance of including measurements of gastric pH when investigating gut microbial dynamics within and across species.]]>
Users of most campus computing services should expect brief service interruptions including, but not limited to:
Campus users should also be aware of proposed extended maintenance windows that will occur within this fiscal year and that may possibly impact IT services:
For updates on these IT maintenance windows, see SysNews.]]>
"It's not as though, all of a sudden, everyone said, 'Let's lose this Southern dialect,'" says Dodsworth. "So what caused this to happen? What is the interface between language and society?"
Sociolinguists like Dodsworth examine how factors such as ethnicity, gender, education and class affect how we speak. Everything from the words we choose to the way we pronounce our vowels is influenced by a complex web of social interactions and expectations. By analyzing our speech, sociolinguists can begin to untangle that web of social dynamics.
"We want to help people recognize the cultural value of how they speak."
—Robin Dodsworth
Starting in 2008, Dodsworth and other researchers at NC State recorded hundreds of hour-long sociolinguistic interviews with people who grew up in Raleigh. By comparing properties of the recordings using acoustic analysis software, Dodsworth could measure just how "Southern" each speaker's vowels were. She then tracked the prevalence of certain linguistic features — for example, the pronunciation of "kid" as "kee-yid" — among Raleigh natives who were born in different decades.
Dodsworth discovered that the vowels of speakers born between 1920 and 1950 were remarkably stable. Then, in the middle of the 20th century, Southern linguistic features began to steadily decline. But why?
The answer was Raleigh's emergence as a technology hub in the 1960s. One of the largest high-tech research and development centers in the country, the Research Triangle Park, was built in 1959, heralding a decline in the area's traditional Southern dialect.
"After that, IBM arrived in the early '60s," notes Dodsworth. "If you're born in 1950, you're in junior high right about the time when those white-collar workers are coming down from Northern places to work."
That sudden and sustained influx of workers — and their children — sparked what Dodsworth calls a "dialect contact situation" in Raleigh. Children who attended school in the 1960s and 1970s grew up speaking with less of a Southern accent than their parents, in large part because they spent their days talking with many more Northerners.
"One thing we know in sociolinguistics is that your accent largely depends on your peers," Dodsworth confirms. "It doesn't matter as much how your parents speak or who you heard on NPR. Who is it that you're seeing every single day and having to get along with? That's the people at school."
Through her analysis of K-12 networks in Raleigh, Dodsworth found correlations between the increasing social diversity of the city and the slow "leveling" of its traditional accents. It also helped to explain why rural areas — or even the parts of Raleigh that saw the least inward migration — remain the most Southern-sounding.
"Linguistic changes often jump from city to city at first and leave the rural spaces in between untouched for some time," says Dodsworth. "Part of that is that rural areas have a less concentrated population, so it's harder for change to spread."
Those rural areas are often the focus of other research undertaken by the university's linguistics program. Walt Wolfram — the first William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English at NC State — has spearheaded the NSF-funded Language and Life Project, which produces documentary films showcasing linguistic diversity, from Appalachian "mountain talk" to the Atlantic coast's "Core Sounders." In this way, NC State linguists help to preserve language differences and share them with the public.
Wolfram's forthcoming film, Talking Black in America, explores the diversity of language among African Americans and African diaspora communities, shedding light on the variety of English that most often endures negative stereotyping and discrimination. Dodsworth and her graduate students, meanwhile, have been involved in the preservation and study of oral histories concerning Chavis Park in southeast Raleigh, a site of deep social significance for the historically black community it serves.
"Language is part of the Southern tradition and culture, and across North Carolina you have all these pockets of linguistic diversity," says Dodsworth. "These projects are an effort to make our research relevant to people who are proud of their heritage — or insecure about their heritage. We want to help people recognize the cultural value of how they speak."
Note: A version of this story first ran on the National Science Foundation website.]]>
While none of the available vaccines that combat the organisms that cause it are 100 percent effective, they can decrease the severity of the symptoms and help stop the spread of the organisms.
Learn more about how to prevent this dangerous disease with this information from NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine.
And check out this flyer about the dog flu.]]>
With the help of NC State researchers, farmers across the state will benefit from new varietals of the popular summer fruit that can better withstand the rigors of mechanical harvest.
Before this year's crop is a distant memory, see how work at the Castle Hayne Research Station can improve future harvests.]]>
In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that women, African Americans and Hispanics are significantly under-represented in STEM fields. For example, in 2011, 11 percent of the U.S. workforce was African American, while 6 percent of STEM workers were African American. And while Hispanics made up 15 percent of the workforce, they made up only 7 percent of STEM workers. Women made up 48 percent of the 2011 workforce, but only 26 percent of the STEM workforce.
Part of the problem is that women and people of color don't see themselves in many STEM fields. More specifically, they don't see people that look like them in those fields.
One step forward in addressing this imbalance is to highlight diverse role models in STEM.
Inspired by the This Is What A Scientist Looks Like website, which offers short profiles of scientists outside the lab, we decided to launch a series called "This Is What Science Looks Like at NC State."
We used the word "science" because it is more accessible than "STEM" – which is an unfamiliar acronym to many people. The series focuses on researchers from under-represented groups in STEM fields, and also includes researchers who have physical disabilities.
Since launching the series in April 2014, we've posted more than 40 profiles of STEM researchers at NC State. There are professors, postdocs, grad students and undergrads, representing fields from toxicology and electrical engineering to computer science and plant biology. These are men and women from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, at various stages of their careers.
These aren't glossy profiles by a public relations team. The researchers write about themselves. Some of the posts are a lot longer than others, depending on what the researchers want to say. The photos are, for the most part, photos that researchers send us – we've used just a handful of photos from university sources. They're vacation photos, or photos of time spent with family and friends. We're not trying to make everyone look like Buckaroo Banzai (the fictional physicist/rock-guitarist). Simply letting people know that researchers have lives outside the laboratory (and that they're not always white guys) is a step in the right direction.
"This Is What Science Looks Like at NC State" has made the transition from "new feature" to "ongoing series," and we plan to continue adding posts for as long as we can find researchers who want to participate. But there's something else we can do.
Launching this series did not take a significant amount of time or money. All it took was a little initiative and a willingness to make the effort. Yes, we do spend some time talking to researchers, formatting their photos and proofreading their written submissions for typos, but we think it's a good investment. We also think it would be great if other institutions followed suit.
There are a lot of universities out there with excellent research programs, to say nothing of state, federal, and nonprofit research institutions. It would be great to see them develop their own efforts to highlight diverse role models in STEM fields. They don't have to copy what we've done, of course – they can come up with their own approaches.
If you work for a research institution and have questions about the series, please let me know: firstname.lastname@example.com. And if you're a researcher at NC State who wants to be involved in the series, definitely let me know.]]>
Wireless power transfer works by having a transmitter coil generate a magnetic field; a receiver coil then draws energy from that magnetic field. One of the major roadblocks for development of marketable wireless power transfer technologies is achieving high efficiency.
"Our experimental results show double the efficiency using the MRFE in comparison to air alone," says David Ricketts, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the work.
Enhancing wireless power efficiency has been a major goal of many research groups. One of the leading candidates proposed for enhancing efficiency has been a technology called metamaterials. "We performed a comprehensive analysis using computer models of wireless power systems and found that MRFE could ultimately be five times more efficient than use of metamaterials and 50 times more efficient than transmitting through air alone," Ricketts says.
By placing the MRFE between the transmitter and the receiver (without touching either) as an intermediate material, the researchers were able to significantly enhance the magnetic field, increasing its efficiency.
"We realized that any enhancement needs to not only increase the magnetic field the receiver 'sees,' but also not siphon off any of the power being put out by the transmitter," Ricketts says. "The MRFE amplifies the magnetic field while removing very little power from the system."
The researchers conducted an experiment that transmitted power through air alone, through a metamaterial, and through an MRFE made of the same quality material as the metamaterial. The MRFE significantly outperformed both of the others. In addition, the MRFE is less than one-tenth the volume of metamaterial enhancers.
"This could help advance efforts to develop wireless power transfer technologies for use with electric vehicles, in buildings, or in any other application where enhanced efficiency or greater distances are important considerations," Ricketts says.
A pre-proof draft of the paper, "Magnetic field enhancement in wireless power with metamaterials and magnetic resonant couplers," is published online in the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters. Lead author of the paper is Matthew J. Chabalko, who worked on the project as a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon and now works at Disney Research. Jordan Besnoff, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State, is a co-author of the paper.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"Magnetic field enhancement in wireless power with metamaterials and magnetic resonant couplers"
Authors: Matthew J. Chabalko, Carnegie Mellon University, Disney Research; Jordan Besnoff and David S. Ricketts, North Carolina State University
Published: pre-proof draft online July 1 in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
Abstract: We report on the magnetic field and coupling enhancement for increased wireless power transfer efficiency using intermediate materials. We examine the physical mechanisms for enhancement using a metamaterial (MM) and magnetic resonant field enhancement (MR-FE) and present an analytical and simulation analysis as well as an experimental study of these enhancement mechanisms. While both increase the mutual coupling, the loss of the contrasting enhancement mechanisms significantly impacts WPT efficiency enhancement. Our analysis shows that the MR-FE approach can have up to a 4 times higher efficiency over the MM approach due to the lower loss of its field enhancement mechanism.]]>
As an entomologist, I love insects – but my true passion is bees. Unlike most insect scientists I know, I was not a kid that used to collect bugs and loved to spend time in the wild. I grew up in a medium-size city in Colombia (South America), and I used to be as scared of insects as one can possibly be. However, I always wanted to be a scientist and following that dream I started college as a microbiologist and then switched to biology. It was then that I found my passion for nature. I fell in love with bees when I was in the Amazon rainforest for an entomology course that I took as an undergraduate student at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.
During that trip to the Amazon, I saw an orchid bee for the first time in my life. They are amazing creatures that have long tongues—so long they look like bee tails—and green metallic colors. I could not believe that it was a bee. Unlike what most people think (including myself at the time), not all bees look like honey bees. In fact, there are more than 20,000 species of bees worldwide, and they come in different colors, sizes and shapes.
Besides being incredibly diverse, bees have a very important ecological role. Bees are the most important pollinators of flowering plants, including many of the ones we eat. About 70 percent of all foods require bee pollination. Unfortunately, bee populations have been in decline over the last few decades, raising concerns about the serious problems that the world would face if we were to lose pollinators. Lack of pollination would have a direct negative impact on food security and, most importantly, it would preclude plant reproduction in most ecosystems on the planet.
I have dedicated my academic career to studying bees. As a masters student at Universidade Federal de São Carlos in Brazil, I studied the dispersal and foraging behavior of bees in urban areas. Then, I went to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to radio-track bees in the wet forest of Panama. After that, I moved to Ithaca (New York) to obtain my doctorate degree in entomology at Cornell University. During my Ph.D., I quantified migration rates and patterns of dispersal in multiple native bee species in North and South America. All of these studies are helping us understand how far bees can move to mate or look for food.
Now, as a postdoc at NC State, I am studying diseases and the immune systems of native bees in urban areas. I am trying to understand how "healthy" native bees that live in cities are, and whether or not certain factors of urban areas—such as heat, scarce foods, and high density of human constructions—make bees more susceptible to acquiring and transmitting diseases.
I am also keen on raising public awareness about the problem of pollinator loss. As a grad student and now as a postdoc, I have been actively involved in outreach and public education through the Naturalist Outreach program at Cornell University and as a co-organizer of workshops such as "Gardening for Native Bees" here at NC State.
My other full-time job is being a mom. I have a two-year-old named Tiago who enjoys collecting bees with me. He can already distinguish at least a handful of the local bees in the Raleigh area.]]>
"We put a questionnaire online within three days of Jolie's announcement, to see if the announcement influenced anyone's intention to get genetic testing," says Kami Kosenko, an associate professor of communication at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "We also wanted to see if there were any variables, such as whether people felt they identified with Jolie, that were associated with people who were influenced by Jolie's announcement."
Three hundred and fifty-six people from across the United States completed the questionnaire, of which 295 were aware of Jolie's announcement.
Of the 229 female study participants, researchers found that 30 percent intended to get tested to see if they carried the BRCA1 gene, with 23 percent saying they would probably get tested and 7 percent saying they would definitely get tested.
"Women who identified more strongly with Jolie were more likely to intend to get the genetic testing regardless of whether they had a family history of cancer than women who did have a family history of cancer but did not identify with Jolie," Kosenko says. "The same was true of women who felt they had some sort of parasocial relationship with Jolie, meaning they viewed her as a friend. This means that Jolie's speaking out definitely had an impact."
The findings suggest that when it comes to a celebrity's impact on the public, that impact depends in part on the extent to which the public identifies with the celebrity. In other words, there appears to be something about particular celebrities that engenders more public interest and concern.
"This indicates that health practitioners and advocates may want to consider how relatable a celebrity is with the target audience when searching for a celebrity spokesperson," Kosenko says. "However, more work needs to be done to help us understand what makes a celebrity relatable. For example, in our survey, non-white women were more likely to identify with Jolie than white women were. Why is that? We don't know."
The paper, "Celebrity Influence and Identification: A Test of the Angelina Effect," was published online today in the Journal of Health Communication. The paper was co-authored by Andrew R. Binder, an associate professor of communication at NC State, and Ryan Hurley, an assistant professor of communication at NC State.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"Celebrity Influence and Identification: A Test of the Angelina Effect"
Authors: Kami Kosenko, Andrew Binder, and Ryan Hurley, North Carolina State University
Published: online July 20, Journal of Health Communication
Abstract: Angelina Jolie's announcement that she is a BRCA1 carrier and has had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy was met with widespread support as well as speculation about its possible impact on the public. These speculations were the subject of a TIME cover story, entitled "The Angelina Effect." Although there is anecdotal evidence to support this hypothesized Angelina effect, empirical tests are lacking. To explore possible links between Angelina's announcement and public health, 356 adults were surveyed immediately after the announcement. Guided by a model of celebrity influence, the survey assessed participants' demographics and health history, identification and parasocial interaction with Jolie, and genetic testing intentions. Results supported the model's predictions and provided preliminary evidence of an Angelina effect.]]>
While learning more about the university's digital humanities projects in the Hunt Library's Teaching and Visualization Lab, Adams surprised about two dozen digital humanities scholars and supporters by announcing a new $324,135 grant to NC State to fund the next phase of a particularly successful digital humanities project – a visual and acoustical model of St. Paul's Cathedral.
The award is the largest NEH grant in NC State history.
The new grant continues work supported by a 2011 Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant of $49,998 from NEH that underwrote the creation of a 3-D model of the cathedral's outdoor pulpit called Paul's Cross as it would have appeared in the early 17th century, prior to the 1666 Great Fire of London that destroyed the original church.
The project team, led by English professor John Wall and design professor David Hill, staged a performance of John Donne's Nov. 5, 1622 Gunpowder Day sermon featuring a voice actor experienced in the dialect of early modern London. Using acoustical models, they recreated how the sermon would have sounded with different numbers of spectators standing in different locations within St. Paul's Churchyard.
The funding, which runs from January 2016 to December 2018, will extend the 3-D model to encompass the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral. It will also develop openly available acoustical modeling software that other scholars could use to analyze historical models of a variety of sites from different eras.
Interdisciplinary Team
Recently, Wall and Hill expanded their interdisciplinary team by joining with Assistant Professor Yun Jing in the College of Engineering. Jing, who holds a Ph.D. in architectural acoustics, will enable the team to complete their digital model of St Paul's Cathedral and to recreate worship services held inside the cathedral, including choral and organ music composed by musicians at the cathedral in the early 1600s.
Adams visited NC State along with N.C. Rep. David Price.
"The humanities in many ways are anchored in lived experience," Adams said, "which is why they are so important and so irreplaceable. To see this project, which is so much about that dimension of things, is to me enormously impressive. I think some of the most exciting things happening in the humanities are happening in the digital humanities space.
"John (Wall) mentioned his hope that the Endowment will continue to fund this work – and we will," Adams said to applause from the crowd as Wall and Hill beamed.
"We hope you come again soon," quipped Jeff Braden, the dean of humanities and social sciences, after Adams announced the gift.
In addition to the Paul's Cross project, Adams and Price learned about several digital humanities projects at NC State.
Biologists in North Carolina are trying to get a glimpse of the future through a project designed to shed light on how rising temperatures will affect the insects and microbial life that play critical roles in the environment. But the researchers are also hoping to shape the future, working with college students from underrepresented groups and designing citizen science tools to give middle school students everywhere the chance to be involved in scientific discovery.
The research revolves around a patch of forest in North Carolina. Scattered among the trees are a dozen rooms with neither roofs nor floors. Ringed with plastic ductwork that pumps warm air, these "warming chambers" allow the researchers to manipulate the temperature of small sections of forest. And for the past five years, with support from NSF's Dimensions of Biodiversity program, researchers have been studying those patches of forest to see how life has responded to slight increases in temperature.
The goal of the study was to get insights into how forest ecosystems will change as a result of global climate change. And in 2014, the researchers took on a new goal: to help shape the future of ecology research itself.
Rob Dunn, a professor at NC State University and primary investigator on the project, worked with two postdoctoral researchers in his lab to get a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) grant from NSF. NC State undergraduates were already involved in the warming chambers research project, but the REU was designed to be a collaboration between NC State and Shaw University – a historically black university in Raleigh, N.C. – for the express purpose of engaging African-American undergrads in ecological research.
The funding, which supplemented the original biodiversity grant, allowed the NC State research team to support two Shaw undergraduates to do fieldwork on the warming chambers project during the summer of 2014.
The REU focused on a specific research question: what impact do warming temperatures have on ant immune function? The goal was to determine how insect-disease interactions may change as a result of climate change.
"We found that behavioral aspects of immunity in ants did change in warmer environments," says Mary Jane Epps, one of the postdoctoral researchers in Dunn's lab who collaborated on the REU. "For example, we found that ants spent more time grooming themselves and each other at higher temperatures. There are two papers coming out of that 2014 REU, and each of the students will be a co-author on one of them."
But the results of that REU extend beyond the scientific findings.
"One of the reasons I pursued this REU is because African Americans are not well represented in the field of ecology – which is ironic, since it's a field that studies diversity," says DeAnna Beasley, another of the Dunn's postdocs who collaborated on the REU.
"Many students have a very narrow view of what science is; they think it's something you only do in a laboratory," Beasley says. "We were able to expose these students to wildlife ecology, and now one of them is considering graduate studies in ecology – based on his experiences with us and with Eric Butler, his mentor at Shaw."
The project was so successful that Dunn, Beasley and Epps were awarded a new REU for 2015, this time focusing on how insect pathogens respond to warmer temperatures. Specifically, the researchers are evaluating soil samples from the warming chambers to determine the presence and prevalence of fungal pathogens that attack insects and how that prevalence changes based on environmental temperatures.
"One Shaw student from 2014 returned this summer, and we're working with a new Shaw student as well," Epps says. The researchers also plan to extend the REU project into the fall semester so that another Shaw student can be involved.
"It's important to note that these projects are not only about giving students from underrepresented groups a chance to get hands-on experience, or to get them excited about science," Epps says. "These projects are also about addressing significant questions about our environment."
"And we expect to get another paper out of this summer's work," Beasley says.
In addition, Beasley, Dunn and the Shaw students will be working with three middle school teachers who are part of NC State's Kenan Fellows Program to use the insect pathogens project as the basis for new teaching tools.
The teachers are working with Beasley and the Shaw students in field and lab research looking at ant immunity and insect pathogens at both urban and forest sites. Based on this experience, the teachers will develop a project-based science lesson plan to engage middle school students in authentic scientific research.
"We'll work together throughout the school year to refine the curriculum and next summer the teachers will teach the new lesson plan to 40 teachers at a professional development workshop hosted by NC State's Friday Institute for Educational Innovation," Beasley says.
This work, which is funded by a grant from NSF's Division of Research on Learning, will allow middle school teachers and students anywhere in the country (or abroad) to collect and analyze soil samples for pathogens that harm insects. Ultimately, the goal is for those middle school classrooms to plug their findings into a national database that can track the diversity of pathogens in different environments.
"This project is not only creating opportunities for the undergrads at Shaw, but giving middle school students everywhere the chance to be part of a meaningful scientific inquiry," Beasley says. "We're talking about contributing to our understanding of the world around us, and hopefully inspiring future scientists while we're at it."]]>
Marine scientists from North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of Oregon discovered the wreck on July 12 during a research expedition aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) research ship Atlantis.
They spotted the wreck while using WHOI's robotic autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry and the manned submersible Alvin. The team had been searching for a mooring that was deployed on a previous research trip in the area in 2012.
Among the artifacts discovered amid the shipwreck's broken remains are an iron chain, a pile of wooden ship timbers, red bricks (possibly from the ship cook's hearth), glass bottles, an unglazed pottery jug, a metal compass, and another navigational instrument that might be an octant or sextant.
The wreck appears to date back to the late 18th or early 19th century, a time when a young United States was expanding its trade with the rest of the world by sea.
"This is an exciting find, and a vivid reminder that even with major advances in our ability to access and explore the ocean, the deep sea holds its secrets close," said expedition leader Cindy Van Dover, director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory.
"I have led four previous expeditions to this site, each aided by submersible research technology to explore the sea floor — including a 2012 expedition where we used Sentry to saturate adjacent areas with sonar and photo images," Van Dover said. "It's ironic to think we were exploring within 100 meters of the wreck site without an inkling it was there."
"This discovery underscores that new technologies we're developing to explore the deep-sea floor yield not only vital information about the oceans, but also about our history," said David Eggleston, director of the Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) at NC State and one of the principal investigators of the science project.
After discovering the shipwreck, Van Dover and Eggleston alerted NOAA's Marine Heritage Program of their find. The NOAA program will now attempt to date and identify the lost ship.
Bruce Terrell, chief archaeologist at the Marine Heritage Program, says it should be possible to determine a date and country of origin for the wrecked ship by examining the ceramics, bottles and other artifacts.
"Lying more than a mile down in near-freezing temperatures, the site is undisturbed and well preserved," Terrell said. "Careful archaeological study in the future could definitely tell us more."
James Delgado, director of the Marine Heritage Program, notes that the wreck rests along the path of the Gulf Stream, which mariners have used for centuries as a maritime highway to North American ports, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and South America.
"The find is exciting, but not unexpected," he said. "Violent storms sent down large numbers of vessels off the Carolina coasts, but few have been located because of the difficulties of depth and working in an offshore environment."
Bob Waters of WHOI piloted Alvin to the site of the newly discovered shipwreck after Sentry's sonar-scanning system detected a dark line and a diffuse, dark area which they thought could be the missing scientific mooring. Bernie Ball of Duke and Austin Todd of NC State were aboard Alvin as science observers.
The expedition has been focused on exploring the ecology of deep-sea methane seeps along the East Coast. Van Dover is a specialist in the ecology of deep-sea ecosystems that are powered by chemistry rather than sunlight, and Eggleston studies the ecology of organisms that live on the seafloor.
"Our accidental find illustrates the rewards — and the challenge and uncertainty — of working in the deep ocean," Van Dover said. "We discovered a shipwreck but, ironically, the lost mooring was never found."
Funding for the research expedition and for the development of Sentry came from National Science Foundation grants #OCE-1036843, #OCE-1030453 and #OCE-1031050. NOAA's Marine Heritage Program is part of its Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.]]>
"This work means there's an opportunity to use composite metal foam to develop safer systems for transporting nuclear waste, more efficient designs for spacecraft and nuclear structures, and new shielding for use in CT scanners," says Afsaneh Rabiei, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper on the work.
Rabiei first developed the strong, lightweight metal foam for use in transportation and military applications. But she wanted to determine whether the foam could be used for nuclear or space exploration applications – could it provide structural support, protect against high impacts and provide shielding against various forms of radiation?
To that end, she and her colleagues conducted multiple tests to see how effective it was at blocking X-rays, gamma rays and neutron radiation. She then compared the material's performance to the performance of bulk materials that are currently used in shielding applications. The comparison was made using samples of the same "areal" density – meaning that each sample had the same weight, but varied in volume.
The most effective composite metal foam against all three forms of radiation is called "high-Z steel-steel" and was made up largely of stainless steel, but incorporated a small amount of tungsten. However, the structure of the high-Z foam was modified so that the composite foam that included tungsten was not denser than metal foam made entirely of stainless steel.
The researchers tested shielding performance against several kinds of gamma ray radiation. Different source materials produce gamma rays with different energies. For example, cesium and cobalt emit higher-energy gamma rays, while barium and americium emit lower-energy gamma rays.
The researchers found that the high-Z foam was comparable to bulk materials at blocking high-energy gamma rays, but was much better than bulk materials – even bulk steel – at blocking low-energy gamma rays.
Similarly, the high-Z foam outperformed other materials at blocking neutron radiation.
The high-Z foam performed better than most materials at blocking X-rays, but was not quite as effective as lead.
"However, we are working to modify the composition of the metal foam to be even more effective than lead at blocking X-rays – and our early results are promising," Rabiei says. "And our foams have the advantage of being non-toxic, which means that they are easier to manufacture and recycle. In addition, the extraordinary mechanical and thermal properties of composite metal foams, and their energy absorption capabilities, make the material a good candidate for various nuclear structural applications."
The paper, "Attenuation efficiency of X-ray and comparison to gamma ray and neutrons in composite metal foams," is published in Radiation Physics and Chemistry. Lead author is Shuo Chen, a recent Ph.D. graduate at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Mohamed Bourham, a professor of nuclear engineering at NC State. The work was supported by DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy under Nuclear Energy University Program grant number CFP-11-1643.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"Attenuation efficiency of X-ray and comparison to gamma ray and neutrons in composite metal foams"
Authors: Shuo Chen, Mohamed Bourham and Afsaneh Rabiei, North Carolina State University
Published: pre-proof manuscript published online July 8 in Radiation Physics and Chemistry
DOI: 10.1016/j.radphyschem.2015.07.003
Abstract: Steel-steel composite metal foams (S-S CMFs) and Aluminum-steel composite metal foams (Al-S CMFs) with various sphere sizes and matrix materials were manufactured and investigated for nuclear and radiation environments applications. 316 L stainless steel, high-speed T15 steel and aluminum materials were used as the matrix material together with 2, 4 and 5.2 mm steel hollow spheres to manufacture various types of composite metal foams (CMFs). High-speed T15 steel is selected due to its high tungsten and vanadium concentration (both high-Z elements) to further improve the shielding efficiency of CMFs. This new type of S-S CMF is called High-Z steel-steel composite metal foam (HZ S-S CMF). Radiation shielding efficiency of all types of CMFs was explored for the attenuation of X-ray, gamma ray and neutron. The experimental results were compared with pure lead and Aluminum A356, and verified theoretically through XCOM and Monte Carlo Z-particle Transport Code (MCNP). It was observed that the radiation shielding effectiveness of CMFs is relatively independent of sphere sizes as long as the ratio of sphere-wall thickness to its outer-diameter stays constant. However, the smaller spheres seem to be more efficient in general due to the fine fluctuation in the gray value profile of their 2D Micro-CT images. S-S CMFs and Al-S CMFs are respectively 275% and 145% more effective for X-ray attenuation than Aluminum A356. Compared to pure lead, CMFs show adequate attenuation with additional advantages of being lightweight and more environmentally friendly. The mechanical performance of HZ S-S CMFs under quasi-static compression was compared to that of other classes of S-S CMF. It is observed that the addition of high-Z elements to the matrix of CMFs improved their shielding against X-rays, low energy gamma rays and neutrons, while maintained their low density, high mechanical properties and high-energy absorption capability.]]>
New board members Goodnight, Robert "Chip" Andrews III of Raleigh, Stanhope A. Kelly of Winston-Salem and Dewayne N. Washington of Wake Forest were sworn in during the July 15 meeting, as was student body president Khari L. Cyrus, an ex officio voting member.
Owens is former chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc. He currently serves on the board of directors of Alcoa, IBM and Morgan Stanley. He received NC State's Watauga Medal, the College of Management's Alumnus of the Year award in 1999 and Person of the Year award in 2009, and is a lifetime member of the NC State Alumni Association and a member of the Peele Giving Society. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in textile technology and his Ph.D. in economics from NC State.
Clark is owner and president of Guy M. Turner Inc. He is former chair of the NC State Board of Visitors. He is a member of the NC State Engineering Foundation Board, Dean's Circle, Student Aid Association Board, and Alumni Association Board. He has served on the Park Scholarship's Selection Committee. He established the Jimmy D. Clark Distinguished Professorship for NC State's Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering and is a member of the Peele Giving Society. Clark received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from NC State and is a registered professional engineer.
Cabaniss is managing partner of McGuireWoods LLP. He is former president and honorary lifetime member of the NC State Alumni Association. He previously served on the NC State University Foundation Board. He is founding member of the State Club Board of Directors and is a member of the Page Giving Society. He earned his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from NC State and his juris doctor degree from the University of Virginia.
Goodnight is director of community relations at SAS Institute Inc. She is a founder and board member of Cary Academy. She is a member of the National Advisory Board for the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, the Trustees Board of the YMCA of the Triangle, a board member of UNC Center for International Understanding and the board of BEST NC (Business for Educational Success and Transformation). She previously served on the UNC Board of Governors. She received the William C Friday Award in 2008, the Menscer Cup in 2007 and the CHASS Alumna of the Year award in 2000. She has endowed multiple professorships as well as the Goodnight Scholars program, and is a member of the Holladay Giving Society. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from NC State.
Andrews is former chairman and CEO of FMI Corporation. He is a member of Poole College of Management's Advisory Board and formerly served on the Board of Visitors, as chair of the Graduate School Board of Advisors, as founding member and president of the Gallery of Art & Design, as chair of Friends of the Gregg Museum and as a volunteer leader for the Campaign for NC State Students. He is a member of the Dabney Giving Society. He earned his bachelor's degree in economics from NC State.
Kelly is retired president of Carolina's Community Banking and president of Wachovia Wealth Management. He currently serves on the Wells Fargo Advisory Board and is vice chair of the Winston Salem Foundation. He previously served on the NC State Foundation Board, the Alumni Association Board of Directors, the Park Scholars Selection Committee, and as chair of the Poole College of Management Achieve! Campaign Steering Committee. He was named 2005 Poole College of Management Alumnus of the Year and is a member of the Riddick Giving Society. He earned his bachelor's degree in business management from NC State.
Washington is managing partner of D. Washington Group LLC, a construction and development company based in Durham. He is former member of the NC State Board of Visitors, NC State University Foundation Board, Alumni Association Board of Directors and Varsity Club. He established the Dewayne and Adama Washington Scholarship Endowment and the Washington's Multipurpose Room Fund at NC State. He is a member of the Dabney Giving Society. He earned his bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies from NC State. Washington was a member of NC State's football team from 1990-93 and was drafted in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings in 1994. He retired from the NFL with 12 years of service.
NC State's Board of Trustees is composed of 13 members; eight are elected by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, four are appointed by the governor, and the remaining member is the student body president.]]>
Now the newly renovated Talley Student Union has that homey feeling, thanks to some talented NC State student artists whose work adorns the new building's walls.
"People who've been working in the building since before we hung the art have stopped me in the hallways to tell me they can't believe how much the art brings the building to life," says Amy Sawyers, coordinator of arts outreach for Arts NC State (ANCS).
The art hanging on Talley's walls was purchased by ANCS through its student art purchase program. ANCS keeps some of its purchased student art in a collection held in storage; much of the rest of it is on display in Talley.
Student art was first displayed in the old Talley building beginning in 2001 when Alex Miller, then the vice provost of ANCS, decided there was a need for a visible legacy of student art that any student could contribute to and that all of campus could enjoy. That decision led to the creation of the ANCS student art purchase, an annual event in which students are given one day in the spring to submit their artwork for possible purchase by ANCS to add to its collection.
Students drop their work off at a central location in the morning; that afternoon, a selection committee evaluates the art, and in the evening the submitting artists are notified which pieces have been chosen for purchase. Many of the works purchased by ANCS will hang on the walls inside Talley.
Since the program began, ANCS has purchased 129 pieces of student art, 55 of which now are hanging in the student union. More than 50 other pieces purchased through the program are on display at other student centers on campus, including Witherspoon and the Crafts Center.
When the renovation of Talley began, the art had to be taken down and placed in storage, which made a new problem apparent to Sawyers: If ANCS kept purchasing six to 12 pieces of student art per year, as it had done since the program was launched, soon they would run out of places to hang or store the artworks.
"Also, we'd been getting inquiries from faculty and staff asking if they could be allowed to purchase student art too," she says.
In light of those considerations, in 2015 the decision was made to open the student art purchase to the entire community for the first time.
"We ran the 2015 purchase event like a pop-up gallery in Talley phase I, which had just opened up," Sawyers says. "We had good attendance, and the artists sold [more than] $3,000 worth of art that day."
Patrons of the program buy the art directly from the artist, so 100 percent of the purchase price goes straight into the student's pocket.
ANCS will continue making the annual student art purchase open to the whole community. For the next event, which will take place in April 2016, ANCS plans to make photographs of all the items available online so customers can evaluate the works before they go to the sale location. The days and hours of the event will also be expanded so more customers can attend.
"Arts NC State can only buy so many artworks per year, but a member of the public might come along and see something we couldn't buy and decide they really want it," Sawyers says. "We want them to have that opportunity, and we want the student to have the opportunity to sell their art and see it go out in the world."
In the run-up to the opening of Talley phase II this year, Sawyers asked the facilities committee of the Student Centers board of directors to evaluate all the artworks in the ANCS collection and choose which pieces they wanted to take out of storage to hang in the new Talley. When phase II opened in June, Sawyers worked with student interns and professional art installers to get the chosen works up onto the walls.
"One thing we learned right away when the art went up is that this building supports art being hung on the walls so much more than the old Talley did," Sawyers says. "People who had seen the pieces before in the old Talley say they almost seem like new pieces of art now. The walls here almost act as a sort of canvas or frame for the art. Art can breathe in this space."
ANCS is planning to invite all the student artists whose art is hanging in the new Talley to return to campus over homecoming weekend this fall for a reception in their honor, to be held in the renovated student union.
One of those who'll be invited back is alumna Alyssa Hinton, who sold a photo composite print to the ANCS student art purchase program when she was studying fiber arts in the College of Design. "I wanted the piece to portray the sense of movement, syncopation and rhythm of this dancer who is an old friend of mine," Hinton says. "I'm now a digital media teacher in Durham Public Schools, and I'll actually be using this piece as a template to inspire my students to do a music-related digital collage."
It's not just students in design and the arts who sell artworks through the ANCS program, Sawyers says.
"Our mantra is 'the arts are for everyone,'" she says, "so we reach out to let all students on campus know about this."
Jonathan Young, a freshman philosophy major who switched to mechanical engineering before graduating from NC State, was one of those non-arts students who contributed to the student art purchase program. While still a freshman, he sold a photograph to the program.
"It was one of the first photographs I took where I felt a real sense of accomplishment," Young says. He now serves as operations coordinator for the Community Empowerment Fund.
The next time you head to Talley for lunch, coffee, a meeting or an event, take a moment to slow down and ponder the artworks hanging on the walls as you pass by them.
"It's been a joy to watch staffers and students peering around the corners and discovering the art as it goes up, or to see a student standing in front of a painting, staring at it, engaging with it," Sawyers says.]]>
Last year, more than 55,000 people attended the event, which caps off Wolfpack Welcome Week.
If you're interested in helping this year, the day-long celebration of all things Wolfpack is slated for Aug. 22 from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m. all along Hillsborough Street. You can sign up for a volunteer shift as a group or as an individual with this online registration form.
You can ask for a specific two-hour block to volunteer, though some flexibility will be necessary. The primary volunteer time slots will be from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to midnight, which leaves plenty of time to participate in and enjoy the day's activities.
Here's some basic volunteer info:
The entertainment lineup for the event has also been set, so if you are wondering who might be on hand, here's the schedule of bands at the events three stages.
Belltower Stage
HEADLINERS – The Wolfpack Hip Hop Time Machine with Rapsody and 9th Wonder, Petey Pablo, Nappy Roots, Terminator X and DJ DVS – (Closing show, approximately 8pm)
Stone Age Romeos – cover
Mo'Jazz – R&B/jazz
Carson Hill – country
The Sand Band – beach/cover
DH Hill Stage
Dr. Copter – progressive/rock
The Beast – alternative/fusion
Aaron Gallagher – country/folks
Drake Murphy – alternative
Dark Water Rising – americana/soul
The Island Time Band – beach/cover
Show Stage
JUZT KP – rap
Team Collective – rap
This information is subject to change and the final schedule will be released in early August.
Environmental sciences lecturer Katie Winsett, mathematics professor Michael Singer and biological sciences professor Jennifer Landin trekked up Hump Mountain on the Appalachian Trail, the main viewpoint for the legal battle described in the book.
Winsett took photos along the trip to enhance discussions of the book in her Introduction to Environmental Sciences course next year. The book provides an engaging opportunity to illustrate and discuss course topics such as environmental justice, the use of natural resources, and the role of community engagement, she says.
Landin plans to use the experience in her introductory biology courses, but focused on travel sketching along the hike. She plans to use her paintings to promote environmental awareness on her Science-Art blog.
To learn more about the common reading program and Stand Up That Mountain, visit http://newstudents.ncsu.edu/commonreading/about2015.]]>
A paper published earlier this month in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research evaluated various factors that influenced the willingness of consumers to buy GM food and nano-food.
The findings stem from an analysis of a nationally representative survey the researchers conducted of 1,117 U.S. consumers.
And the findings show that consumers appear to view the technologies differently.
"In our national survey, the preference for GM food labeling didn't significantly influence willingness to buy," says Jennifer Kuzma, corresponding author of the paper, professor in NC State's School of Public and International Affairs and co-director of the Genetic Engineering & Society Center.
"For example, if a consumer desires GM foods to be labeled, s/he may not be any more or less likely to buy them. But the same was not true for nano-food. A stronger desire for nano-foods to be labeled correlated with a lower willingness to buy nano-foods.
"The exact meaning of these results will need further investigation, but they suggest that while nano-food labeling may assist with consumer purchasing decisions, GM food labeling is desired by consumers for different reasons."
The survey results revealed other differences as well. Consumers who trusted the government to manage GM food responsibly were more likely to want the government to place restrictions on GM food. But for nano-food, trust in the government was not tied to a preference for government restrictions.
The researchers also found that women were more likely to prefer labels on GM food, and that people who identified as being more religious were more willing to buy GM food. Gender and religion didn't appear to influence consumer views toward nano-foods.
"There seem to be more issues involved with GM foods – values and moral judgment seem to come into play" Kuzma says. "For policymakers and industry, this highlights the need to do more than just emphasize the science when communicating with the public about GM foods. Consumer attitudes are more complicated, involving issues related to trust and personal values."
Co-authors of the paper, "Investigating factors influencing consumer willingness to buy GM food and nano-food," are Chengyan Yue, a professor at the University of Minnesota (UM), graduate student Shuoli Zhao of UM and Christopher Cummings, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The work was supported by the Food Policy Research Center at UM under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, NIFA 2012-70002-19403.]]>
"All materials have some degree of anelasticity, but it is usually negligible at the macroscopic scale," says Yong Zhu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the work. "Because nanowires are so small, the anelasticity is significant and easily observed — although it was a total surprise when we first discovered the anelasticity in nanowires." The anelasticity was discovered when Zhu and his students were studying the buckling behavior of nanowires.
"Anelasticity is a fundamental mechanical property of nanowires, and we need to understand these sort of mechanical behaviors if we want to incorporate nanowires into electronics or other devices," says Elizabeth Dickey, a professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of the paper. Nanowires hold promise for use in a variety of applications, including flexible, stretchable and wearable electronic devices.
The researchers worked with both zinc oxide and silicon nanowires, and found that – when bent – the nanowires would return more than 80 percent of the way to their original shape instantaneously, but return the rest of the way (up to 20 percent) slowly.
"In nanowires that are approximately 50 nanometers in diameter, it can take 20 or 30 minutes for them to recover that last 20 percent of their original shape," says Guangming Cheng, a Ph.D. student in Zhu's lab and the first author for the paper.
The work was done using tools developed in Zhu's group that enabled the team to conduct experiments on nanowires while they were in a scanning electron microscope. Additional analysis was done using a Titan aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope in NC State's Analytical Instrumentation Facility.
When any material is bent, the bonds between atoms are stretched or compressed to accommodate the bending, but in nanoscale materials there is time for the atoms to also move, or diffuse, from the compressed area to the stretched area in the material. If you think of the bent nanowire as an arch, the atoms are moving from the inside of the arch to the outside. When the tension in the bent wire is released, the atoms that simply moved closer or further apart snap back immediately; this is what we call elasticity. But the atoms that moved out of position altogether take time to return to their original sites. That time lag is a characteristic of anelasticity.
"This phenomenon is pronounced in nanowires. For instance, zinc oxide nanowires exhibited anelastic behavior that is up to four orders of magnitude larger than the largest anelasticity observed in bulk materials, with a recovery time-scale in the order of minutes," says Huajian Gao, a professor at Brown University and co-corresponding author of the paper. Detailed modeling by Gao's group indicates that the pronounced anelasticity in nanowires is because it is much easier for atoms to move through nanoscale materials than through bulk materials. And the atoms don't have to travel as far. In addition, nanowires can be bent much further than thicker wires without becoming permanently deformed or breaking.
"A reviewer commented that this is a new important page in the book on mechanics of nanostructures, which was very flattering to hear," Zhu says. The team plans to explore whether this pronounced anelasticity is common across nanoscale materials and structures. They also want to evaluate how this characteristic may affect other properties, such as electrical conductivity and thermal transport.
The paper, "Large Anelasticity and Associated Energy Dissipation in Single-Crystalline Nanowires," is published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Lead authors of the paper are Guangming Cheng, a Ph.D. student at NC State, and Chunyang Miao of Brown and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Co-authors include Qingquan Qin, Jing Li and Feng Xu of NC State; and Hamed Haftbaradaran and Huajian Gao of Brown. Gao is a co-corresponding author with Zhu.
The work was done with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
"Large Anelasticity and Associated Energy Dissipation in Single-Crystalline Nanowires"
Authors: Guangming Cheng, Qingquan Qin, Jing Li, Feng Xu, Elizabeth C. Dickey, and Yong Zhu, North Carolina State University; Chunyang Miao, Brown University and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Hamed Haftbaradaran and Huajian Gao, Brown University
Published: July 13, Nature Nanotechnology
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2015.141
Abstract: Anelastic materials exhibit gradual full recovery of deformation once a load is removed, leading to efficient dissipation of internal mechanical energy. As a consequence, anelastic materials are being investigated for energy damping applications. At macroscopic scale, however, anelaticity is usually very small or negligible, especially in single-crystalline materials. Here we show that single-crystalline ZnO and p-doped Si nanowires (NWs) can exhibit anelastic behaviour that is up to four orders of magnitude larger than the largest anelasticity observed in bulk materials, with a recovery time-scale in the order of minutes. In-situ scanning electron microscope (SEM) tests of individual NWs showed that, upon removal of the bending load and instantaneous recovery of the elastic strain, a significant portion of the total strain gradually recovers with time. We attribute the observed large anelasticity to stress-gradient-induced migration of point defects, as supported by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) measurements and also by the fact that no anelastic behaviour could be observed under tension. We model this behaviour through a theoretical framework by point defect diffusion under high initial strain gradient and short diffusion distance, expanding the classic Gorsky theory. Finally, we show that ZnO single-crystalline NWs exhibit a damping merit index of 1.13, suggesting crystalline NWs with point defects as potential candidates for efficient energy damping materials.]]>
In a study published in Nature Nanotechnology, NC State engineer Orlin Velev and colleagues show that silver-ion infused lignin nanoparticles, which are coated with a charged polymer layer that helps them adhere to the target microbes, effectively kill a broad swath of bacteria, including E. coli and other harmful microorganisms.
As the nanoparticles wipe out the targeted bacteria, they become depleted of silver. The remaining particles degrade easily after disposal because of their biocompatible lignin core, limiting the risk to the environment.
"People have been interested in using silver nanoparticles for antimicrobial purposes, but there are lingering concerns about their environmental impact due to the long-term effects of the used metal nanoparticles released in the environment," said Velev, INVISTA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State and the paper's corresponding author. "We show here an inexpensive and environmentally responsible method to make effective antimicrobials with biomaterial cores."
The researchers used the nanoparticles to attack E. coli, a bacterium that causes food poisoning; Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common disease-causing bacterium; Ralstonia, a genus of bacteria containing numerous soil-borne pathogen species; and Staphylococcus epidermis, a bacterium that can cause harmful biofilms on plastics – like catheters – in the human body. The nanoparticles were effective against all the bacteria.
The method allows researchers the flexibility to change the nanoparticle recipe in order to target specific microbes. Alexander Richter, the paper's first author and an NC State Ph.D. candidate who won a 2015 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, says that the particles could be the basis for reduced risk pesticide products with reduced cost and minimized environmental impact.
"We expect this method to have a broad impact," Richter said. "We may include less of the antimicrobial ingredient without losing effectiveness while at the same time using an inexpensive technique that has a lower environmental burden. We are now working to scale up the process to synthesize the particles under continuous flow conditions."
Funding was provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and NC State. Researchers from the EPA, University of Hull, Wageningen University and University College London participated in the study.
– kulikowski –
Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.
"An environmentally benign antimicrobial nanoparticle based on a silver-infused lignin core"
Authors: Alexander P. Richter, Joseph S. Brown, Bhuvensh Bharti and Orlin D. Velev, North Carolina State University; Amy Wang, Sumit Gangwal, Keith Houck and Elaine A. Cohen Hubal, U.S. EPA; Vesselin N. Paunov, University of Hull; and Simeon D. Stoyanov, Wageningen University and University College London
Published: July 13, 2015, online in Nature Nanotechnology
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2015.141
Abstract: Silver nanoparticles have antibacterial properties, but their use has been a cause for concern because they persist in the environment. Here, we show that lignin nanoparticles infused with silver ions and coated with a cationic polyelectrolyte layer form a biodegradable and green alternative to silver nanoparticles. The polyelectrolyte layer promotes the adhesion of the particles to bacterial cell membranes and, together with silver ions, can kill a broad spectrum of bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and quaternary-amine-resistant Ralstonia sp. Ion depletion studies have shown that the bioactivity of these nanoparticles is time-limited because of the desorption of silver ions. High-throughput bioactivity screening did not reveal increased toxicity of the particles when compared to an equivalent mass of metallic silver nanoparticles or silver nitrate solution. Our results demonstrate that the application of green chemistry principles may allow the synthesis of nanoparticles with biodegradable cores that have higher antimicrobial activity and smaller environmental impact than metallic silver nanoparticles.]]>
Along with colleagues Kim Dietrich of the University of Cincinnati, Yue Li of Duke University, and NC State's David Skaar, the team looked at data collected from 105 participants in the Cincinnati lead study, which measured lead in children from birth to age 6 and a half. They followed up with the now-adult participants and took blood samples, which were sequenced for DNA methylation – data spanning 36 years.
"We now have the first human evidence for an association between early lead exposure and three aberrantly methylated regulatory regions of imprinted genes," says Hoyo. "But from a public health perspective, the results are very exciting because we can begin to think about identifying potential biological markers for early exposure to lead and other toxins in the environment."
The team spent several years pinpointing regulatory regions within DNA that may link early lead exposure to specific diseases, characterizing 22 of these regions to date. With this study, researchers looked at the 22 regions to see if lead exposure affected DNA methylation, the process that controls how a gene is expressed, essentially determining whether or not it is switched on or off. When methylation is altered, genes are either turned off (or silenced) or they are more active than they normally would be.
The team found three imprinted genes whose expression was affected in adulthood by lead exposure from birth to 6 and a half years of age: PEG3, IGF2/H19 and PLAGL1/HYMAI. For PEG3 and IGF2/HI9, methylation decreased. The effects were sex-specific: decreased methylation for PEG3, which is associated with fetal development, affected males more than females, while the opposite was true for IGF2/H19. PLAGL1/HYMAI methylation, which increased, was not sex-specific.
Additionally, they found that increased blood levels of lead later in postnatal development did not seem to have any other effects on the regulatory regions – the methylation changes occurred during the first 12 months, even as lead exposure continued to increase over the study period.
"Genes are like computers with both hardware and software," says Jirtle. "Most scientists have been studying the hardware, which is the genetic sequence, without looking at the software, which is the regulatory layer that alters how that gene is expressed. This study gives us a first look at how the software may be affected by early exposure to lead."
Hoyo and her team plan to continue investigating possible connections between lead exposure, gene expression and disease. "The dysregulated genes we identified in this study seem to be highly malleable, especially during prenatal development and early childhood. This raises the possibility that we could nudge them back toward normal if we could therapeutically target them at the right stage of development."
The research appears online in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants R01ES016772, R01DK085173, R01ES015559 and 8 UL1 TR000077), and the Department of Energy (grants DE-FG02-10ER64931, R21ES020048). Susan Murphy and Adriana Vidal of Duke University; Monica Nye of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Kim Cecil, Kim Dietrich and Alvaro Puga from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine also contributed to the work.
Note to editors: Abstract follows
"Lead Exposure during Early Human Development and DNA Methylation of Imprinted Gene Regulatory Elements in Adulthood"
Authors: Catherine Hoyo, David Skaar, Randy Jirtle, North Carolina State University; Yue Li, Susan Murphy, Adriana Vidal, Duke University Medical Center; Changchun Xie, University of Cincinnati; Monica Nye, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Kim Dietrich, Alvaro Puga, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Published: Online in Environmental Health Perspectives
Abstract: Lead exposure during early development causes neurodevelopmental disorders by unknown mechanisms. Epidemiologic studies have focused recently on determining associations between lead exposure and global DNA methylation; however, such approaches preclude the identification of loci that may alter human disease risk.
The objective of this study was to determine if maternal, postnatal and early childhood lead exposure alter the differentially methylated regions (DMRs) that control the monoallelic expression of imprinted genes involved in metabolism, growth and development.
Questionnaire data and serial blood lead levels were obtained from 105 participants (64 females, 41 males) of the Cincinnati Lead Study from birth to 78 months. During adulthood, peripheral blood DNA was used to quantify CpG methylation in peripheral blood leukocytes at DMRs of 22 human imprinted genes using Sequenom EpiTYPER assays. Statistical analyses were conducted using linear regression.
Mean blood lead concentration from birth to 78 months was associated with a significant decrease inPEG3 DMR methylation, (β=-0.0014, 95% CI:-0.0023, -0.0005, p=0.002), stronger in males, (β=-0.0024, 95% CI:-0.0038, -0.0009, p=0.003) than females (β=-0.0009, 95% CI:-0.0020, 0.0003, p=0.1). Elevated mean childhood blood lead concentration was also associated with a significant decrease in IGF2/H19 (β=-0.0013, 95% CI:-0.0023, -0.0003, p=0.01) DMR methylation, but primarily in females, (β=-0.0017, 95% CI:-0.0029, -0.0006, p=0.005) than males, (β=-0.0004, 95% CI:-0.0023, 0.0015, p=0.7). Elevated blood lead concentration during the neonatal period was associated with higher PLAGL1/HYMAI DMR methylation regardless of sex, (β=0.0075, 95% CI:0.0018, 0.0132, p=0.01). The magnitude of associations between cumulative lead exposure and CpG methylation remained unaltered from 30 to 78 months.
Our findings provide evidence for early childhood lead exposure resulting in sex-dependent and gene-specific DNA methylation differences in the DMRs of PEG3, IGF2/H19 and PLAGL1/HYMAI in adulthood.
With fewer students on campus, faculty and staff focused on vacations and research in the field and a slower pace all around, it is difficult to keep up with the pantry's needs in providing food for the 30 to 40 visits it gets per month during the summer.
The two-and-a-half-year-old pantry, operated by a volunteer staff, was originally housed in Harrelson Hall, but recently moved to 127 Carmichael Recreation Center in advance of Harrelson's pending demolition. It provides free food for NC State employees and students in need.
Next week, the pantry hopes to be fully restocked with items from its inaugural Sponsor a Shelf program, in which more than 40 campus organizations have pledged to provide all required amounts of a specific food or personal care item. For more about the program, contact email@example.com.
Still, there are immediate needs for certain non-perishable items, including beverages, condiments, canned fruit, breakfast/snack items, grains and personal hygiene. Summer harvest items, unfortunately, cannot be donated because of a lack of refrigeration at the pantry.
There is also a need for volunteers during summer hours, especially next week when the pantry collects its first haul from the Sponsor a Shelf program. Staff and employees can use community service leave to participate.
The pantry's summer hours are Tuesdays 2-4 p.m., Thursdays 4-6 p.m. and Fridays 2-4 p.m.
For more information about the pantry, follow its Facebook page for advance notice about collection opportunities and for notification of urgent needs.]]>
The symposium is slated for 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on August 28 in the Talley Student Union ballroom.
There is no fee to register, but space is limited and online registration is required.
The event is organized by the DOI Southeast Climate Science Center and the Global Environmental Change and Human Well-Being faculty cluster. It will focus on community building and networking among the campus community that deals with aspects of global change in their research, teaching and extension activities or who are interested to enhance this area of their work.
The Global Change Symposium is meant to bring together members of NC State's research and administrative community to foster more interdisciplinary collaboration in our campus' efforts to address global change.
Participants will present posters on their current and future research/teaching/outreach interests as they relate to global change, interact with colleagues in other departments and colleges and develop an agenda of next steps to support cross-disciplinary research collaborations that respond to the challenges posed by global change processes.
For more information, contact Cari Furiness at the Southeast Climate Science Center at firstname.lastname@example.com.]]>
The discovery improves scientists' understanding of how lignin, which gives wood its strength and ability to transport water, is formed in plants and how it can be altered for biofuel, pulp and paper production, which require costly lignin removal with harsh chemicals. The findings from the Forest Biotechnology Group, led by Vincent Chiang and Ron Sederoff, appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"After two decades we confirmed a new mode of regulating an important pathway in plant development," says lead author Jack Wang, a member of the Forest Biotechnology Group in the College of Natural Resources. "This finding gives us a better understanding of plants, especially how wood is formed, which will allow us to modify the process for economically important uses of wood."
"Plants use a process called protein phosphorylation to rapidly respond to external stimuli, such as threats from drought, pests or diseases," says Ling Chuang, co-lead author with the Forest Biotechnology Group. NC State chemists Philip Loziuk and David Muddiman played a critical role in developing a new mass spectrometry-based technique used in the study.
Researchers focused on an enzyme controlling six of 35 chemical reactions in the lignin biosynthesis pathway, all of which were shut down, significantly altering lignin composition in black cottonwood.
The research could be used to help modify plant properties and physical traits, including engineering plants that will be better biofuel feedstocks or modifying them to be more resistant to pests.
The study found that about 97 percent of all plant species, including pines and grasses, are equipped with sites for phosphorylation, Wang says, though more research will be needed to unravel how it works.
"Phosphorylation-mediated control of wood formation seems to be a ubiquitous process in plants," he says. "It's probably a very ancient mechanism."
The current research builds on two seminal NC State studies published in 2014 that provide the equivalent of GPS directions for future research. New research findings are being incorporated into a predictive model created during that work, improving its accuracy.
The PNAS study was funded with National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program Grant DBI-0922391, the NC State Jordan Family Distinguished Professor Endowment, the NC State Forest Biotechnology Industrial Research Consortium and National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 31470672 and 3140093.
Contributing authors Hao Chen, Ying-Chung Lin and Rui Shi are also members of NC State's Forest Biotechnology Group. Guan-Zheng Qu is with the Northeast Forestry University of China.]]>
Knowing more about these insects and arachnids might not make you like them, but it could help you understand how to deal with them. (What exactly are those carpenter bees doing to your porch, anyway?)
We've written a series of posts to give you more information on our arthropod neighbors. So study up on the bad bugs of summer. And if there are other pests you want to know more about, please let us know!
The award recognizes the nation's most forward-thinking college dining service each year. In particular, the magazine lauds the self-operated service's "commitment to campus community and dining quality."
It's another in a long list of awards for NC State Dining. In 2013, it received the Grand Goldie for Best Sustainable Practices. In 2014, it also received awards Top College & University Foodservice Innovators, Top 15 Healthiest Non-Commercial FoodService and Food Service Director of the Month (for Senior Director of Hospitality Services Randy Lait) all from FoodService Magazine.
The dining service has been particularly busy over the past four years, developing five new concepts and adding three commercial brands in the new Talley Student Union, developing the multi-concept On the Oval on Centennial Campus, renovating its Atrium Food Court and adding both an ice cream and a smoothie shop.
Reclaimed water — wastewater that has been re-treated to render it fit for further use — is actually cleaner than the fresh water taken from Falls Lake and the Neuse River before it goes into Raleigh's water treatment plant. But reclaimed water does contain trace amounts of heavy metals and salts that can't be returned to the water supply because of state regulations. That doesn't prevent the use of reclaimed water — which costs about half as much as the city's processed drinking water — for many other purposes.
That's why the city has invested $5 million in building a reclaimed water line to the edge of campus, and NC State is spending $1.5 million to install a reuse water main on Main Campus Drive. When completed in December, the new main will provide reclaimed water for irrigation, for boilers and cooling towers in the central utility plant and even for flushing toilets in places like the Hunt Library.
"This is a real win-win for the city and for the university," says Jack Colby, assistant vice chancellor for facilities operations. "It reflects a level of cooperation on sustainability issues. This is one more way that we are reducing the cost of operating the campus without negatively impacting the quality of our programs.
"Over time, this is a project that will pay for itself."
Depending on use and continued growth on Centennial Campus, the line will pay for itself in seven to nine years, Colby says.
Using reclaimed water for irrigation and other uses saves the university money and helps enhance the golf course's certified Audubon International Signature Golf Sanctuary status as an environmentally friendly course.
"This is a great initiative for NC State and enhances our overall dedication to maintaining a 'green' climate on campus," says LPGC general manager Chip Watson. "It also shows that the university can be a great partner with the city of Raleigh as we both work to be good stewards of our resources."
Between now and the end of construction in December, some street parking spaces will be closed down to maintain two lanes of traffic along Main Campus Drive. At least one lane of traffic will always be open for the duration of the project.]]>


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ChrisD.ca The David Asper University of Manitoba Bison Football Centre is officially opened at Investors Group Field.
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"When you look at something, you go back, you're hoping after you put your quarterback through it, he won't make the same mistake again," coach Mike Shanahan said.
Grossman didn't get completely comfortable with his timing until his second season, after he had a full offseason and training camp working with the first team, he said.
As he sees Griffin face some of the same difficulties dissecting coverages and making decisions, he believes Griffin's play will be refined in the game.
"You don't want to waste reps because your left guard or somebody got beat," Grossman said. "I know he believes a lot of those, he would have escaped quicker and got out of there and would have made a great play, probably. I think he doesn't escape to go through his progressions."
On Thursday night, Griffin's progress finally will be measured by a live defense. It's an important first test, but he sees a more gradual progression, one that will make his internal alarm clock more precise.
"It just comes with time," Griffin said. "You've got to learn when to run, when not to run, when to get the ball out of your hands and when to throw the ball in the dirt."


text:
Saturday, 16 Apr 2011 07:26 AM
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama official says three adult family members have died when a tornado hit a home in central Alabama.
Autauga County Chief Deputy Sheriff Joe Sedinger tells The Associated Press the three were killed late Friday night in the Boone's Chapel community of the county, about 24 miles north of Montgomery.
Combined with one death previously reported in Alabama and other fatalities in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the death toll has risen to 13 in the nation's deadliest storm of the season.
© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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