Recent natural disasters, such as the 2005 Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami, have increased focus on the resilient design of coastal communities to these devastating large-scale hydraulic events. The loads from these events can be separated into hydraulic and debris loads. Debris loads, in particular, are difficult to evaluate in the field and […]

In able-bodied individuals, increases in core temperature during exercise are controlled by the nervous system as a sweating response. However, individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) may have altered sweating responses due to autonomic dysfunction, leading to increased risk of heat stress during exercise. Currently, standard tests do not fully describe how temperature regulation is […]

Improving the durability of superhydrophobic surfaces is of significant interest in the surface engineering community. We have recently developed a novel superhydrophobic coating with a hard nanocrystalline nickel matrix and embedded hydrophobic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles. To further improve the mechanical robustness of the non-wetting coating, the soft polymeric PTFE particles were replaced with hard, hydrophobic […]

Circadian rhythms are processes which allows animals to regulate their physiology based on time of day. These rhythms are controlled by the circadian clock, a group of transcription factors that form a feedback loop. Over 40% of the genome is transcribed rhythmically, implicating the clock in many physiological processes. The cell cycle is another process […]

The proposed research seeks to examine and constrain possible theoretical extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM). The SM is a theory which successfully describes almost all known particle interactions. With the discovery of the Higgs boson, which is responsible for the mass of elementary particles via electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), all the […]

Counts of birds passing a geographic location during migration to or from their breeding grounds are often used to estimate long-term population change. However, birds often stop at count sites for several days to fatten for their next migratory flight, affecting probability of detection. The migratory path followed might also vary among years. The influence […]

High-volume online stream processing, also known as fast data processing, is becoming increasingly important in a number of different commercial sectors. Unlike big data processing in which data is processed asynchronously in batches, fast data processing performs synchronous data analysis that generates actionable results within a specified deadline. One of the key challenges in building […]

Polymorphs are solid compounds that can take on various forms. Since polymorphs of the same type of material normally exhibit different physical properties, it is very important that polymorphs be known so that useful forms of materials can be consistently controlled in the production process. This project will look at improving pharmaceuticals by finding more […]

Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the deformation and flow of matter, especially the non-Newtonian flow of liquids and the plastic flow of solids, which is very important in the foaming process. Currently, the rheology of a pure polymer is mainly used to characterize the foamability of polymers. However, the processing conditions, […]

Research in second language education has raised an overarching question regarding what kind of language practice that should be in the place to respond to the changing global landscape of higher education. Though the notion of plurlingual competence has gained increasing attention in recent years, there has been scarce literature focusing on (and comparing) educators’ […]

The research project examines how social and political groups make critical policy choices in a challenging economic context. Focusing on the sub-provincial cases in China, the project aims to examine the process of financial reform during a period of declining economic growth. Examining the government-business relations, the research addresses the challenges that the Chinese political […]

Urbanization is increasing rapidly worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, and thus becoming an issue in addressing food security. In addition to the conflict between sustaining rural agricultural production and the rapid consumption of land by growing urban activities, agricultural areas within or around cities are also being transformed. This is creating a need for diverse […]