In the past two centuries, tuberculosis (TB) has killed over 2 billion people. TB is an airborne contagious infection that usually attacks the lungs and can spread to the brain and spine. Today TB is treated with 6-12 months of antibiotics and if the medication is ended early the treatment is ineffective. There are also drug resistant forms of TB that are caused by mutations of the bacteria and this process is sped up by the overprescribing of antibiotics which is a growing problem. Dr. Jeffrey Aube created a drug that attacked both non replicating and replicating TB bacteria in the body. This was a major step from previous medicines that could only attack one. We are creating a library of TB drugs that are customizable, efficiently made, and easily purified. These customizable drugs will not only create a large range of effective medicines but also can treat TB that is resistant to antibiotics. Tuberculosis is still one the leading infectious disease killer today, claiming 1.5 million lives annually and we are making drugs that could change that and save millions of lives.

Pyridinophane molecules have recently been shown to have both antioxidant and pharmacological properties suitable for therapeutic applications targeting neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s. We have synthesized derivatives of the parent molecules with substitutions on the pyridine ring (L1) or on the ‘side’ of the macrocycle (L2) designed to increase the antioxidant activity beyond that of the parent molecule in hopes of producing a molecule suitable for pharmacological testing in animal models. The lab is currently working towards substituting on the ‘bottom’ of the macrocycle (L3) to characterize and compare substitutions at each of the three positions.

Macrocycles are molecules containing at least one ring composed of 12 or more atoms. Macrocyclic drugs have been used clinically for decades. Many interfere with protein-protein interactions. Therapeutic intervention requires that macrocycles remain flexible to facilitate the adoption of different conformations. Specifically, small compact hydrophobic conformations are required to cross cell membranes. The ability of a macrocycle to perform these contortions is predicted by its octonal:water partition coefficient, its so-called logP. Macrocycles (as well as small molecule drugs) that are suitable for oral delivery have a logP value <5. In this study, methionine containing macrocycles are studied. The studies commence with the synthesis of a macrocycle with a dimethylamine auxiliary group that allows for solution-phase NMR analysis. Upon formation of the macrocycle, oxidation to sulfone and sulfoxide derivatives was executed. These macrocycles are of interest because the impact that oxidation has on log P values has not been reported. Additionally, S-oxidation could change the conformation of the molecules. Synthesis beings with substitution of trichlorotriazine with BOC-hydrazine, followed by treatment with methionine in basic conditions. The final substitution of the triazine installs the auxiliary group, dimethylamine (NMR). Amidation with 1,1-diethoxypropyl amine using a peptide coupling reagent yields the monomer. Cyclization using TFA yields the macrocycle. NMR spectroscopy confirms macrocyclization and gives insight into the solution conformation of the molecule. Oxidation strategies and the results of logP analysis will be developed.

Proper functioning of BRCA1 and PALB2 are essential in preventing tumor formation. Upon detection of DNA damage, BRCA1 binds to PALB2, leading to formation of the BRCA1-PALB2-BRCA2 DNA repair complex which is recruited to double-stranded break sites. Mutations in the genes coding for BRCA1 and PALB2 may disrupt this binding interaction, causing obstructions in DNA damage repair and increased breast cancer risk. Variants of unknown significance (VUS) found in breast cancer patients are genetic variants whose impact on the health of individuals are not yet known. Our study characterizes the effects of these VUS on the BRCA1-PALB2 binding interaction. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to generate BRCA1 and PALB2 VUS. It was found that the binding event between BRCA1 and PALB2 is enthalpic in nature and can be measured adequately via isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Thus, ITC was employed to identify whether the VUS disrupted binding. ITC data suggest that several PALB2 and BRCA1 VUS exhibit disruptions of the BRCA1-PALB2 binding interaction, but to varying degrees. We will share the data for variants tested thus far and emerging themes for prediction of the roles residues in both proteins play in the vital interaction.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects over 6.5 million Americans over the age of 65. Previous research links AD with the aggregation of Amyloid-beta-40 (AB40) in the brain, which creates neurotoxic plaques, causing further development of AD in the brain. A potential therapeutic mechanism in the treatment of AD is using drugs that will prevent the formation of these plaques, which is possible with Metal Chelation Therapy.
Metal ion chelation ideally stops metal ions from aiding in the aggregation of AB40. However, to deliver metal chelating agents to the brain, a drug-delivery mechanism is required that will be able to deliver this medicine across the Blood-Brain Barrier. Porous silica is a potential drug delivery material due to its particle size, high loading capacity, tunability, and biocompatibility. Along with these characteristics, porous silica can create a “sustained” release of a given drug, allowing for a slow and steady release profile, reducing the risks of medication side effects.
This project seeks to establish the optimal loading capacities of a class of potential AD therapeutic molecules known as pyclens into porous silica, each with different pyridyl moieties and chemical functionalities along the rim of the molecule. Encapsulation efficiencies measurements for these pyclen derivatives reveal loading percentages in the 10-19% range, varying by pyclen identity. Additionally, release studies monitored diffusion over time to find which pyclen molecule achieved “sustained” release. All loaded pyclen species were able to show sustained release after 20 minutes. Additional release studies of these molecules in the presence of copper (Cu2+) remain to be completed to ascertain the ability of release drugs in the presence of Cu2+ to inhibit AB40 aggregation, followed by independent assays of AB40 solubility under such conditions.

Two proteins, BRCA1 and PALB2 are known to aid in DNA damage repair through homologous recombination. Both proteins are phosphorylated upon DNA damage, and we hypothesize that the phosphorylation of these proteins acts as an “on switch” to allow the proteins to interact and form the DNA repair complex. To test this hypothesis, we mimicked phosphorylation on the BRCA1 protein to test the binding affinity between BRCA1 and PALB2. Phosphomimicking mutants are created by mutating an amino acid with the ability to be phosphorylated and acquire a negative charge, such as threonine (T) or serine (S), to a negatively charged amino acid, such as glutamic acid or aspartic acid. Recent research has shown that specific phosphorylation sites, such as T1394 in BRCA1 are essential to DNA damage and repair in cells. We have created a phosphomimic mutant in this specific T1394 site by mutating threonine to glutamic acid. We are currently measuring the effect that this mutation has on the ability of BRCA1 to bind to PALB2 in vitro. The obtained data will reveal whether phosphorylation has an impact on the interaction between these two proteins or not.

To fight disease, pharmaceutical companies have historically prepared small molecules designed to interfere with specific sites on proteins (enzymes) to prevent chemical reactions from taking place. However, a second paradigm for interfering with proteins has gone largely unexplored--blocking protein-protein interactions. To accomplish the latter, large molecules are needed to bind to large areas on the protein target. However, large molecules present additional challenges. Typically, they are hard to synthesize, not orally available, and typically cannot cross cell membranes. Nature has designed large molecules like cyclosporin that should not work as drugs based on our current understanding. Despite its size, cyclosporin is orally available and can cross cell membranes. This research explores the design, synthesis, and conformational analysis of similar large ring-shaped molecules, so-called macrocycles. In this work, we are increasing the size of the ring-shaped molecule. By increasing the size of the ring-shaped molecule and varying the amino acid (in this case, valine), we are expanding the possible ways in which our macrocycle may interfere with protein-protein interactions. Here, a 26-atom macrocycle is reported. 1H NMR spectroscopy reveals a protonated molecule that is highly dynamic which has access to a beta-sheet conformation.

Macrocyclic drugs adopt multiple conformations--a behavior referred to as chameleonicity--to navigate hydrophobic cellular membranes and aqueous intracellular environments. The rules for understanding this behavior are beginning to emerge through studying existing drugs and the synthesis of model systems. Historically, one challenge to macrocycle synthesis is low yield reactions. To this end, dynamic covalent chemistry has been explored. Here, macrocycles are afforded readily by dimerization with the formation of two hydrazones.

The efficiency of the macrocyclization reaction led to the hypothesis that upon formation of the first hydrazone, the acyclic intermediate was preorganized to place the hydrazine and acetal in close proximity thereby reducing the likelihood of oligomeric or polymeric products. The preorganization could result from a network of hydrogen bonds. Moreover, in an acidic environment, wherein the triazine ring is protonated, the opportunity for bifurcated hydrogen bonds emerge. Computation has been used to identify sites for protonation and the energetic contributions of hydrogen bonding.

To explore templating and the role of protonation in the formation of hydrogen bonds, model systems were prepared that emulate ‘half’ of the macrocycle. The acetylated aminoacetal offers a well-resolved NMR spectrum. In contrast, hindered rotation about the triazine-N bond leads to a mixture of rotamers in the hydrazine component. However, upon condensation, a single rotamer is observed and resonances corresponding to the hydrogen bonded protons emerge downfield between 7-12 ppm. Computation provides estimates of the energetic contribution of the bifurcated hydrogen bond as well as the hydrogen bond formed in the absence of protonation. The results of titration and variable temperature NMR experiments will also be described.

The mis-regulation of reactive oxygen species and transition metal ions contributes to the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. Reactive oxygen species are a natural byproduct of metal redox cycling that occurs within the body and are important in processes like homeostasis and various pathways of cell signaling. Two series of pyridinophane ligands were produced and evaluated for the ability to target the molecular features of Alzheimer’s Disease. The functionalized pyridinophanes were chosen to analyze their blood-brain barrier permeability and radical scavenging ability when included within a molecular scaffold. Preliminary results with the DPPH assay indicated a significant increase in radical scavenging activity for ligands containing electron-donating substitutions in comparison to the parent ligands. These results warrant further exploration into the mechanism of the activity observed.

Petroleum crude oil, unconventional crudes, and renewable bio-crudes are essential materials in our everyday lives. They fuel vehicles, heat buildings, provide electricity, and are used to produce a multitude of other materials, such as plastics and solvents. Crudes are highly complex chemical mixtures, estimated to contain between 100,000 and 100,000,000,000,000,000 unique molecules. Since 2015, single-molecule imaging has visualized hundreds of chemical structures, and historical literature has published thousands of proposed structures. This project builds an open database populated with published crude structures enabling data-driven analysis of these structures, and detailed workflows, allowing for easy future insertion of new molecules into the database. This database can be used to make calculations and predict characteristics of molecules, such as viscosity, density, and reactivity, which are all critical in refinery plants, transportation, and usage of these fuels. Performing queries on the molecules in the database to filter for specific characteristics allows scientists to develop more successful experiments by refining their hypotheses to account for the query results displaying possibilities of their desired outcome.  

This research aims to understand how to design and control molecular hinges. The molecular hinges of interest are nano-sized equivalents of door hinges. Such hinges could find applications in new materials or the design of new drugs.

The foundation for this research was the observation that a large, ring-shaped molecule - a so-called macrocycle – prepared by a colleague folded and unfolded rapidly at room temperature. Two research questions arose from this observation: was the hinge behavior unique to this molecule, and could the hinging rate be controlled?

Addressing these questions required the three-step synthesis of a related macrocycle. This new molecule had groups equivalent to putting grit around the hinge's pin. The difference in the rate of hinging motion due to the addition of these groups was observed using a technique called variable temperature NMR spectroscopy.

The results of this work revealed that hinging is a general phenomenon for some of these macrocycles. Second, the 'molecular dirt' designed into this new hinge reduced the rate of hinge motion from 2000 times per second to 20 times per second.

This work is being written up for communication to the Journal of the American Chemical Society based on the novelty of this molecular device and the scientific community's interest in molecular machines.

In the world of drugs, the chemical property that is most important is logP, the predictor of whether a drug can be taken orally and cross the cell membrane. Pharmaceutical companies will not explore molecules with logPs that are outside the ideal range. But what if predictions are wrong? The rules for predicting logP are based on small molecules, but the industry is moving towards large molecule drugs. This poster looks at synthesizing models of large molecule drugs (ring-shaped molecules called macrocycles) to determine if the logP of large molecules can be predicted. Synthesis of a hydrophobic macrocycle shows that the industry predicted logP failed. New prediction methods are needed. To develop these methods, additional macrocycles were made to serve as models for prediction. These molecules also allow us to explore another avenue in drug design challenge another paradigm in drug discovery. Pharmaceutical companies avoid hydrophilic functional groups because of ill predictions about logP. Combining these hydrophilic groups with predictable hydrophobic groups will make the molecule's logP acceptable. That is, by design, the undesirable hydrophilic group is balanced with the desirable hydrophobic group to bring polar groups through the membrane. Overall, the work will allow for a wider range of molecules to be considered for potential drug design.

Oxidative stress occurs when there is an imbalance between free radical activities, including those of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the body’s natural antioxidant mechanism. To help restore this balance, the Green research group at TCU has developed tetradentate pyridine-containing cyclen macrocycles capable of simultaneously carrying out various modes of antioxidant activities. As drug candidates , these molecules need to be further modified with different functional groups to fine-tune their activities and pharmacological properties, resulting in a large library of up to hundreds of derivative structures. Isoelectric point (pI) and acidity (pKa) play a vital role in assessing the membrane permeability of these molecules. Given the size of the library, experimental determination of these values is an unnecessarily time-consuming endeavor. Using the state-of-the-art Density Functional Theory (DFT), this project aims to 1) show how pI values of any molecules in this library can be predicted with reference to a desired value and 2) predict the pKa of different acidic sites on these multifunctional molecules. This can potentially shed light on the effects of covalent modifications on pI and pKa values, and with further optimizations, can be applied to a virtual screening protocol for any libraries of drug candidates.

Protein crystallization is regarded as a more economically sustainable strategy for achieving protein purification compared to traditional downstream processing chromatography. However, protein crystallization is not a well understood process and still relies on empirical protocols. This work examines the rational design of protein crystallization for lysozyme, a model protein, by exploiting the formation of metastable protein-rich droplets by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Specifically, sodium chloride, which is a salting-out agent, is used to induce LLPS, while 2-[4-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperazin-1-yl]ethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) is a salting-in agent used to modulate LLPS conditions. It was found that HEPES enhances protein crystallization from protein-rich droplets. This effect can be explained by examining the relative shift of the LLPS boundary with respect to crystal solubility in the temperature-composition phase diagram. This work suggests that LLPS-mediated protein crystallization may be enhanced in the presence of salting-in agents.

There are a wide variety of unnatural amino acids whose properties could be used to study the structure and function of proteins and create proteins with enhanced or novel functions. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to add unnatural amino acids to proteins via site-specific modification. This is done through aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) which are proteins that attach the correct amino acid to its corresponding tRNA. The loaded tRNA then transports the amino acid to the ribosome where it is incorporated into an elongating protein. Usually, aaRSs have editing domains that remove any amino acids that the synthetase is not specific to. To solve this problem, we have paired Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum leucyl tRNA synthetase (MLRS) with a removed editing domain with Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 leucyl tRNA to incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins in Escherichia coli. The binding site of MLRS has been identified, and we have created millions of MLRS variants by randomizing the five amino acids in the binding sites. Using genetic screening procedures, we have identified variants with larger binding sites, and we are currently testing for successful incorporation of unnatural amino acids like dansyl-DAP into the z-domain model protein.

Utilizing the supportive structure of hydrogels, the semiconducting character of porous silicon (pSi) membranes, and the biodegradability of both, a unique biosensor for the chemical analysis of health-relevant analytes can ideally be created.
Alginate-based hydrogels are water-infused, biodegradable polymer networks. These are particularly useful because of their environmental abundance, and their ability to interface well with human skin. These characteristics also make them an ideal medium for supporting pSi membranes and simultaneously assimilating them into a wide range of tissues.
Porous silicon (pSi), a highly porous form of the elemental semiconductor, is utilized to measure and conduct electrical signals throughout the hydrogel matrix. In diode form, these membranes exhibit measurable current values as a function of voltage, which can be used to detect bioelectrical stimuli such as the concentration of physiologically relevant ionic species (e.g. Na+, K+, and Ca2+).
Recent experiments center on integrating pSi membranes into various aqueous environments and hydrogels to test how variations in ion concentration affect the flow of electrical current as a function of applied voltage. pSi membranes are fashioned into diodes upon the attachment of 0.25 mm diameter copper wire using silver epoxy and annealing. An electrochemical cell is created by placing two pSi membranes parallel each other in an electrolyte composition. Current is measured as a function of applied voltage (typically from 0-5 V) for systems with differing NaCl concentration.
As expected, the magnitude of maximum current response is proportional to ion concentration present in the electrolyte, with an order of magnitude amplification or more of measured current for a given voltage upon immersion of the electrodes in an alginate hydrogel matrix relative to water alone.
This presentation will focus on initial diode fabrication protocols, as well as establishing limits of detection for simple ions species present in human sweat. More refined strategies are also envisioned, including the development of methods for stabilization of sensor performance along with miniaturization of the sensing platform itself.

Light-driven reactions, such as those utilized in photoelectrosynthetic applications, focus on capturing and transferring light energy to drive chemical reactions. For this purpose, light-active metal oxide semiconductor materials are used, such as BiVO4, 𝛼-Fe2O3, and WO3 to list a few. Previous work demonstrated the use of BiVO4 electrodes to drive the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde in the presence of a TEMPO (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine) mediator.1 This study seeks to improve the photoelectrochemical performance of this reaction by using a heterojunction WO3-BiVO4 electrode. We hypothesize that the heterojunction would decrease charge carrier recombination and improve the photochemical yield of the reaction compared to a BiVO4 electrode.2,3 The WO3-BiVO4 interface forms a type II band alignment allowing electrons from photoexcited BiVO4 to transfer into WO3 and holes to accumulate at the BiVO4-electrolyte interface.4 Two techniques, UV-visible spectroscopy and incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) measurements, were applied to better understand why the heterojunction improved the photocurrent density in the presence of reaction components in solution. UV-visible spectroscopy was used to determine the band gaps of the materials. Information about the efficiency of light energy conversion to chemical energy was obtained by IPCE measurements. IPCE values are determined by relating the proportion of incident light power to the current produced by illuminating the WO3­-BiVO4 photoanode over a small wavelength range. Photoanodes exhibiting higher IPCE % are more effective at driving photoelectrosynthetic reactions.1 To test the effect of WO3 on the energy conversion efficiency, IPCE experiments were run for the WO3-only, BiVO4-only, and WO3-BiVO4 samples. Comparing IPCE values for WO3-BiVO4 samples shows a clear increase compared to BiVO4-only photoanodes. These results demonstrate how coupled materials (WO3-BiVO4) can generate higher current densities upon illumination for driving photoelectrosynthetic reactions.

Chalk Mountain Services of Texas, LLC. is a trucking company whose business is transporting raw materials, such as fracking sand, to various oilfield sites in and around west Texas. With over 1,300 assets in their fleet, they’re presented with a number of logistical problems, like optimizing a driver’s time to make as many trips between drill sites and raw material depots as possible in a day. Such routing and scheduling applications must have accurate data—the assets are either in or out of service and their location—to schedule sensible routes.

Should an asset break down in the unforgiving terrain of west Texas, the appropriate employee should have the ability to take note of such an incident so that routing and scheduling applications have correct, up-to-date data. The company’s current solution allows for any user to make changes to any asset, regardless of authorization status. Inconsistencies in assets’ statuses can lead to an employee having to manually intervene in the scheduling process, which decreases the company’s overall efficiency. Additionally, their current application is not mobile-friendly, but a sizable portion of users nevertheless interface with the current website from their phones.

The company’s expectations come in either one of two forms: a website and a companion app or a reactive website that can be used on a desktop or mobile device. The application shall use CRUD—create, read, update, and delete—methods to keep track of the assets, and the application shall provide different users with different access levels with Active Directory authentication. We have created a reactive website that can be used from either a desktop environment or mobile one, and our implementation of their requirements exists as a three layer architecture: a Microsoft SQL Server database, a backend developed in NodeJS, and a React front end. To make the deployment as simple as possible, we did not pursue developing the application on cloud providers; the application depends on a connection to an in-house SQL server and Active Directory service both of which cannot be accessed outside their intranet and are critical to the application’s functionality.

The Instructional Equity Observing Tool is an online video/audio analysis tool that is geared towards assisting the teachers and faculty of educational institutions in analyzing and understanding how their interaction with students translates into real learning. Our platform is meant to replace the current, manual method of analysis that many teachers/instructors perform to try and quantify different metrics about their teacher-student interaction. Instructors have expressed desire to view metrics such as the time the teacher talks during a lesson, what is the response time of students to those questions, and other data points such as the types of questions being asked (as categorized by Bloom’s Taxonomy). Quantifying these instructional variables helps these instructors more accurately understand the areas that they are strong in, and more importantly, the areas in which they can be more interactive with the students as to allow them to better absorb the lessons being taught. With the help of our tool, we can allow teachers to quickly and efficiently gather this data about each of their lessons so that data driven changes in teaching techniques is possible, and moreover, so that teachers can identify potential vectors of ineffective instruction.
The process for using this application is for a user to login/sign-up for our site, then they will proceed to upload either an audio or video file to the designated location. Our tool will then take that video/audio file and execute a customized API call to AssemblyAI (https://www.assemblyai.com/) that transcribes this file into text. We then perform specialized data manipulation operations on the transcript to generate all the different metrics and display them in an easy-to-read format that the user can then scroll through and analyze the results. The user will also have the option to save this report that is generated as a pdf, which they or an administrator role will be able to access and view again at a later time.
Our application is hosted using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and utilizes many different functionalities that this service provides. AWS manages our authentication and authorization, user account management, and report storage functionalities. Our current system does not use its own machine learning model and instead offloads transcription to the AssemblyAI API, however this could be updated in the future with the addition of large datasets for training. A specifically trained machine learning model in this case could provide a more accurate categorization of questions and a more flexible tool that could eventually make predictions or suggestions to the user on the best ways to improve their teaching methods.

Open Planner is a web application designed to meet the increasing need for college students to have a way to more easily organize and access major
assignment/exam dates across all courses during busy college semesters. Open Planner seeks to ease agenda making for students by parsing uploaded student syllabi for major assignment/exam dates and generate a personalized calendar the student can access from his/her account upon sign-up and syllabus upload. Once they have access to their personal calendar, students will be able to add events, delete and modify existing events, and customize their course calendars, giving them fast access to a customized and modifiable calendar without the time demanding task of looking through course syllabi and adding major dates one by one.

Indigenous communities have a deep-seated understanding of the importance and sacredness that their land has in their daily lives (native lands.ca); they have a deep sense of place. The primary objective of Native Meteorites (NaMe) is to amplify the work of the Native Earth | Native Sky (NENS) program by recognizing the critical importance of free-choice learning in STEM education and providing a different lens through which STEM can be made culturally relevant for students in Native American nations.
This project focuses specifically on meteorites found on the lands of the three Oklahoma Native American tribes participating in NENS and provides a concrete example of the cultural relevance of planetary science and STEM, utilizing concepts that are deeply rooted in a sense of place. The goal of this project is to increase the interest and participation of an underrepresented important people group in the national STEM workforce, as well as provide an example of the relevance of place-based STEM education for all individuals.
This project consists of an interactive map, which displays where relevant meteorites landed; and also provides supplementary resources for education. Members of the NaMe project will develop STEM resources that focus on meteorites found on Native American Lands. This will be unlike other free-choice learning because this interactive map caters specifically to indigenous peoples’ learning styles.
In collaboration with Native American individuals, the team designed the site layout, content, and imagery to be as inclusive and considerate as possible. The product of this project ultimately caters to an audience that is quite underrepresented– so we used conscious software development in the website-building process.
The interactive map feature of this site will increase the interest and participation of an underrepresented important people group in the national STEM workforce, as well as provide an example of the relevance of place-based STEM education for all individuals.

The system to be is BMW Performance Horse Database, also referred to as BMWPHD. The client is Brooke Wharton with BMW Quarter Horses. The purpose of her company is to breed and raise horses for reining and reined competitions. Currently this field faces the issue that horse data is spread over multiple different platforms that do not communicate with one another. With that, the main objective of BMWPHD is to create a user-friendly searchable database for the task of finding and ranking horses for breeding, buying, and determining show schedules. The users of this application include fans, riders, coaches, judges, and investors in the sport. The hope is to not only bring more fans to the sport through the easy access to data, but also improve the level of competition so that the horses can be bred stronger and therefore perform at a higher level within the sport. On the technical side, the system will be implemented with the following technologies: the frontend will use Vue.js, the backend will be implemented in Java Spring Boot, the database will be built in PostgreSQL. The final version of the application will be deployed on Heroku.

The Chinese Learning Platform(CPL) is a program to help students to learn the Chinese language. This platform will be used by both students of these ages attempting to learn Chinese as well as by the teachers who will use the platform as a teaching tool to help those students. As it is a teaching tool, the main motivation behind it is educational, with the hope to support students in learning the Chinese language, and in the future, this will be expanded to learning various other languages using the same CPL. The platform hopes to help these students utilize a textbook created by CPL, and will also include features that will help the students listen, read, write, and speak in the language they are learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult for families to stay connected, especially those separated by distance. Keepsake is a software product that was developed with the aim of helping families bridge the gap by enabling them to share stories and memories across generations. The platform provides a secure and private space where family members can record and post audio content that can be accessed by their loved ones anytime, anywhere via cloud storage.

Keepsake offers an intuitive user interface that is accessible to users of all ages, making it easy for them to navigate and listen to the audio content. By hosting the platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Keepsake provides a reliable and scalable solution for storing and retrieving audio files/posts across the years. The platform is designed to ensure that each family's audio files are separate and private from other family audio files, offering complete privacy to users.

To get started with Keepsake, users can easily join their families and start recording and uploading audio files. The platform allows for organization and sharing with specific family groups, making it easy to share stories and memories with those who matter most. Keepsake is a powerful tool for connecting families across generations, providing accessibility, convenience, and security for families of all sizes and backgrounds.

Power quality is the compatibility between the voltage that comes out of an electrical outlet and the power load that is being plugged into it. A power load (also known as electrical load) is any electrical device that needs to be plugged into a larger power grid to run, such as televisions and microwaves.
Different devices require different power loads to run at full efficiency and while electrical systems are capable of handling newer power loads, they are currently set to work with older ones as well. This may cause some side effects on power quality in the system. In this project, we investigate how to improve the power quality in the system caused by an inductive older load.