Worcester Polytechnic Institute

About: Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a education organization based out in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Population. The organization has 6270 authors who have published 12704 publications receiving 332081 citations. The organization is also known as: WPI.

Effects of gibberellic acid on hairy root cultures of Artemisia annua: Growth and artemisinin production

Abstract: Artemisinin (AN), a potent antimalarial drug that has been used for centuries as a folk remedy in China, is an effective treatment against quinine-resistant strains of Plasmodium. It can be produced through the in vitro culture of genetically transformed (hairy) roots. The effect of gibberellic acid (GA3) on the growth and secondary metabolite production of hairy roots of Artemisia annua was investigated. Six different concentrations of GA3 were tested in shaker flasks to determine the optimum concentration. GA3 levels of 0.01–0.001 mg/l (28.9–2.89 µM) provided the most significant increase in biomass, and 0.01 mg/l (28.9 µM) produced the highest amount of AN. Investigation of growth kinetics showed that the use of GA3 at 0.01 mg/l (28.9 µM) increased the growth rate of hairy roots of A. annua by 24.9%. Thus, the cultures treated with GA3 reached stationary phase faster than control cultures.

Performance Optimization Using Multipath Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc and Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Multipath routing has been a promising technique in MANETs and WSNs. It has been shown through both theoretical analysis and simulation results that multipath routing provides many performance benefits, including improved fault tolerance, security, and reliability, improved routing efficiency and reduced routing overhead, more balanced traffic load and energy consumption, reduced end-to-end latency, and aggregated network bandwidth, etc. Significant research efforts have been made and are continuously being made in developing multipath routing protocols and multipath packet forwarding techniques in order to achieve the above-mentioned performance gains effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, many issues that are directly related to the application of multipath routing remain untouched, such as the integration of the multipath routing into the current single-path routing paradigm, the synchronization of the packets among the multiple paths, and the interfaces of multipath routing protocols to other layers of protocol in the network protocol stack, etc.

Improving Sensor-Free Affect Detection Using Deep Learning

Abstract: Affect detection has become a prominent area in student modeling in the last decade and considerable progress has been made in developing effective models. Many of the most successful models have leveraged physical and physiological sensors to accomplish this. While successful, such systems are difficult to deploy at scale due to economic and political constraints, limiting the utility of their application. Examples of “sensor-free” affect detectors that assess students based solely using data on the interaction between students and computer-based learning platforms exist, but these detectors generally have not reached high enough levels of quality to justify their use in real-time interventions. However, the classification algorithms used in these previous sensor-free detectors have not taken full advantage of the newest methods emerging in the field. The use of deep learning algorithms, such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs), have been applied to a range of other domains including pattern recognition and natural language processing with success, but have only recently been attempted in educational contexts. In this work, we construct new “deep” sensor-free affect detectors and report significant improvements over previously reported models.

100% Hot Mix Asphalt Recycling: Challenges and Benefits

Abstract: Dramatically rising asphalt binder cost, dwindling budgets, growing traffic loads, and the desire to find more sustainable paving practices are forcing agencies to seek ways for maximizing the re-use of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP). While most of the academic and industrial institutions have been focused on the development of procedures to recycle hot asphalt mixes with up to 40% RAP content, a few industry innovators have refined 100% recycling technologies over the past four decades to a level where routine production of 100% recycled mixes is in clear sight. The main hindrance in the widespread use of 100% recycling is the unproven performance of 100% RAP pavements and lack of a unified and rational system for selection of materials and mix design. The objective of this research was, therefore, to critically investigate the concept of 100% recycling, determine whether such mixtures can perform as well as conventional asphalt mixes and if yes, develop a mixture design method for 100% recycled asphalt. This article presents a summary of the research, demonstrating that with adequate mixture design 100% recycled asphalt mixtures can perform equally to conventional asphalt. The available production technologies are also shortly summarized. Finally an environmental effect and cost calculation is performed demonstrating reduction of emission by 35% while reducing the costs of materials by half.