Ogden College of Science and Engineering
The Leading Edge
(January—March 2010) Feature
Article 1
Issue 21
April 2010
Center for Water Resource Studies The Center for Water Resource Studies (CWRS) has been awarded an Advanced Technological Education grant from the National Science Foundation to support the development of the Water Training Institute (WTI) at Western Kentucky University. WTI builds on CWRS’s existing linkages with the employment sector (water and wastewater utilities, state primacy agencies, and technical assistance/trade associations) to develop a curriculum that utilizes on­line course delivery in addition to hands­on experience for students. A nationwide need for water and wastewater operator training has risen due to multiple factors including retirement of the existing water operations workforce, and the skill level and certification requirements of the job. However, the geographic distribution of water treatment plants (potential employers) does not always coincide with the availability of traditional educational opportunities. These jobs require a hands­on training component prior to licensure, so distance learning alone cannot accommodate the needs of these students. Finding an adequate combination of education and experience is particularly challenging in remote communities. The WTI program fills this gap by creating linkages with industry partners to provide a well­rounded education for its students through internship opportunities in their community. A network of utilities (UNet) is being formed to facilitate this process. Another unique aspect of the WTI program is its mentoring component. Modeled on SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), EEYORE (Encouraging Every Young Operator with Retired Experience) is a volunteer mentoring network that links students with experienced professionals in the industry for advice and practical guidance through an on­line social networking environment. This will also provide students with valuable connections to the industry upon graduation. The WTI degree program will offer a formal education system focused on producing graduates with knowledge and skills relevant to the water and wastewater industry. This Associate of Science degree in Water Resource Management will have three tracks: Water Treatment Operations, Wastewater Treatment Operations, and Water Utility Management. A fourth track in Water/Wastewater Laboratory Technician Training is being investigated. An internship is required for each track of the degree program to supply students with the necessary hands­on experience. Through the WTI program, CWRS is bridging the traditionally separate policy domains of education, labor, and economic development. WTI will increase the knowledge of the future and current water utility workforce in ways that are relevant to both the short­ and long­term economic needs and priorities of Kentucky and beyond. Figure 3
Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 1: WTI student Samantha Kramer uses a Total Organic Carbon (TOC) analyzer in the WATERS Laboratory. Figure 2: An undergraduate student inspects a manhole as part of a project to map a c ommunity's wastewater collection system using GPS. Figure 3: View of an aeration basin at a wastewater treatment facility where students can get hands­on experience Engineering Services Center
With the support of ARTP funds, WKU Electrical Engineering (EE) students compete annually in a student hardware competition hosted by the Southeast Region of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). The 2010 IEEE Southeast Conference was held March 20 th in Charlotte, NC. The theme of this year’s contest was alternative energy. The student teams were charged with designing a mobile robot powered only by the energy collected from four high intensity halogen lamps. When the game began, the robot had three minutes to gather energy and then autonomously maneuver a pre­defined course. Teams earned points for moving, navigating obstacles, and completing the course. Teams from 43 engineering programs across the southeast, including Kentucky, Louisville, Tennessee Tech, Georgia Tech, and Clemson participated in the competition. After three preliminary rounds, the WKU team was in third place overall and qualified to compete in the final round to determine the champion. The team faced Mississippi State and the University of Florida in the championship round. For the first time in the twelve years WKU has participated in the competition, the WKU EE program won the IEEE Southeast Conference Autonomous Robot Competition. A photo of the WKU robot is shown in Figure 1 Figure 1. Students and WKU faculty and staff who attended the conference are shown in Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4. Students who attended the competition were Billy Seng (Louisville, KY), Matthew Lodmell (Frankfort, KY), Jason Whitehouse (Utica, KY), Nermin Peimanovic (Bowling Green, KY), Daniel Childress (Team Captain, Bowling Green, KY), Andrew Ayre (Gallatin, TN), Drew Bewley (Bowling Green, KY), and Randy Feature
Article 2 Figure 2 Fulling (Oakland City, IN). Department of Engineering faculty and staff in attendance were Dr. Mark Cambron Mr. Ron Rizzo, Dr. Michael McIntyre, and Dr. Stacy Wilson. Figure 3 Figure 4
— Applied Research In The News —
Applied
Physics Institute
Architectural and
Manufacturing Science
Institute
Director: Linda Gonzales EST 237, 270­745­3151 linda.gonzales@wku.edu
Director:
Alex Barzilov
TCCW 214, 270-745-5484
alexander.barzilov@wku.edu
Director:
Neal Downing
EST222, 270-745-6302
neal.downing@wku.edu
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Currently there are 6 students developing 22 deign projects on the drawing board.
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There are currently 10 Architectural Design Projects under construction including a Dentist’s Office.
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AMSI has surpassed the $16 million plateau in construction value for Built Works to date.
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AMSI provided conceptual design renderings for the presentation and submittal to bring the Confucius Institute to WKU.
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AMSI is continuing to perform laser etching services for WKU and local industries.
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AMSI is continuing to perform water jet services for WKU and local industries.
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Two more of AMSI’s graduating seniors have been accepted to multiple Graduate Schools of Architecture to obtain their Masters degree. Their current challenge is to decide which program to attend. WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY
IN THE NEWS
Agriculture Research
and Education Complex
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Soils Judging team competed in regional and national contests.
Both graduate and undergraduate students attended the Kentucky Alfalfa Conference in February along with Drs. Gonzales and Woosley.
Materials were purchased for the Sustainable Grazing thesis project and preliminary fencing was finished.
Dr. Kessell submitted a proposal to the USDA for a Higher Education Challenge Grant.
Dr. Kessell’s upper level undergraduate Agriculture Education class undertook a research, development and demonstration project using modern internet accessible technology for classroom applications. The project is ongoing. ·
Center for
Biodiversity Studies Biotechnology
Center
Director:
Scott Grubbs
TCNW 107, 270-745-5048
scott.grubbs@wku.edu
Director: Nancy Rice TCNW 201, 270­745­5995 nancy.rice@wku.edu
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Jesus Orozco (a former Biodiversity Graduate Student) and Dr. Keith Philips published a new paper on scarab beetle phylogeny in the journal Insect Systematics and Evolution.
Dr. Bruce Schulte gave a talk titled "The relationship of facial whorl direction to handedness and aggression in horses" on March 25th­ 26th at the 17th Annual Indiana University Animal Behavior Conference.
Dr. Michael Stokes and Dr. Bruce Schulte attended a NSF­BREAD conference on March 5th­6th in Washington D.C. BREAD is a joint venture between NSF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Stokes gave a presentation on his work in Kenya.
Dr. Scott Grubbs published a paper on Upper Green River fish ecology in a journal managed by the International Society of Limnology. ·
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The Biotechnology Center has recently hired a new Coordinator for the facility, Ms. Naomi Rowland.
API team led by Dr. Alex Barzilov worked with Adelphi Technologies on Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence project. Center for Water Resource
Studies
Director:
Claire Rinehart
TCNW 121, 270-745-5997
claire.rinehart@wku.edu
Director:
Andrew Ernest
TCCW 105, 270-745-8895
andrew.ernest@wku.edu
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Four oral presentations and one poster were presented at the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute (KWRRI) annual symposium in Lexington on March 22.
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Rick Fowler of WATERS Laboratory joined in a Cooperative Agreement signed in February to collaborate on cave and karst research combining experts at WKU, Mammoth Cave, and the Slovenian Karstological Institute.
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WATERS Laboratory is collaborating with the Kentucky Division of Water to perform DNA analysis to quantify and identify sources of fecal pollution in the Bacon Creek watershed in Hart County.
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Dr. Andrew Ernest presented information about the CWRS’s Water Training Institute at the annual conference of the Association of Boards of Certification (ABC) in Jacksonville, FL on January 28.
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WATERS Laboratory received Drinking Water Certification for Organics from the Kentucky Division of Water. ·
Ms. Rowland has a broad range of expertise spanning the fields of Agriculture, Cell Biology, and Molecular Biology.
Ms. Rowland says her primary goal upon taking leadership of the Center is to support the students and members of the Center in their research programs so that they remain competitive for spots in top­tier graduate programs and in seeking extramural funding, respectively. Dr. Ivan Novikov established international collaboration in the area of nuclear physics between Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (Russia) and Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The goal of the project is to study the properties ­ size and nuclear density distribution ­ of unstable nuclei. Results were presented at the American Physics Society April meeting (Denver, 2009) and published in Physical Review C (December 2009).
Bioinformatics & Information
Science Center
Ms. Rowland earned her B.S. from Western Kentucky University and M.S. from the University of Tennessee.
Ms. Rowland comes to us with 14 years of lab experience, 5 of which is as Laboratory Supervisor.
Dr. Vladimir Dobrokhotov was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for a 3­year project “Detection of Explosive Materials Using Electronic Nose Technology.” The goal of this project is to develop a prototype of an electronic nose based on chemically functionalized nanosprings.
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Twenty­three BISC faculty, staff and students attended the University of Tennessee ­ Oak Ridge National Lab ­ Kentucky Biomedical Infrastructure Network (UT­ORNL­KBRIN) Bioinformatics Summit March 19­21 at Lake Barkley State Park. Nine poster presentations were made.
During the Spring Semester the Genome Discovery and Exploration class (Biology 275 has completed the annotation of the mycobacterium bacteriophage that the BISC had sequenced by JGI over the winter break. Fourteen students contributed to the annotation which was presented in a poster at the UT­ORNL­KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit and will be published in the NCBI genome database. The abstract for the poster will be published in BMC Bioinformatics.
Students, faculty and staff published a techniques paper on circadian rhythms: Gaskill, C., Forbes­Stovall, J., Kessler, W. B., Young, M., Rinehart, C. A., Jacobshagen, S. H. H. (2010). Improved automated monitoring and new analysis algorithm for circadian phototaxis rhythms in Chlamydomonas. In Jean­Claude Kader (Ed.), Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (vol. 48, pp. 239­246). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Engineering
Services Center
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ARTP Office
Ogden College of Science
and Engineering
STH 2116
1906 College Heights Blvd.
Hoffman Environmental
Research Institute
Institute for Astrophysics
and Space Science
Director:
Kevin Schmaltz
EBS 2210, 270-745-8859
kevin.schmaltz@wku.edu
Director:
Chris Groves
EST 401, 270-745-5201
chris.groves@wku.edu
Director:
Michael Carini
TCCW 229, 270-745-6198
mike.carini@wku.edu
· Robert Choate and other faculty ·
members from WKU’s Department of Engineering offered training for 15 Boy Scouts to earn their Engineering merit badge on February 13, 2010. This was one of “Merit Badge University” events that give scouts the choice of different types of merit badges to earn.
Bowling Green, KY 42101
270-745-8892
270-745-8893 Fax
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· WKU’s Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors ·
Society worked with Engineering faculty and staff to conduct the 10th annual Kentucky Bluegrass LEGO Robotics Competition. The competition took place on March 13 at Drakes Creek Middle School. Elementary and middle school teams built autonomous robots from LEGO Mindstorm kits to navigate a lunar surface quickly and accurately. A total of 150 students competed on 40 teams, and since the competition kickoff in December, approximately 500 students, coaches and parents have visited the Engineering and Biological Sciences building to test and prepare their devices.
Blaine Ferrell
Director, Dean OCSE
STH 2114
270-745-4448
blaine.ferrell@wku.edu
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Shivendra Sahi
Assistant Director
TCNW 105
270-745-6012
shiv.sahi@wku.edu
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· NASA Lunabotics team members Marilyn Anderson
participated in two outreach events as a part of their competition requirements. The team presented an engineering design session, demonstrating the competition robot at the March 13 WKU LEGO competition. The team also provided three sessions on lunar robotic exploration to the Girls in Science event on March 20. Assistant to the Dean
STH 2110
270-745-8891
marilyn.anderson@wku.edu
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Cindy Graham
Administrative Research
Assistant
STH 2111
270-745-8890
cindy.graham@wku.edu
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Wanda Johnson
Operations Specialist
STH 2113
Institute for Combustion
Science and Environmental
Technology Director: Wei­Ping Pan 2413 Nashville Rd., 270­745­2272 wei­ping.pan@wku.edu
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270-745-8894
wanda.johnson@wku.edu
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Lisa Haynes
Office Coordinator
EST 438
270-745-3252
lisa.haynes@wku.edu
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Sharon McGowan
Office Associate
STH 2116
270-745-8892
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sharon.mcgowan@wku.edu
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Website:
http://www.wku.edu/artp
Feedback:
lisa.haynes@wku.edu
ICSET received funding ­ Feasibility Studies on Process Coupling of Transestrification and Methanol Synthesis Using Cellulose Biomass and Bio­Oil."; Funding Source, U.S. Department of Energy (Appropriation from Bret Guthrie); Purpose, Convert full biomass into bio­fuel efficiently, economically and environmentally friendly.
ICSET student will receive his Ph.D. during WKU Graduation Ceremony in May. Student, Quentin Lineberry; Program, Cooperative Ph.D. program in Chemistry between WKU and UofL.
Over the past 10 years, ICSET has had 3 doctoral degrees conferred through the program. Subjects, There is a wide range of fields from nanocomposites to energy­related emissions.
ICSET most cited works: (1) The first student through the program, has been cited 380 times for one part of his thesis Chem. Matter. 2001, and 125 times for the second part Chem. Matter. 2002. (2) ICSET's second student through the program, has been cited 27 times for his Energy & Fuels 2005 m, and 25 times for Energy & Fuels 2005. This illustrates the importance of their respective fields since most paper s do well to garner more than 10 citations. ·
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Graduate Students Dalene Smith and Ben Miller received national awards for their MS. thesis research from the Karst Waters Institute, Geological Society of America, and the Cave Research Foundation.
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In March attendees of the regular Public Astronomy Night participated in the international ’Globe at Night’ program to map the growth of light pollution.
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IASS faculty member, Dr. Strolger, and his collaborators have received an award for the most HST for time ever given to a single program for their plan to study galactic structure in the very early universe.
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In February, Hardin Planetarium premiered an exciting new “Exoplanets” show about the search for habitable planets around distant stars.
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February 20 saw the highly successful running of the WKU annual Physics Olympics for teams of local High School students. The event was run by Dr. Gelderman along with other IASS faculty and staff, this year’s theme was “Green Physics”.
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In January, senior undergraduate at the IASS, K. Cook won a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award at the 215th AAS meeting held in Washington, DC. The Institute welcomed Dr. Jason Polk as our new Associate Director for Science, and Pat Kambesis will serve in her new role as Associate Director for Education.
Institute Director Chris Groves reported progress of the China Environmental Health Project to the US Agency for International Development Regional Mission for Asia in Bangkok, Thailand.
In collaboration with Journalists at Circle of Blue, the Institute launched a multimedia website highlighting our China efforts at <http:// www.circleofblue.org/waternews/ hidden­waters­dragons­in­the­deep/>
Institute personnel continued USDA­ support research into impacts of agricultural land use on karst groundwater quality at the Crump’s Cave research site near Smiths Grove, Kentucky.
Kentucky
Climate Center
Advanced Materials
Institute
Director:
Stuart Foster
EST 304, 270-745-5983
stuart.foster@wku.edu
Director:
Darwin Dahl
TCNW 300/301, 270-780-2568
darwin.dahl@wku.edu
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The Kentucky Mesonet now includes 49 operational weather and climate monitoring stations located throughout Kentucky.
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The Kentucky Mesonet received the Commonwealth Office of Technology's 2010 Best of Kentucky Technology Award for Best Application Serving Public Agencies.
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Three students representing the Kentucky Climate Center, including two undergraduates, presented their research at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers held recently in Washington, D.C. ·
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Jeremy Pedigo has resigned as lab manager effective February of this year.
AMI is currently reviewing applicants for his replacement.
AMI is also looking to appoint a new director starting this summer and initiating an advisory committee.
A proposal has been sent to the Dean’s office requesting the acquisition of a simultaneous ICP­OES.