Wichita State University

About: Wichita State University is a education organization based out in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 4988 authors who have published 9563 publications receiving 253824 citations. The organization is also known as: WSU & Fairmount College.

Galvanic corrosion of Al/Cu meshes with carbon fibers and graphene and ITO-based nanocomposite coatings as alternative approaches for lightning strikes

Abstract: Earlier airplane fuselages were made primarily of aluminum alloy sheets, which have very good electrical conductivity. If lightning strikes an aluminum alloy surface, the current generated by the lightning can easily flow without interruption or diversion to the interior of the aircraft. Today, fiber-reinforced polymer composites have been widely utilized in aircraft. In order to protect fiber-reinforced composites against lightning strikes, copper (Cu) and aluminum (Al) meshes or metal sheets are used in the uppermost layer. As it is known, carbon fibers are nobler than both Cu and Al meshes, resulting in galvanic corrosion when these dissimilar materials interact with each other under certain environmental conditions. Consequently, corroded metal mesh areas will lose conductivity on the composite surface. For this reason, lightning strike protection is vitally important for the new generation of composite aircraft. In the present study, we systematically studied the galvanic corrosion effects of carbon fibers and metal (Al and Cu) meshes in acidic and salty conditions. We found that environmental conditions had a big impact on the galvanic corrosion between carbon fibers and metal meshes used for fiber-reinforced composites. This paper discusses current lightning strike protection techniques and provides some experimental evidence of graphene and indium-doped tin oxide (ITO)-based nanocomposite coatings on carbon fiber-reinforced composites. This approach may overcome the problem of lightning strikes on composite aircraft and may be useful for redesigning the new generation of composite aircraft.

Catanionic surfactant vesicles for electrostatic molecular sequestration and separation

Abstract: Mixtures of oppositely charged surfactants, commonly called catanionic mixtures, are one of the most interesting and promising areas of colloidal chemistry. In this paper we review our previous work and report new results on electrostatic adsorption of organic solutes and DNA to the exterior surfaces of catanionic, unilamellar vesicles which form spontaneously in mixtures of sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) and cetyltrimethylammonium tosylate (CTAT). Our group, along with others, has shown that organic ions and polyelectrolytes will bind to the exterior surface of oppositely charged catanionic vesicles through interactions with unpaired ionic surfactants present in the vesicle bilayer. The electrostatic sequestration of organic ions with catanionic vesicles is extremely efficient with excellent long-term stability and can be used to perform separations on mixtures of charged organic solutes. Using regular solution theory extended to vesicle-forming surfactant mixtures, we can understand how the composition of the bilayer changes with surfactant dilution, and we study this effect using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS). We employ FCS to make sensitive measurements of bilayer adsorption and compare the adsorption of a small molecular probe with that of a single-stranded, dye-labeled DNA molecule. From these FCS studies, adsorption isotherms can be obtained that report on the relative binding strengths of the two systems. The results show that DNA binds much more strongly to the exterior surface of positively charged catanionic vesicles, and can even stabilize vesicles at very low surfactant concentrations near the critical aggregation concentration (cac).

Supernova neutrino burst detection with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

Abstract: The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a 40-kton underground liquid argon time projection chamber experiment, will be sensitive to the electron-neutrino flavor component of the burst of neutrinos expected from the next Galactic core-collapse supernova. Such an observation will bring unique insight into the astrophysics of core collapse as well as into the properties of neutrinos. The general capabilities of DUNE for neutrino detection in the relevant few- to few-tens-of-MeV neutrino energy range will be described. As an example, DUNE's ability to constrain the $ u_e$ spectral parameters of the neutrino burst will be considered.

Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task

Abstract: In psychology research studies, the goals of the experimenter and the goals of the participants often do not align. Researchers are interested in having participants who take the experimental task seriously, whereas participants are interested in earning their incentive (e.g., money or course credit) as quickly as possible. Creating experimental methods that are pleasant for participants and that reward them for effortful and accurate data generation, while not compromising the scientific integrity of the experiment, would benefit both experimenters and participants alike. Here, we explored a gamelike system of points and sound effects that rewarded participants for fast and accurate responses. We measured participant engagement at both cognitive and perceptual levels and found that the point system (which invoked subtle, anonymous social competition between participants) led to positive intrinsic motivation, while the sound effects (which were pleasant and arousing) led to attentional capture for rewarded colors. In a visual search task, points were awarded after each trial for fast and accurate responses, accompanied by short, pleasant sound effects. We adapted a paradigm from Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25):10367-10371, 2011b), in which participants completed a training phase during which red and green targets were probabilistically associated with reward (a point bonus multiplier). During a test phase, no points or sounds were delivered, color was irrelevant to the task, and previously rewarded targets were sometimes presented as distractors. Significantly longer response times on trials in which previously rewarded colors were present demonstrated attentional capture, and positive responses to a five-question intrinsic-motivation scale demonstrated participant engagement.