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Life-changing connection

ISU team finds similarities between heart valves, wind turbines By Andria.Homewood @iowastatedaily.com More than a quarter of a million — specifically, 280,000. That’s how many people there are worldwide every year who need to replace their native heart valve with a new artificial one. Then, that valve needs to be replaced after every 15 years. With a demand like this, a group of research students led by MingChen Hsu, assistant professor

of mechanical engineering, is striving to make improvements in how industry models different products. For Hsu and his team, these improvements are on heart valves and wind turbines. While heart valves and wind turbines don’t seem to have a link, Hsu said they are similar in Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction. “A lot of physics you are looking at involves the interactions between fluids and solids,”

Hsu said. “In this case, the blood flow drives the vibration of the leaflet. The leaflet opens and closes. That [structural] motion also interacts with the fluid. Once that leaflet closes, the flow stops.” The process to model an artificial heart valve, as well as other mechanisms, has become markedly faster in the past two decades. “Fifteen years ago … people in mechanical engineering, when

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Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons While heart valves and wind turbines don’t seem to have a link, assistant professor Chen Hsu said they are similar in Computational Fluid-Structure Interaction. A lot of the physics involved are between fluids and solids such as blood flow through a leaflet.

Chinese New Year to kick off at ISU International students, scholars to host gala at MU By Mathew.Evans @iowastatedaily.com

Iowa State Daily

Unlike regular cigarettes, electronic cigarettes are not currently regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. A final passage of the e-cigarette ban is expected to take place at the next Ames City Council meeting Tuesday.

Cyclones inspire regulations Health promotion club works to ban e-cigarette usage in public, on campus By Christie.Smith @iowastatedaily.com For some, Iowa State’s catch phrase “find your adventure” is an invitation to leave your mark on the world. Students with the university’s Health Promotion Club decided to start at the university level and work their way up. Their push for an ecigarette ban has inspired a university policy, city and county resolutions and is now on its way to the state legislature. The student group, led by adviser and kinesiology senior lecturer Denise Denton, first considered the possibility of an electric nicotine and delivery systems (e-cigarette) ban when the Story County Prevention Policy Board helped pass legislation to prevent selling e-cigarettes to minors. Before the summer of 2014, there was no age restriction in Iowa for purchasing e-cigarettes, despite the fact that e-cigarettes can deliver nicotine at levels consistent with traditional cigarettes.

When the board suggested an e-cigarette ban in public places, the Board of Health denied it, saying it would like to see the ban at the city level first, Denton said. “Well, what if [the ban] came from the students?” Nathan Davis, graduate student in food science and human nutrition and member of the Story County Prevention Policy Board, asked. Denton began cold calling several of the larger metropolitan areas to see what policies they had in place. Denton said she discovered that each of the three largest cities in the United States — New York, Chicago and Los Angeles —already had e-cigarette bans in place. When Denton introduced the idea to the students of the Health Promotion Club, the students saw an opportunity to make an impact on public policy. “[We asked] what is a public health issue that we can tackle that’s doable?” said Spencer Cain, senior in kinesiology and health and the Health Promotion Club’s president. “Everyone in the club was on board from the get-go.”

While the members of the club began to organize a survey to determine the community’s attitude toward e-cigarette usage, Davis began compiling research regarding the safety of e-cigarettes. “We saw a lot of data emerging from people like the World Health Organization … saying [e-cigs are] probably not as great as people make them out to be,” Davis said. “And they’re definitely not cessation devices.” Within one week, Cain and the other students in the club collected 599 surveys, Denton said. The surveys consisted of six questions that were given verbally to participants at several locations on and near campus, Cain said. The students developed and administered the surveys themselves, including questions that asked about participants’ willingness to support businesses where e-cigarette usage was allowed. “It was a really well-conducted survey because if you go back and look at the demographics, they fit the demographics of the university,” Da-

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One international student organization will bring a piece of home to campus this weekend to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) will host its annual Spring Festival Gala at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. The Gala will host a projected more than 500 guests as they celebrate the Chinese New Year, which will take place Monday. The Spring Festival Gala is the CSSA’s most cultural and important event it will host this year, at least to the participating students. “I think preserving the holiday is very important to maintain and spread the Chinese Culture,” said Xue Bai, junior in industrial engineering and co-vice president of the CSSA. To bring in the new year, the CSSA has arranged 13 acts that will entertain guests as they get closer to the new year. “We will have song and traditional comedy, along with Dub H and traditional dances,” said Ye Zhao, senior in child adult and family services and co-vice president of the CSSA. The Chinese New Year is an important Chinese tradition that is celebrated at the changing of the Chinese lunar calendar. This time has become known as the Spring Festival. ”It’s like the Super Bowl, it’s a time for reunion and celebration,” Zhao said. The CSSA this year will try something new to spread more information about the Chinese culture. “We are trying to bring different cultures together to celebrate the Chinese new year,” Zhao said. “Together it would be a great opportunity for American students to learn and understand the Chinese culture.”

Student Government gears up for elections By Zach.Clemens @iowastatedaily.com The Student Government election commission is gearing up for this year’s elections, and it will be up to students to DeCyde The Vote. DeCyde The Vote is the Student Government campaign to let students know about the candidates for election and to remind them to vote. The election commission’s vice commissioner Robert Stokka, senior in political science, is working closely with the Student Government’s public relations committee to get the word out about the elections and the importance of voting. “Student Government isn’t just a club, it’s actually something that is a big part of Iowa State,” Stokka said. “It’s a lot bigger than people understand because they don’t take the time to look into

it.”

There will be 37 Senate seats open, as well as the positions of president and vice president. Candidates must register with a small biography of themselves and an official letter of intent to run by 5 p.m. Friday. Election commissioner Alex Rodgers, senior in agricultural and life sciences education, said during his four years on the commission that there has never been a full ballot, so there are opportunities for someone who wants to get involved. “There are always open seats,” Rodgers said, “If someone is interested in being on Student Government, there is probably a way to do it.” Candidates for the executive office — the president and vice president — have to get at least 500 student signatures to be able to run for the position. However, there are restrictions on how the signatures may

Michaela Ramm/Iowa State Daily

Student Government Vice President Megan Sweere, Speaker Ben Crawford and Vice Speaker Michael Snook participate in the Student Government Senate meeting Sept. 30.

be obtained. Those signatures must be acquired outside of the classroom and be handed into the election commission by Feb. 18. A big goal of the election commission is to get the word out

to the student population to vote. They plan to hand out informational posters, candy, cups and other items to raise awareness among students to remember to vote. The voter turnout was up

last year in comparison to years before, but was only at about 13 percent of the student population. This 13 percent equates to just 4,135 votes. While the percentage may seem low, the number is comparable to other universities across the country. Regardless, the election commission still hopes for a higher turnout. “We can only dedicate so much time [with classes and other commitments] trying to get people interested to vote,” Stokka said. One change this year is the avenue that students will use to vote. In previous years, students would have go to a specific website to vote for the candidate of their choice. However, the election commission paid approximately $6,000 this year to use Qualtrics,

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