Technograph Winter 2016

VOLUME 132: WINTER 2016

Sustainable water pump allows for success of Kenyan women living with HIV, AIDS PAGE 10

3

TECHNOSTAFF

TABLE OF CONTENTS Substance abuse in youths

Technograph editor Isabella Jackson Assistant Technograph editor Brooks Berish Editor-in-Cheif Masaki Sugimoto Managing editor for reporting Michal Dwojak Managing editor for online Annabeth Carlson Creative director Hannah Auten Designers Michelle Tam Jacob Singleton Copy chiefs Samantha Skipper Writers Lilly Mashayek Jessica Peterson Emily Scott Co-publishers Kit Donahue Melissa Pasco

New treatment options seek to defeat substance abuse before adulthood

PAGE 4

Battery

Studying batteries opens the door for new ways to store power

PAGE 7

Water pump

Technology helps Kenyan women living with HIV AIDS support their families

PAGE 10

Imaging cells

New method allows researchers to view cells without damaging or killing them

Email technograph@dailyillini.com Mail Technograph 512 E. Green St, 3rd floor Champaign, IL 61820 Phone (217) 337-8350

PAGE 15

Climate change

Action required soon for the best chance to reduce emissions

PAGE 20

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BREAKING THE

CHAIN

Graduate students research treatment options to help adolescents overcome substance abuse through adulthood

BY JESSICA PETERSON | TECHNOGRAPH WRITER

A

dolescents who struggle with substance abuse are likely to carry the behavior over into their adult life, unless they are able to successfully receive treatment. Unfortunately, most adolescents only enter treatment in times of crisis or when it is absolutely required, hindering the potential for long-term success.

But Jordan Davis, a doctoral student in social work, has proposed a different solution.

“I call this the dentist model, because

you see the dentist every six months,” Davis said. “So why wouldn’t we check in with mental health or substance abuse treatment? Why would you leave treatment expecting to be completely fine instead of coming in every three months, every six months, seeing what needs of that individual need to be met?”

In the past four years, Davis and Joey Merrin, a doctoral student in child development, have been merging their respec-

tive specializations on various projects. In combining Davis’ study of substance abuse treatment and Merrin’s focus on delinquency, both within the adolescent range, the two have published research papers about their analyzed data.

“I know we enjoy spending our weekends together on different analyses, trying to figure it out and answer questions,” Merrin said with a laugh.

The pair’s strategy for analyzing lon-

5 gitudinal data is different than most other approaches as each study examines some aspect of victimization. By considering various socio-ecological factors, the studies compare which factor has the highest effect on entering an event.

The most recent study gathered information to predict what leads adolescents to reenter substance abuse treatment by measuring elements of the subjects’ childhoods and how each element impacted the return

“Individuals entering treatment with a traumatic past are at risk for revictimization.”

JORDAN DAVIS DOCTORAL STUDENT IN SOCIAL WORK to treatment.

“You can think about it as Russian dolls.

The individual is nested within these different domains. Kids are nested in families which are nested in communities, kids are nested in schools,” Merrin said. “These different social ecologies ... interact with one another to affect the development of the child.”

Variables like peer delinquency, how many of an individual’s friends were arrested, parental hostility and parental warmth were taken into account.

However, the results showed that when considering all other factors, the parental effect is diminished compared to an early diagnosis of PTSD in youth, which puts in-

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dividuals at a 67 percent higher risk. Due to the recurring tendencies of PTSD, allowing for specialized treatment for individuals who experience the disorder may be better suited for the long-term healing process.

“Individuals entering treatment with a traumatic past are at risk for re-victimization, so we argued for a specialized kind of treatment for these folks and the idea that we might need to continue to check in,” Davis said.

Technology is beginning to change the game of identifying the factors affecting one’s likelihood of re-entering treatment.

Applications designed for one to track their mood or substance intake have been developed and can be used as a preemptive measure rather than for emergencies.

Taking the time to measure these aspects throughout an individual’s life can lead to greater awareness about when care or counseling may be needed. Davis even predicted future applications linking one’s treatment and healthcare provider to the client, which would result in a timelier opportunity for additional care.

“You would be able to see when the client is inputting data, and you might be able to get them at a point when they need treatment versus when they decide or are required to get treatment,” Davis said.

Influences from an environmental setting, within the neighborhood context, still hold an impact on individuals and the patterns experienced growing up. An issue facing these communities is a lack of resources, which can limit how much can be provided for those who are at risk of susceptibility to substance abuse.

Communities have challenges adapting

K

to individuals, but by implementing community psychology at a larger scale or being provided with resources, there is the opportunity for greater positive impact.

“We’re trying to figure out cheaper alternatives in a way to try to mitigate individual risk in light of risky environments, risky families,” Merrin said. “Those are things we want to try and fix but they cost a lot of money, a lot of time.”

The results are meant to target the medical community, and Merrin and Davis look to have their paper published in medical and substance abuse journals. By attempting to find the points when substance abuse may most likely occur in adolescents, the hope is to reduce the continuation into adulthood with the tendency for abuse, which can also affect criminal activity.

Considering the different factors that influence one’s life and addressing the problem from a long-term lens provides for an attitude of optimism when considering development down the road. Davis and Merrin view their findings as an additional insight contributing to the prevention of prolonged substance abuse in adolescents and they plan to build on their research with the studies to come.

“We can find entry points for intervention and treatment efforts which will have a good chance of treating substance abuse,” Merrin said. “Understanding how context influences trauma and how trauma influences substance abuse really allows us the chance to step in to try and stop that trajectory of substance abuse leading into adulthood.”

Jessica can be reached at jtpeter3@readtechno.com

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In pursuit of the electric car

BY CLAIRE HETTINGER | TECHNOGRAPH WRITER

T

he common household battery may not seem like a lifechanging piece of technology, but it's used almost daily.

Phones, computers, remote controls, power plants and cars all have something in common: Batteries can invigorate the way these technologies function.

Currently, the most common bat-

tery is the lithium ion battery. It is the best available option at the moment, said chemistry professor Andrew Gewirth, so people use them.

But that doesn’t mean they are the best option or are perfect.

Gewirth and his team are researching current types of batteries and the way they are used in order to improve them for future

functions.

Users encounter problems with current batteries, specifically the ones used in phones and computers, when they experience shortlife spans and the degradation of the battery life. Gewirth’s research focuses on improving the type of battery, the quality of the battery and the capacity.

Batteries will power the future While commonly used in household items, variations of batteries will help solve some of the world’s energy problems.

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8 He explained that batteries in phones and computers can only last so long because there is a fine line between an extensively long battery and one that will create problems for the user. He used the Samsung batteries in the Galaxy Note 7 phones that exploded and had to be recalled as an example.

“Is it possible that we could have radical new chemistry that would go beyond the barriers of the lithium ion battery — you know, get massive new capacity (for) the 1,000 mile battery car?” Gewirth said.

“The answer right now is no.”

But this doesn’t mean that the answer will always be no. There are professors who are working on chemistry research that exhibits promise for reaching these goals, Gewirth said.

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“First, for transportation everyone seems to believe — and actually I agree — that the

“Twenty years from now … you’ll be telling your students or the people coming after you, ‘You know we used to use lithium ion’ and they’ll say, ‘What’s that?’”

ANDREW GEWIRTH CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR

electrofied automobile is going to be a good way to go,” he said.

Gewirth said that the electric car has many advantages in performance over the gas car, too, including a faster acceleration.

One problem that researchers have faced in creating batteries for electric cars is that the materials to build these batteries are large, expensive and uncommon. The goal now is to build a cheaper and smaller battery that can last long enough to make it feasible for people to invest in and use an electric car.

People will have different needs in an electric car, Gewirth said. For example, he would only be interested in an electric car that could travel to Chicago and back without running out of power. But other people may be interested in an

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An improved battery would help address many problems.

According to Gewirth, all diesel trains in the world are dieselelectric, which means a diesel engine is used to power an electric generator that actually moves the train.

Another use would be to store energy created from solar and wind power. Without sophisticated batteries, it isn’t feasible to rely on these technologies for power.

“But the problem is the wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun doesn't shine all the time and so you need to have some way of storing electricity,” he said. “A battery that would do that would look very different

than a battery that would be in an automobile, but still has the same general ideas.”

Batteries could also be used to improve power plant storage as well. Plants run inefficiently because they power on when large amounts of people are using power, such as during the evenings when people are home from work. They will then power back down during the night when people are asleep. But this means that the power plant must power up and then power back down, which Gewirth believes wastes energy.

He said it would be much more effective to allow the plant to run constantly at a low capacity instead of running at high capacity for small periods of time.

Storing energy could mean energy generated at night could

be sold during the day, without wasting energy to power the plant up and down.

“If you could just do that like right now, you would be rich beyond your dreams,” he said.

For now, Gewirth continues to research these batteries, hoping to discover what will work the best for these varying needs.

Not all of the storage and energy needs will be provided by the same battery, he said. They will likely have vastly different solutions.

“Twenty years from now … you'll be telling your students or the people coming after you, ‘You know we used to use lithium ion’ and they'll say, ‘What's that?’” he said.

Claire can be reached at hettngr2@readtechno.com

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Sustainable water pump allows for success of Kenyan women living with HIV, AIDS

BY KELSIE TRAVERS | TECHNOGRAPH WRITER

In

2013, Brian Lilly found himself in Ngong Hills, Kenya, on what he thought would just be a volunteer trip with his son. Instead, he found a community in need and a practical application for the project he was designing.

Lilly is an adjunct associate professor at the Technology Entrepreneur Center on campus, the president of SmartSolutions, Inc. and vice president of Ergo-Tech, Inc. Earlier in 2013, he received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to build a water irrigation pump that could be used by smallholder farmers in Africa.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s poorest people live off of small farms that grow a variety of crops, but poor soil and irrigation combined with drought often makes it difficult to succeed. The goal of the grant was to create a water pump made of automobile parts that would help these farms and could be fixed using local skills and materials.

When Lilly’s son Dan asked him to travel to Kenya, it was an opportunity to volunteer with Living Positive

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“The pump will provide economic empowerment to the needy women and their families through farming skills, employment opportunities and business ventures.”

MARY WANDERI FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF LIVING POSITIVE KENYA Kenya, an organization that helps women, children and families who struggle with HIV AIDS by offering counseling, health education, economic empowerment and community support.

Living Positive Kenya was started

by Mary Wanderi in 2006, after she saw children being taken from their mothers and placed in orphanages when the mothers could not support them financially because of HIV AIDS. Wanderi wanted to create an organization that could help these mothers support their families financially, as well as offer the emotional support that many of them desperately needed.

Lilly didn’t realize the connection between Living Positive Kenya and the irrigation pump project at first — besides both projects having roots in Africa — but he asked the volunteer coordinator if he knew of some sites in need of these types of pumps anyway.

“I had an idea for a pump with no application in mind — I didn’t know where I was going to put it,” Lilly said. “I got there, and I found this compelling application of women fetching water that were HIV positive spending six hours a day watering these greenhouses and I went, ‘Wow, there’s my application. This is the problem I need to solve.’”

Once Lilly started working on the project, he realized that the auto-parts suggested by the Gates Foundation might not be the most appropriate for the situation.

“Turns out, I was able to design pumps like that, but they weren’t great for this application. They didn’t have enough lift,” Lilly said.

He explained that a water pump needs to have both a certain water flow rate and a certain lift. Although the automobile pump could make water flow, it didn’t have enough lift to get into the tank.

He ended up developing his pump, called the Majipump, from scratch, and once the grant from the Gates Foundation ended, he started supporting the project on his own through his businesses.

Lilly focused on creating a nonbattery powered pump that was low-powered enough to run on solar energy. Previously, he said, the pumps available required 1,000-2,000 watts of panels. The Majipump runs on only 60 watts. The improper disposal of batteries really bothers Lilly, which made finding a sustainable source of energy enticing to him.

“The way we store energy is by pumping it to a tank. When the sun shines, we pump water into the tank. Now we have it stored above ground and it is gravity-fed into the

greenhouse. Our battery is a storage tank,” Lilly said.

Besides the sustainability benefits of the Majipump, Lilly was pleased to have the Living Positive Kenya community benefit from the pump.

Before the introduction of the pump, farming was very difficult. It would often take six hours of hard labor each day and take time away from other income-generating activities.

Wanderi said that previously, the women used watering cans to pull water out from the well and watered all of the crops by hand.

“The process was time consuming and very tiresome for the women, (especially) considering our group consists of women with illness,” Wanderi said.

She said that the Majipump has already solved many problems, and they are very grateful for Lilly’s work.

Although the pumps should not need maintenance anytime soon thanks to their simplicity, the community knows how to fix them.

“Brian and the team (have) done a lot of training on the use of the pumps and they are so easy to use and fix,” Wanderi said. “We like using them a lot and it has been a lot of fun to learn and interact with Brian and the team any time they come to teach us.”

Finding efficient methods of farming is beneficial to Living Positive Kenya because they hope farming can be a main source of income for the women. It can also help them on the path to skill development and gaining the necessary knowledge to start their own businesses.

“The pump will provide economic empowerment to the needy women and their families through farming skills, employment opportunities and business ventures and entrepreneurship,” Wanderi said.

She is also happy that the women

of Living Positive Kenya can assist by making the bags that the solar panels are transported in. Wanderi explained that the women really like doing this and it helps them by providing another source of income.

Lilly’s innovations are expanding further than just the Majipump.

“When you get into a space and develop something, it always leads to more and more ideas and more and more innovation,” he said.

He has also designed a biofilter for fish tanks that clears ammonia from the water and reintroduces oxygen to ensure survival of the fish. Wanderi’s greenhouse — where she previously grew onions — is now housing tilapia tanks using the filter.

“We want to explore how we can grow fish faster for the market than we are already doing,” Wanderi said.

The introduction of more oxygen from the biofilter and water purification using the Majipump may aid in the endeavor.

Lilly is hoping to help Wanderi’s farm become more profitable so he is able to see her thrive, along with the other women of Living Positive Kenya.

These innovations — notably the Majipump that is now being distributed — will change small-scale farming in Africa. It will diversify crops, reduce labor intensity and ideally create more product for the communities.

“The families and the children he has supported through this project appreciate him so much and wish him a very long life,” Wanderi said.

“Personally, I have witnessed how much hard work he puts into this project and pray that it translates into the desires of his heart, which are very noble.”

Kelsie can be reached at ktraver2@readtechno.com

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Unique cell imaging method represents the future of biology

BY BROOKS BERISH | TECHNOGRAPH WRITER

S

cientists and curious minds alike have been observing cells through a microscope since the 17th century.

The advancements in the structure and capabilities of these microscopes have enabled researchers to see things that could not have been observed before. However, the data gathered from these microscopes has remained largely qualitative, which is something that has not changed since they were invented. One would think that biologists would be well-versed in technology since the advent of the computer, but until recently the main tool that has been used to study cells has been the human eye.

“Biology is, I think, shifting clearly towards more engineering, a more quantitative way of analyzing the cells. Not just visualizing the cell, but measuring, extracting the numbers,” said Gabriel Popescu, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory (QLI Lab) at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

Popescu, along with his diverse team of researchers, engineers and biologists, has developed a novel way of imaging cells using light beams called Phase Correlational Imaging (PCI). It is a new method used to observe dynamic systems, such as live cells grown in a lab. One major difference between this imaging technique and other longstanding observational methods is that it does not use labels to see the struc-

ture of the cells.

“Most cells are intrinsically transparent, and for more than 100 years the common way to look at them was to paint them with colors, stain them with stains or fluorescent tags,” Popescu said. “So while this is OK, I mean, it gets the contrast up, it affects the function of the cells.”

One example of this limitation is the fact that fluorescence disappears after a while, so there is a limited window of opportunity to see the stained cell.

These stains can also affect the function of the cells and even kill the cells.

In this new method, it was important to make sure that the function of the cells was not impaired by the methods employed to observe them. The method essentially consists of taking a timelapse of the cells using light beam correlations.

The research team used a technique called interferometry, Popescu’s specialty that he has written about in one of his books. One light beam is shined through the cells and another light beam, called the reference beam, is not shined through the cells. When these light beams overlap, they create a refraction index based on minute differences in the density of the cell’s parts, resulting in a clear series of images of the cell.

Popescu explained how the quantitative data can actually be extracted and what the meaning of the word correlation is in PCI. “Imagine the suspension of small particles in a glass of water. If the parti-

cles are small, they will move very fast and if you image that, you’re getting a movie with very fast fluctuations,” he said. “A correlation system tells you how fast a certain system is fluctuating.

A very correlated process will be very slow. When the particles are moving fast, the next frame of the particles will be nothing like the first one.”

Using these correlation maps, the researcher can tell how fast the particles are moving. Through this method, they are able to extract how fast things are moving inside the cell based on the quantitative maps generated by the PCI instrument. All of these data sets

“When biologists see the new method, they understand the value right away. The major challenge is that they don’t know this thing exists.”

GABRIEL POPESCU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING provide a multitude of different applications.

For example, just looking at the correlational data sets, the senescent cells can be distinguished from the quiescent cells. Quiescent cells are temporarily inactivated cells, possibly due to a lack of food or some kind of threatening environmental conditions. Senescent cells are irreversibly inactivated cells and are often times much older.

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“We’ve found that the senescent cells actually have slower dynamics than the quiescent. And that’s I think the first time that anybody has distinguished between the two without using fluorescent tags, ” Popescu said.

However, PCI does have its limitations. For example, the main advantage of using fluorescence over PCI is that is offers more specificity. PCI does not stain individual parts of the cell for observation like fluorescent tags do. This is why Popescu and his colleagues have put a lot of effort into merging the fluorescence technique with their PCI method. This way they get the specificity that the fluorescence offers, but also the noninvasive quantitative data imaging from their unique method.

Popescu said the main struggle at this point is to get the word out about this novel technology.

"When biologists see the new method, they understand the value right

away. The major challenge is that they don’t know this thing exists," he said.

Popescu does believe, however, that this PCI technology is a part of the future of biology and that the merging of different fields will foster more advancements in science.

“I think the biology of the future will be a more quantitative science than we’ve seen so far,” Popescu said.

“This will generate better models. For example, if I’m studying cancer, ideally I’d be able to predict its evolution.

So you find the tumor, but it’s not yet killing you, but the ability to predict when it’s going to kill you — that’s the biggest question. That can only be understood if you have a model that has predictable value. That model cannot be built unless you have quantitative data. ” Brooks can be reached at berish2@readtechno.com

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Climate trumps all for University environmentalists

BY MICHAEL SEMACA | TECHNOGRAPH WRITER

D

onald J. Trump has a well-documented history of denying climate change.

Now as the president-elect, many voters are left to wonder what a Trump presidency will mean for the planet’s fight against climate change.

Trump campaigned to “cancel” the Paris Agreement, an international climate agreement signed by 193 countries in April. He has also previously favored repealing EPA regulations, like President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Trump promised to bring back America’s coal

industry on the campaign trail as well.

This has worried many environmental activists around the world and across campus, like Professor Evan DeLucia, who is the director of the University’s Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment or ISEE. “As an environmentalist and as a director that has a good sense of the feeling of the environmental community on campus, I can say that right now everybody’s in a period of shock,” DeLucia said.

Much of this shock comes from the uniqueness

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21 of climate related issues, he said. Unlike other issues facing America, like the economy, the decisions made currently about carbon emissions are decisions humanity will have to live with for centuries.

“This problem is insidious in that it continues to build unless you take steps now and continue to take steps to reverse the trend,” he said.

Joe Edwards, senior in LAS and copresident of Students for Environmental Concerns, or SECS, echoed DeLucia’s worry. Edwards noted how dangerous a Trump administration could be for the environment.

“Trump does represent a very big potential damage that could be caused,” he said. “If his administration does everything it wants to do, it could be irreparable.”

Despite the Trump administration’s environmental plans, Edwards said ordinary people still have the power to protect the environment. He referenced President Ronald Reagan’s appointment

of James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior in the 1980s. Watt controversially favored deforestation to increase coal mining and oil drilling.

Yet, Edwards said, one big thing stood in Watt’s way: the voices of the people.

Edwards hopes that citizens can once again change the government’s mind on the environment.

“The government can make these big, large-scale decisions, but if people disagree with it vehemently and openly and strongly enough, then we can still stop them,” he said.

Edwards said there are multiple things that pro-environment citizens can do, like letting their representatives know they won’t tolerate anti-environmental legislation. He emphasized how important immediate, sustained action is due to the state of the environment.

“The climate is at a very thin tipping point right now,” he said. “Some people argue that we may be past that already.

So it’s important to do the work we can now and not wait.”

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“This problem is insidious in that it continues to build unless you take steps now and continue to take steps to reverse the trend.”

EVAN DELUCIA DIRECTOR OF THE ISEE

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23 DeLucia agreed with Edwards’ call to action, and said the Trump presidency doesn’t mean action can’t occur in the next four years. There are many other areas in government, like state and local governments, that can enact environmental legislation. He also mentioned encouraging the private sector to step up to the plate.

“It’s time for the environmental community to start thinking creatively about how we’re going to mobilize and continue to effectively engage with our administration to tackle this challenge,” he said.

Climate scientists around the world also say it’s not too late to take action, like University Atmospheric Sciences Professor Michael Schlesinger. Schlesinger has researched climate change since 1973, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Schlesinger has written many plans for worldwide emission reduction over the years, such as his “Fair Plan” papers.

The papers detail plans limiting climate change to an increase of two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels. If the average worldwide temperature increases more than two degrees Celsius, Schlesinger warned that there could be drastic consequences.

“It was deemed that if we went over

two degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, we ran the risk of pushing the climate system beyond a tipping point, a bifurcation point, from which it could not return,” Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger’s research has led him to present various solutions to the problem.

His 2015 paper, “Fair Plan 7,” presented two scenarios. One, called the “80/50 Plan,” was modeled after the plan approved by the European Union and the United States. It called for an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions between 2020 and 2050, then keeping emissions constant. The other, his proposed “Fair Plan 7,” completely eliminated emissions by 2100.

While both plans would successfully limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, Schlesinger explained they now have one fatal flaw: they assumed emission reduction would begin in 2020. But with Trump’s presidency, emission reduction is unlikely to occur until later years. Schlesinger plans to explore this in a new paper, titled “Post-Trump Global-Warming Mitigation.”

“Now, I am going to look at delaying the start until 2025 and 2030, separately, and phasing out to zero in 2100, 2095, 2090 … to see what we have to do in order to keep the warming below two degrees,” he said.

This will require his whole plan to be

accelerated to keep warming to two degrees, he said.

“If we delay the onset, from 2020 to 2025 or 2030, then we will most certainly have to phase out emissions before 2100 in order to not go over two degrees, because starting in 2020 and ending in 2100 was the optimum,” Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger was unsure whether this new task was realistic, and echoed DeLucia’s thoughts about how climate change was an incredibly unique problem poised to humanity.

“We as a species have no track record with dealing with even decade long problems, let alone century long problems,” he said. “Politicians are elected for four years, five years, six years, and they don’t care about anything on a longer time scale.”

Schlesinger said that four more years of inaction will not be “game over” for the fight against climate change, but said it’ll just require more work. Edwards agreed with Schlesinger, and encouraged fellow environmentalists not to give up.

“Don’t lose hope,” Edwards said. “This fight isn’t over. We didn’t lose; we just had a setback. It just means we have to work harder.”

Michael can be reached at semaca2@readtechno.com

Global CO2 emission (Gt CO2/year)

110 100 90 80

Reference: the way the world would emit GHGs if there were no consequent climate change or if we were completely ignorant thereof

Reference

70 60 50

80/50: the Professor’s “80/50” plan, which calls for a reduction of 80 percent of emissions using 2050 as a reference point, global emissions kept constant

Fair Plan

40 30 20 10 0

Historical 1800

Fair Plan: the Professor’s “Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate” which calls for a complete reduction in emission by 2100

80/50 2000

2200

2400 Year

2600

2800

3000

Source: Professor Michael E. Schlesinger’s "Fair Plan 7: Earth’s Climate Future = Humanity’s Choice"

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