Center for Sustainable Lightweight Advanced Materials (C-SLAM) was established at Tuskegee University (TU) with the funding from NSF for a period of five years starting October 2018. Collaborators from within the USA include Auburn University (AU), Cornell University (CU) and several industry and national laboratories. International collaboration is built upon the existing relationships with researchers from Brazil and India. The research focus areas of the proposed center include three synergistic subprojects: I). Nanobiomaterials Extraction, II). Biopolymers Design and Synthesis, and III). Advanced Green Composites. Activities in Subproject I include synthesis of a variety of nanomaterials from waste resources like rice husk, bone ash, fish scales etc., extraction of cellulose in various forms and lignin from plants, and production of nanofibers. Activities in Subproject II include synthesis of biopolymers from lignocellulosic biomass, development of resins with excellent thermal and mechanical properties from agricultural and food processing wastes. Subproject III activities will focus on development of advanced green composites through use of plant fibers, fibers from liquid crystalline and bacterial cellulose. In addition, durability and toughening characteristics of advanced composites will be enhanced through development of autonomously self-healing polymers and composites, toughened fibers and resins. Partnership from within the USA and abroad, personnel from industry and national laboratories will ensure addressing basic science questions while solving global problems.<br>
Funder Acknowledgement: NSF Award: HRD NSF Crest #1735971

CREST: Center for Sustainable Lightweight Advanced Materials (C-SLAM)

The legal system is concerned with interpreting and applying existing laws to real world circumstances. In the U.S., the final arbiters of these laws are the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The cases presented before the court generally involve disputes between two parties, the petitioner and the respondent. However, in some cases third parties provide additional information to the court as amici curiae (‘friends of the court’). The present study uses corpus statistics and moral foundation theory to explore and compare the types of arguments brought up by the different parties during oral arguments over the past 6 decades, with a focus on amicus curiae arguments and how they affect the results of the case. Overall, the results show that both amici and respondents rely on moral arguments more frequently than petitioners do.

Supreme Court Oral Arguments by Amicus Curiae: A comparative analysis

Causal pluralism proposes that humans can reason about causes and effects in terms of both dependency and process relations, depending on the scenario. Empirical support for this view is provided by responses to double prevention scenarios in which an actor attempts to bring about an outcome, a preventer attempts to prevent the outcome, and a double preventer intervenes to stop the preventer’s prevention attempt. In contrast to the predictions of the causal pluralism account, two pre-registered experiments (Ns = 400 and 450) indicate (a) that intentional actions are judged to be significantly more causative of an outcome than unintentional actions for both the actor and the double preventer and (b) that reasoners interpret the double preventer’s link to the outcome in terms of a process relation. These results underscore the need to revisit fundamental questions regarding how reasoners form and reason over representations of causal scenarios featuring intentional actions.

Revisiting Causal Pluralism: Intention, Process, and Dependency in Cases of Double Prevention

Estimating the causal effects of a spatially-varying intervention on a spatially-varying outcome may be subject to non-local confounding (NLC), a phenomenon that can bias estimates when the treatments and outcomes of a given unit are dictated in part by the covariates of other nearby units. In particular, NLC is a challenge for evaluating the effects of environmental policies and climate events on health-related outcomes such as air pollution exposure. This paper first formalizes NLC using the potential outcomes framework, providing a comparison with the related phenomenon of causal interference. Then, it proposes a broadly applicable framework, termed weather2vec, that uses the theory of balancing scores to learn representations of non-local information into a scalar or vector defined for each observational unit, which is subsequently used to adjust for confounding in conjunction with causal inference methods. The framework is evaluated in a simulation study and two case studies on air pollution where the weather is an (inherently regional) known confounder.

Weather2vec: Representation Learning for Causal Inference with Non-Local Confounding in Air Pollution and Climate Studies

Surviving in low oxygen environments requires complex and integrated physiological responses, many of which center on economizing energy budgets. At the cellular level, significant reductions in protein synthesis and even translational arrest (in anoxia) can save as much as 90% of routine ATP demand. This suggests strategic investment in the protein complement of essential tissues, like the heart, that must maintain some level of function for the animal to survive through and recover from a hypoxic bout. The use of quantitative proteomics in animal models of hypoxia tolerance has unveiled new ideas about how the cardiac proteome is influenced by hypoxia exposure, as well as the ontogenic constraints on this aspect of cardiac plasticity. For example, developmental hypoxia exposure of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) induces persistent shifts in the cardiac proteome that, paradoxically, reflect an increased capacity for translation, proteolysis, and metabolic capacity. Concomitant with these changes was an equitable down-regulation of seemingly random cardiac proteins, which may offset the cellular energy budget. In Western painted turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii), the cold acclimation required to prepare tissues for chronic anoxia during winter dormancy induced general down-regulation of electron transport system proteins in adult but not hatchling turtles. Interestingly, both studies revealed 
‘age’ as a key explanatory variable in the cardiac proteome. This suggests a robust developmental program in the ectotherm heart that is resilient even to potent environmental stressors like oxygen and temperature, and warrants further investigations into the developmental thresholds of hypoxia tolerance.






Proteomes & Juveniles: A synthesis of ideas on the ontogeny of hypoxia tolerance

Predicting the responses of organisms to environmental change requires understanding the correlation between behavioral and physiological traits so as to avoid overheating without compromising performance. The concept of coadaptation, i.e., the correlation between thermoregulatory behavior and thermal physiology, is a foundational principle in evolutionary physiology. Yet, phylogenetic comparative analyses provide mixed support for coadaptation or evolutionary trade-offs. Few analyses of coadaptation between behavior and physiology include both a phylogenetic and an environmental context. Evidence for trade-offs maybe scarce, because the covariation between traits may be constrained by responses to local environmental conditions. Here we quantify how constraints in core thermal and behavioral trait may modulate patterns of coadaptation. We estimated thermoregulatory behavior and thermal physiology for 12 species of Phrynosomatid lizards inhabiting the Sonoran desert. We found low phylogenetic signal in traits associated with behavioral thermoregulation. Yes, behavioral traits have rates of evolution 3x higher than physiological traits associated with locomotor performance and temperature tolerance. When we modeled state-dependent shifts in thermal physiology as a function of thermoregulatory behavior, we found that thermoregulatory behavior did not influence the rate of evolution in thermal physiology. As environmental change may favor new combinations of behavioral and physiological traits, evolutionary mismatches between these traits can become exaggerated and result in novel phenotypic trajectories and result in a breakdown of thermal coadaptation. Our study revealed partial coadaptation and limited evidence for tradeoffs between thermoregulation and thermal physiology, which could be the default evolutionary pattern in the evolution of these traits, which has major implications for studying thermal coadaptation as environments change worldwide.

Evolutionary trade-offs between thermoregulatory behavior and thermal physiology in an assemblage of Sonoran desert lizards

Different green technologies have been investigated in our research group in the last two decades to produce clean energy and more efficient thermal systems with the purpose to reduce the emissions of pollutants. Simulations, experiments and thermal analysis have been performed to develop and improve the efficiency of Parabolic Trough Collectors (PTC). In this type of collectors, solar radiation reflected in a parabolic surface is concentrated to heat a fluid that circulates in an absorber receiver. One of the strategies to enhance the heat transfer of the PTCs is the application of nanofluids as a working fluid. These nanofluids are produced by dispersing nanoparticles in a fluid base with the purpose to increase their thermal properties. Nanofluids with nanoparticles of Al2O3, TiO2 and graphene dispersed in water and oil have been developed and characterized by our group. These nanofluids have been experimentally tested in a PTC for real operating conditions. We have also developed a hybrid PTC with photovoltaic cells in the receiver with the objective to generate simultaneously thermal and electrical energy. The technical and economic feasibility of a plant of hybrid PTCs to satisfy part of the demand of heat and electrical energy of the industry and the building sector have been investigated for different applications, climates and economic scenarios. 
In order to reduce the energy consumption of the buildings, the application of phase change materials (PCM) in components of the envelope, such as the roof and the walls, has been studied. The purpose of these PCMs is to reduce the heat gains of the buildings and delay the maximum peak loads because the thermal energy that is transfer through the envelope of the building is used to melt the material of the PCM. Experimental and simulations results performed in different types of buildings and climates are discussed. 
Finally, it is presented a computational platform (http://www.tecsb.com) developed by our group that use satellite information of solar radiation and available roof surface of a metropolitan area to predict the solar potential for generation of electrical and thermal energy with different solar collectors technology and to estimate the reduction of energy consumption in the building due to the application of different passive technologies such as PCM, reflective paintings and insulator materials. The program has the capability to provide an estimation of the reduction of CO2 emissions due to the use of these renewable and green technologies instead of technologies that burn fossil fuels.


Applications of parabolic solar collectors, nanofluids and phase change materials to reduce pollutant emissions

Energy and Materials Research to Find Solutions for the Dual Challenge

Conventionally, mechanical-recycled plastics have been irreversibly deteriorated in mechanical properties due to chemical degradation accompanied by molecular chain breakage, and it has been said that they can be applied to almost one-time downgrade recycling. On the other hand, we have found that the main cause of this deterioration of mechanical properties is physical degradation due to structural deformation inside of the plastic, and it is possible to improve the mechanical properties by using self resilience ability of plastic. Furthermore, it has been clarified that the mechanical properties can be improved efficiently by using a newly designed extruder with a molten resin reservoir used when repelling waste plastic.

Self Resilience ability of Waste Plastics

Membranes used in water reuse and pollution control applications are often exposed to feed solution species (e.g., proteins, polysaccharides, humic materials) that adsorb or otherwise accumulate during the filtration run, and thus can cause fouling. This has many consequences, including increased energy usage, a need for more frequent cleaning, and shortened membrane life. Here we examine novel and feed-specific hydrophilic coatings to mitigate the effects of fouling with the goal of reducing fouling resistance and energy consumption.
The coatings examined here are based on dopamine (DA), a biomimetic self-polymerizing hydrophilic material. They include DA, dopamine blended with 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DAEMA) and DAEMA polymer (PDAEMA), and a novel coating using the dopamine analog norepinephrine.
The coatings containing DAEMA or PDAEMA offered anti-microbial activity, whereas the norepinephrine coatings provided very smooth hydrophilic surfaces that resisted fouling at low coating amounts, thus reducing coating resistance. These coatings were applied to commercially available 30 kDa poly(ether sulfone) membranes using a batch dip-coating method for a range of reaction times up to 3 h. 
Membranes were tested in bench-scale filtration tests using a dead-end system with mixing. Measurements included mass of permeate as a function of time, temperature, and solute concentration. From these we calculated solution flux, resistance, and energy consumption. Membranes were characterized using contact angle, atomic force microscopy (AFM), attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The coatings enhanced anti-fouling properties against model foulants (BSA, SA, and SRNOM), and two treated municipal wastewaters. The modified membranes exhibited less energy consumption and lower fouling resistance as compared to as-received membranes.

Hydrophilic coatings for water reuse and pollution control applications

Time-series Analysis of Combined Sewer Overflows and Gastrointestinal Illnessin Atlanta, 2002 to 2013: Evaluating Impacts of Infrastructure Improvements

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CREST: Center for Sustainable Lightweight Advanced Materials (C-SLAM)

Supreme Court Oral Arguments by Amicus Curiae: A comparative analysis

Revisiting Causal Pluralism: Intention, Process, and Dependency in Cases of Double Prevention

Weather2vec: Representation Learning for Causal Inference with Non-Local Confounding in Air Pollution and Climate Studies

Proteomes & Juveniles: A synthesis of ideas on the ontogeny of hypoxia tolerance

Evolutionary trade-offs between thermoregulatory behavior and thermal physiology in an assemblage of Sonoran desert lizards

Applications of parabolic solar collectors, nanofluids and phase change materials to reduce pollutant emissions

Energy and Materials Research to Find Solutions for the Dual Challenge

Self Resilience ability of Waste Plastics

Hydrophilic coatings for water reuse and pollution control applications

Time-series Analysis of Combined Sewer Overflows and Gastrointestinal Illnessin Atlanta, 2002 to 2013: Evaluating Impacts of Infrastructure Improvements

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