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Student research samplerEngineering students’ “EZ-Puff” helps disabled: Three biomedical engineering students, working in cooperation with URI Professor Ying Sun, have developed a unique electronic device to help individuals with disabilities operate multiple electrical appliances to maximize their independence. Called EZ-Puff, the microprocessor-based device is controlled by a “sip-and-puff switch” - a switch patients operate with their mouth — that can be used to control such things as a wheelchair, nurse call button, and room lighting. Kerri-Anne Lachance, Kerri Pinnock, and Kaylen Haley, all juniors, designed and built the device from scratch. A working prototype has been produced, although the students are still fine-tuning the software and working to make the switch more sensitive. The EZ-Puff can also be used to operate the PowerScan 2000; another device created by URI students in 2000 that controls a television, VCR, stereo and other equipment. Beetlemania. Dan Linden, a wildlife biology major in his junior year at URI, spent last summer on Block Island studying the American burying beetle as part of URI’s Coastal Fellows Program. Linden worked with graduate student Ming Lee Prospero and Chris Raithyl, an endangered species specialist for the R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management. They studied the endangered American burying beetle, a rare species found only on Block Island and some small places in the Midwest. “We worked under (URI Natural Resource Science Professor) Tom Husband to determine the success rates of reintroducing the American burying beetle into the wild, specifically on Nantucket,” said Linden. Funding for Linden’s research was provided by the R.I. Agricultural Experiment Station through the URI Coastal Fellows Program, a unique program designed to involve undergraduate students in research addressing current environmental issues. Student doesn’t flounder around. New research aimed at expanding the aquaculture industry in the U.S. is focusing on how best to raise flounder in a controlled environment. URI senior Coastal Fellow Erin McCaffrey spent the last six months playing a key role in this effort. Working in collaboration with Professor David Bengtson, McCaffrey has worked to determine the optimal velocity of the water in the holding tanks where the flounder are being raised. “If they’re raised in still water and then transferred to net-pens in the bay as adults, mortality rates are very high,” she explained. “We’re finding that if there is some current in the tanks, the fish are going to fight against it, build their muscles, and have a better food conversion rate.” McCaffrey said that the highest water velocity tested - approximately one half knot - caused considerable stress on the flounder and resulted in high mortality rates. Flounder grew fastest at the middle velocity level (one-quarter knot), but survival rates were equal at the middle and lowest velocity levels. Briefs of releases by Todd McLeish, Sarah Emmett More on these stories and others can be found at www.news.uri.edu. To receive briefs like these about University research, news, events, and more, by email subscribe to the URI NewsLine, a free listserve from the Department of Communications/News Bureau. Send an email to jredlich@advance.uri.edu to subscribe. |
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