Virginia Space Grant Consortium

Herbal medicines constitute a potentially important resource for new and safe drugs for the management of microbial infections and other diseases. In this study, dichloromethane, ethylacetate and ethanol extracts of Canarium schweinfurthii Engl., Dissotis brazzae Cong., Iboza urticifolia (Bak) E.A.Bruce, Isoglosa lacteal Lindau, Strombosia Scheffleri Engl., and Whitfieldia elongate T. Anders were tested for antimicrobial activity and brine shrimp toxicity. The objective was to validate claims that they are used to treat bacterial infections, diarrhoea and heal wounds among the Haya tribe of north-western Tanzania. At least one extract of each plant showed antibacterial activity. Dichloromethane extracts were the most active while ethanol extracts were the least active. Extracts of Whitfieldia elongate and Isoglossa lacteal were the most and least active with MICs in the range 0.08-0.62 mg/ml and 15.6-62.5 mg/ml, respectively. The dichloromethane extract of Whitfieldia elongate exhibited strong antifungal activity against Cryptococcus neoformans. Against brine shrimp larvae, the extracts from the six plants exhibited a low to very low toxicity with LC50 values ranging from 15.35-374.0 microg/ml. However, ethanol extracts of Dissotis brazzae and Strombosia scheffleri had LC50 values of >1000 microg/ml. The seemingly innocuous nature and relatively good antibacterial activity against skin infections and gastrointestinal pathogenic bacteria support the traditional uses of the plants and deserve more detailed studies.

focus on Digital Manufacturing.Her research is focused on mechatronics, digital manufacturing, digital thread, cyber physical systems, broadening participation, and engineering education.She is a Director of Mechatronics and Digital Manufacturing Lab at ODU and a lead of Area of Specialization Mecha-

NASA's Aeronautics Test Program (ATP) is responsible for many large, high-energy ground test facilities that accomplish the nation s most advanced aerospace research. In order to accomplish these national objectives, significant energy and resources are consumed. A select group of facilities was analyzed using life-cycle assessment (LCA) to determine carbon footprint and environmental impacts. Most of these impacts stem from electricity and natural gas consumption, used directly at the facility and to generate support processes such as compressed air and steam. Other activities were analyzed but determined to be smaller in scale and frequency with relatively negligible environmental impacts. More specialized facilities use R-134a, R-14, jet fuels, or nitrogen gas, and these unique inputs can have a considerable effect on a facility s overall environmental impact. The results of this LCA will be useful to ATP and NASA as the nation looks to identify its top energy consumers and NASA looks to maximize research output and minimize environmental impact. Keywords: NASA, Aeronautics, Wind tunnel, Keyword 4, Keyword 5

Mountain snow fields act as natural storage basins in areas that rely on snowmelt, and by understanding the long-term trends of these systems, alongside the spatial component, we can make more informed decisions on their management and conservation. However, current flight intervals make the production of continuous airborne data limited. Our aim is to demonstrate the necessity of more temporal analysis and modeling of Snow water equivalent (SWE) for the management and conservation of water resources from the Tuolumne River Basin, and globally, through Time Series Forecasting and Uni/Multivariate analysis. In association with NASA SnowEx, we aim to create two Long-Short-Term Memory (LSTM) regression models to predict SWE, by itself and how it changes based on Snow Depth and Snow Density. The relevant raster data sets were collected by the ASO (Airborne Snow Observatory), and obtained from the NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center).

Dr. Tysha Sanford taught for 15 years in the secondary and collegiate arena.During her years in the secondary arena, she worked on numerous curriculum committees aligning the Standards of Learning (SOLs) to the Newport News Public Schools pacing guide for biology as well as creating the curriculum for Forensic science which is taught in all five high schools within Newport News.She has taught Environmental science, Biology, Advanced Placement biology, Human Anatomy, and Forensic science.Within her three years at Virginia Space Grant Consortium, she has used Qualtrics to examine pre-test and post-test surveys in the middle/high school program that she coordinates to examine its effectiveness in leading students to explore STEM related careers.She received her B.S.

This paper presents the development and delivery of educational summer intensive programs for high school students that are designed to encourage students’ interests in the STEM-related fields and the motivation to pursue a STEM-related degrees in college. BLAST (Building Leaders to Advance Science and Technology) is designed as a summer-intensive, residential, on-campus STEM-learning experience for rising ninth and tenth graders. With the intention of improving the STEM-related workforce pipeline in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) offers multiple BLAST programs across the Commonwealth. BLAST programs are designed as intensive three-day, STEM-related three-hour lecture-lab experiences that are reinforced by evening STEM-related events. Funded by a grant by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), VSGC targets approximately three hundred students annually who have a C+ or better average, and who have had no previous STEM-related experience. It is surmised that if more students are exposed to STEM-related fields, they may become more interested in and motivated to one-day pursue a STEM-related discipline which would help to alleviate the STEM-related workforce shortages in Virginia. BLAST is offered at three public universities in Virginia including the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Old Dominion University. Faculty and graduate students at each of the respective universities design and implement programs that draw upon their respective faculty interests and strengths. In this paper, a content analysis of the various BLAST programs and interviews with the directors and faculty involved were conducted to identify common and unique strengths across the different BLAST programs. Impacts of COVID on the development and delivery of the BLAST programs are addressed, as are suggestions for program improvements. The purpose of this paper is to share the results of perceived impacts of the BLAST programs on increasing high school students' interest in STEM-related fields and to increase their motivation in the pursuit of STEM-related college degrees. If the U.S. is to be successful at improving its STEM-ready workforce, one solution is to increase the number of high school students pursuing a STEM-related degree and career.

Satellites are particularly well-suited to provide spatially distributed observations of global snow. For hydrological research and applications, Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is the most important observation, but it is also our biggest gap in snow remote sensing. Currently, no satellite sensor has the ability to measure SWE globally at the accuracy, resolution and frequency needed, because of a number of factors that impact the signals such as forests, mountains, clouds and the snow characteristics themselves. The NASA Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) SnowEx team uses machine learning approaches to attempt to address the unanswered questions of snow science. The team has collaborated with other similar NASA wide programs and leveraged skills and resources which led to the formation of a community machine learning (ML) working group.

The Snow Water Equivalent Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer (SWESARR) is a dual microwave instrument meant to fill in information gaps in the remote sensing data of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE). The aim of this work is to improve and validate SWESARR measurements of SWE for areas with tree canopy using unsupervised machine learning methods. This information is critical to NASA’s SnowEx mission for understanding the spatial and temporal variability of snow. SWE is an integral part of the climate system and affects many other climate-related processes, thus an accurate understanding of how SWE is changing with climate change is crucial for future water resource management. We have made use of a suite of parameters to help in identifying features most important in predicting SWE in areas that have missing satellite data due to vegetation. Our aim is to validate and improve SWESARR measurements using unsupervised machine learning clustering algorithms with the goal of being able to better quantify spatial and temporal changes of SWE due to climate change.Other relevant datasets that have been central to identifying parameters for predicting SWE and data validation have been from the ASO (Airborne Snow Observatory), NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center), and ground snow pit observations taken by the SnowEx field work team. This work is a result of NASA’s SnowEx team based out of Goddard Space Flight Center within the Climate Change Research Initiative at NASA GISS.

The SWESARR instrument produces unreliable results when flying over terrain populated by foliage. As a result, our team used a modified version of the LOF algorithm to detect subtle and extreme disturbances in the SWESARR data. We were only able to work with the VV polarization of the X band and the VH polarization of the Ku band as those were the sets of data where we found a significant correlation between the LOF data and the original data. Currently, we can only use the LOF data to make predictions as to where the foliage might be. But in the future, we aim to overlay the two sets of data to find precise locations and remove the need for ground truth measurements. NASA’s SWESARR airborne instrument collected the relevant data used in this research experiment.

Autonomous formation control of multi-agent dynamic systems has a number of applications that include ground-based and aerial robots and satellite formations. For air vehicles, formation flight (flocking) has the potential to significantly increase airspace utilization as well as fuel efficiency. This presentation addresses two main problems in multi-agent formations: optimal role assignment to minimize the total cost (e.g., combined distance traveled by all agents); and maintaining formation geometry during flock motion. The Kuhn-Munkres (Hungarian) algorithm is used for optimal assignment, and consensus-based leader-follower type control architecture is used to maintain formation shape despite the leader s independent movements. The methods are demonstrated by animated simulations.

In the past two years, two separate facility-specific life cycle assessments (LCAs) have been performed as summer student projects. The first project focused on 13 facilities managed by NASA s Aeronautics Test Program (ATP), an organization responsible for large, high-energy ground test facilities that accomplish the nation s most advanced aerospace research. A facility inventory was created for each facility, and the operational-phase carbon footprint and environmental impact were calculated. The largest impacts stemmed from electricity and natural gas used directly at the facility and to generate support processes such as compressed air and steam. However, in specialized facilities that use unique inputs like R-134a, R-14, jet fuels, or nitrogen gas, these sometimes had a considerable effect on the facility s overall environmental impact. The second LCA project was conducted on the NASA Ames Arc Jet Complex and also involved creating a facility inventory and calculating the carbon footprint and environmental impact. In addition, operational alternatives were analyzed for their effectiveness at reducing impact. Overall, the Arc Jet Complex impact is dominated by the natural-gas fired boiler producing steam on-site, but alternatives were provided that could reduce the impact of the boiler operation, some of which are already being implemented. The data and results provided by these LCA projects are beneficial to both the individual facilities and NASA as a whole; the results have already been used in a proposal to reduce carbon footprint at Ames Research Center. To help future life cycle projects, several lessons learned have been recommended as simple and effective infrastructure improvements to NASA, including better utility metering and data recording and standardization of modeling choices and methods. These studies also increased sensitivity to and appreciation for quantifying the impact of NASA s activities.

Hot landscape sites require special consideration before trees are planted. Trees can survive, and even thrive, in hot sites if the site is prepared correctly, if heat-tolerant species are selected, and if the trees are properly maintained. A variety of different locations and situations qualify as hot landscape sites

This publication reviews the major phytotoxic air pollutants, in decreasing order of severity, they include oxidants, sulfur dioxide, and particulates. Topics also include the connection between weather and air pollution and a section on diagnosing air pollution damage to trees.

Allelopathy involves a plant's secretion of biochemical materials into the environment to inhibit germination or growth of surrounding vegetation. Juglone is one of many plant-produced chemicals that can harm other plants in a process known as allelopathy. This publication covers the black walnut tree and methods and practices to reduce allelopathic effects.

Consider several factors when selecting containers and trees including environmental influences, container and planter design, substrate type, and tree characteristics.

Some trees can survive over a wide range of climatic and soil conditions, whereas others are very site specific. Both wet and dry sites present establishment and growth challenges, making selection of the right tree for the right site very important.

Describes insect pests that commonly are found on water garden plants and provides a short description and diagram of each pest for identification purposes.

Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) has developed the America's Anniversary Garden to help individuals, communities, and groups mark America's 400th Anniversary with a signature garden planting. The signature gardens will have red, white, and blue color schemes and will be promoted and marketed throughout the state and beyond.

Aquatic plants are essential for a healthy and environmentally balanced water garden. Whether you are installing a new water feature or renovating an existing one, proper plant selection is critical. The following steps will help you select and purchase aquatic plants.