- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock /news-archive/tag/diamond-mcgehee/ ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:30:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 ��Vlog��ý Little Rock receives $1 million to study genetics of heat-tolerant rice /news-archive/2018/12/19/rice-research/ Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:30:32 +0000 /news/?p=73015 ...]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor and several doctoral students are researching heat tolerance in rice in hopes of helping rice farmers improve their yield – and ultimately – reduce hunger. Dr. Mariya Khodakovskaya, a biology professor and interim associate dean in the College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences, received a $1 million grant to study the genetic qualities of rice to determine its heat tolerance. She is part of a consortium of researchers from the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Oklahoma State University, and Louisiana State University. Dr. Andy Pereira, professor of crop, soil and environmental science in the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the ��Vlog��ý Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, leads the consortium. The four universities collectively received $4.65 million from the National Science Foundation to support their work over a four-year period. The team is studying the genetics of more than 400 rice varieties collected from around the world. The goal of the project is to ensure active, stable rice production to keep up with future population growth and environmental changes. The results will be shared with farmers. “We are working in live science,” Khodakovskaya said. “This is important because it is close to the needs of society and close to industry. We target a lot of practical problems, and the final results will be results that public can assess and use.” The consortium will study rice grown in two different environments: one under heat stress and one under the actual air temperature of the environment. By comparing the two groups of plants, the researchers will be able to identify varieties of rice that produce high-quality grains in spite of rising temperatures. At ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, four doctoral students in applied science are assisting Khodakovskaya – Diamond McGehee, Sudha Shanmugam, Zoya Nadeem Faruqui, and Kamal Pandey. Kamal Pandey also manages the greenhouse located atop ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, where the students grow and monitor rice specimens. Their study examines the links between plant metabolism and heat response in rice in order to identify proteins and biomolecules, called metabolites, associated with heat tolerance. The team will use liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to monitor rice metabolism. “Using that and other data, we can go through and find out which compounds are being produced and identify different sensitivities to heat stress,” said Diamond McGehee of Conway. “We hope it will give us insights into mechanisms for heat tolerance in rice.” Shanmugam, who is from India, said the research is important for the long-term applications. “Rice is a staple food for half of the world’s population,” she said. “Millions of farmers are having trouble growing rice because of climate. Each year, 40 percent of the crops are lost due to drought. Because of that, it’s better to create a drought-tolerant rice if it will help the farmers.” Arkansas is the country’s largest producer of rice, which is also the state’s top export. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Dr. Mariya Khodakovskaya (right) and her team of applied science doctoral students are researching the heat tolerance of rice. Students include (from left) Diamond McGehee, Zoya Faruqui, Kamal Pandey and Sudha Shanmugam. Photo by Benjamin Krain]]> ��Vlog��ý Little Rock hosts second annual 3 Minute Thesis Competition /news-archive/2018/11/14/ua-little-rock-hosts-second-annual-3-minute-thesis-competition/ Wed, 14 Nov 2018 18:04:00 +0000 /news/?p=72674 ...]]> Mechanical and materials engineering student Ali Abdulhussein won ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s second annual 3 Minute Thesis, or 3MT, competition on Nov. 7. 3MT is a competition for doctoral students branded by the University of Queensland in Australia. It challenges students to summarize and present their doctoral research in a short, three-minute “elevator speech.” Competitions have been held at colleges and universities around the world. Winners receive scholarship awards, with cash values of $400 for first place, $300 for runner-up, and $200 for the people’s choice award, awarded by audience vote. This year’s competition was won by Ali Abdulhussein, with Diamond McGehee as the runner-up and Brian Keltch being awarded the people’s choice award. Other students who participated were Sudha Shanmugam, Evan Xiaowei Liu, Wei Dai, Ujwani Nukala, and Dileen Abdulqader. Abdulhussein, an international student from Iraq, designed an absorbent block with the specific purpose of cleaning up oil spills. The block is made from cheap materials, can be easily manufactured on a large scale, and preserves the absorbed oil so that it may be used again. “Oil spills are very bad for the environment,” Abdulhussein said. “They are also very expensive to clean up, and it’s difficult to even do that without harming the environment around them. For this project in particular, I kept the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico in mind and how difficult it was to clean,” Abdulhussein explained. Abdulhussein credits his advisor, Dr. Alexandru Biris of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, for both encouraging him to take part in the competition as well as for his contributions to his project. “Dr. Biris is one of the top scientists in Arkansas, and I’m very fortunate to be able to work with him,” Abdulhussein said. “There was lots of hard work and even some suffering to get here, but I’m excited that the judges here enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to continuing this research and taking what I’ve learned here back to my home country.” McGehee, an applied science major from Magnet Cove, took on both the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as well as the daunting task of growing food for long voyages, using a hypothetical journey to Mars as a basis. “When I started my research, I knew I wanted to do anything involving plants,” McGehee said. “I initially wanted to take a different route, but I received a very generous amount of funding from the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium and that got me interested in all the science that goes into space travel.” McGehee’s research, which focuses on using carbon nanotubes to create hardier and faster growing fruits and vegetables, was also influenced by the growing movement against GMOs. “We have the ability already to genetically modify foods for long voyages like one to Mars would be. But some people don’t like that idea, and with nanotubes you can achieve a similar result without actually genetically modifying anything,” McGehee said. Keltch, a computer science major from Little Rock and a career software developer, brought his many years of experience into his research. His project focuses on software that “talks back” to both its users and programmers and communicates in easy-to-understand and more “human” terms. “In my 25 years in software developing, it’s always amazed me how much effort goes into it yet how often it’s a failure,” Keltch said. “This project more than anything else is really about the importance of software evolution and prolonging that once we get there.” ]]> Student research and creative works winners announced /news-archive/2018/05/04/student-research-winners/ Fri, 04 May 2018 21:47:21 +0000 /news/?p=70436 ...]]> The winners of the 2018 Student Research and Creative Works Showcase at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock were announced during an awards ceremony May 1 in the Student Services Center. Students presented more than 150 research and creative works April 12 in the Jack Stephens Center. Student projects were judged on the novelty and clarity of their research, the soundness of their methodology, the potential application of their findings, and the student’s ability to explain their project to an expert and lay audience. A complete list of winners and their projects include: Undergraduate Winners Art First Place: Corrie Green, “The New African-American Women:Exploring Intersectionality in Non-traditional Casting” First Place (tie): Thomas Jackson, “Concept Statement for the play Art by Yasmina Reza” Economics First Place: Abigail Resendiz, “The 1920 Merchant Marine Act: An Outdated and Protectionist Law Disturbing Economic Growth” First Place (tie): Logan Vickery and Nick Stevens, “The Cost of Responsibility: Impacts on Rental Prices of the Implied Warrant of Habitability” Education First Place: Madison Christie, “Visual Verse: Translating English Poems into ASL” Second Place: Cameryn Kirkham, “Teaching Charlie May Simon as an Author, Artist, and Arkansan” Engineering First Place: J’von Jackson, “Venturi Scrubber Design for Syngas System” Second Place: Begros Asgeirsdottir, “Utilization of Rainwater for Cooling House Interior” Life & Physical Science First Place: Davonte Hokes, “Investigation of Bio-Inspired Polymeric Coating for Improvement in ORR Activity of Amidomacrocyclic Cobal (III) Catalyst Complexes” Second Place: Emily Anderson and Cordell Gilreath, “Development for Lyme Disease” Third Place: Marina Avram, “Algal Oculata Biotemplated Water-Splitting Nanocatalysts Nickel/Iron Oxides” Social Science First Place: Abigail Resendiz, “Financial Impact of the Jones Act” Second Place: Emily Elam, “500 Fiddle Tunes: Transcriptions of Billy Mathews’ Old-Time Archive” Third Place: Cynthia Wyman, “Intellectual and Hungry: Assessing the State of Campus Food Insecurity” Technology First Place: Deepali Lal, “Are Alcohol Establishments Marketing Crime?” Second Place: Yumeng Ye, “A Project – First Approach to Teaching Entity Resolution and Identity Management” Humanities First Place: El-Noor Ahkter, “The Color of Women” First Place (tie): Michael Caysido, “Aram II’yich Khachaturian and the Use of Folk Songs in His Compositions” Second Place: Emily Junkans, “Phonetic Features of Native Spanish Speakers Learning English” Physical Science First Place: Rebecca Moreira, “Novel Renewable Resource Based Nanocomposites for Removal and Recovery of Phosphorus from Contaminated Wastewaters” Second Place: Nathan Taylor, “Ionizing Radiation Protection by Inhibition of PP2A” Second Place (tie): Samantha Macchi, “Supercapacitor application of phosphorus and nitrogen co-doped carbon materials from renewable precursor materials” Service Work and Professional Application First Place: Rebecca Moreira, “How Spanish Interpreting at the 12th Street Clinic Can Lead to Medical School” GRAD��Vlog��ýTE WINNERS Biology First Place: Diamond McGehee with M. Lahiani, F. Irwin, and M. Green, “Investigation of the Effects of Carbon –Based Nanomaterials on the Metabolomics Level in Plants” Engineering First Place: Trigun Maroo, “A Novel Gripper System for Corrugated Box Grasping and Manipulation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” First Place (tie): Ali Abdulhussein, “Facile fabrication of a free-standing superhydrophobic and superoleophilic carbon nanofiber-polymer block that effectively absorbs oils and chemical pollutants from water” Health Science First Place: Asween Marco, Naveen Patil, Jane Voyles, Yan Egbe, and Leonard Mukasa. “The Threat of Tuberculosis Transmission Among the US-born: Lessons from Two Outbreaks, Arkansas” Second Place: Elizabeth Burnham, “The Social (Media) Social Work(er)” Life Science Second Place: Rebekah White, “Toxic Effects of Copper and Nickel on Synechocystis PCC 6803” Life & Physical Science First Place: Amita Nakarmi and Rebecca Moreira, “Phosphate Removal From Contaminated Waters” Second Place: Dane Hudson, “Cylic Electron Flow Prevents Photoinhibition in Solanum habrochaites Under Drought Stress” Physical Science First Place: Busra Ergul, Mahbuba Begum, Nancy Kariuki, and Deborah Myers. “Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity of Platinum Thin Films with Different Densities” First Place (tie): Daniel Nde, “Algae-Biotemplated Water-splitting Nanocatalysts for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction” Professional Studies First Place: Thu Nguyen, “Do In-house Investor Relations Professionals in Real Estate Management Use PR and Strategic Communications Principles?” Second Place: Raad Alawajji, Zeid A. Nima, Ahmed K. Hashoosh, Karrer M. Alghazali, Emilie Darrigues, Nigel Kelly (undergraduate), Ashley Strohmeyer (undergraduate), and Ali Abdulhussein (presenter). “Fabrication of Transparent Superhydrophobic Polytetrafluoroethylene Coating” Social Science First Place: Jennifer Watkins: “Why don’t they listen to me: A qualitative interpretive meta synthesis of a child’s perception of their sexual abuse” Second Place: Margaret Kealy-Machella, “What’s App: Little Rock AFB Mobile App Communication Plan” Systems Engineering First Place: Rajat Singh, “Flexible Control of Synergistic Group of Muscles” Technology First Place (tie): Tuja Khaund and Samer Al-Khateeb. “Analyzing Social Bots and their Coordination during Crisis Weather Events” Second Place: Evan Xiangwen Liu, “Deep Neutral Networks Self-taught Learning” Second Place: Chen Xu, “Monitoring Traffic through IDS on OpenStack Cloud” In the photo above right, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock student Corrie Green (right) talks about her project, “The New African-American Woman: Exploring Intersectionality in Non-Traditional Casting,” to Jana McAuliffe, who was judging student works at the Student Research and Creative Works Showcase. Photo by Benjamin Krain]]>