Should College/Pro Sports Have their Stadiums at Full Capacity Again?

With the Covid-19 pandemic allegedly on its last leg, Georgia Southern is potentially looking at having 80%-100% capacity at its football games this Fall. With baseball season approaching us, the NBA in midseason form, and the football season only a few months away, we are now entering the peak of sports. For sports around the world, last season was as unique of a season as we’ll ever see due to little to no fans at sporting events. As sports are now picking back up, there have been several rumors of the possibility of allowing up to 80% to full capacity crowds in stadiums. Numerous college football programs are flirting with this idea, which has caused plenty of mixed reactions from both sides of the spectrum. Georgia Southern Biology professor John Carroll has been studying vaccines for over a decade and is very confident on what this may mean for the pandemic. “If we didn’t have any vaccines, it would’ve been idiotic for schools to make such a huge leap in allowing a full capacity stadium.” “I do feel like 100% may be a bit of a stretch, the smarter and safer approach would be 75-80%”. When looking at the data, it’s easy to see why people may get blinded by the numbers of 137 million vaccine doses given in America. Although 137M have been vaccinated, 48.7M of those 137M have been fully vaccinated which is only 14.87% of the US population. Although things tend to be heading in the right direction, it’s still awfully quick to determine whether it will be safe to allow stadiums at full capacity this Fall. On the brighter side of things, with four different vaccines available, Carroll also sees a path where having stadiums at full capacity could become a reality. “All the vaccines have a 90-95% success rate, which is way above everyone’s expectations”. “The vaccines are clearly effective, so if schools continue to push the envelope on getting vaccinated, I think it’s very possible.” In a conducted interview with 50 Georgia Southern Students, 36 students said they would feel safe going to game that is fully capacitated, while 14 of the 50 students said they would not feel safe. Public Health Grad student, Kinsey Morelock contributed the results of the survey to “real life evidence”, and statistical data. “The leading cause of Covid outbreaks were linked to campus parties, bar gatherings, and huge social gatherings with no masks in sight,” she said. “Classrooms on campus and sporting events were surprisingly a non-factor regarding the covid outbreaks that took place during the Fall semester.” In a Washington Post graph, data shows that bars were followed by a rise in cases, and in 23 different states. Some of the few states that make contact tracing data public 41% of all cases can be traced to bars and restaurants. 41% was the highest percentage out of all the categories while sporting events only had an eight percent effective rate. Indoor dining, especially when capacity is capped at 25%, appears to be less of a problem than bars. But in bars, physical distancing is harder to control, and people talk more and louder when alcohol is consumed, which could contribute to the production of more virus aerosols. Which is why the nation’s top infectious diseases official, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have consistently stated, “when bars open, infections tend to follow.” “If we’re being honest, having a fall stadium really shouldn’t be a discussion,” Georgia Southern student Evan Rowe said. “The super spreaders were linked to parties and bars, notice how after the super bowl and other major sporting events with a decent crowd had no outbreaks”. Although it is understandable that many people are not too fond of the idea of fully compacted stadiums, remember that this was never that cause for outbreaks. With four vaccines available and a few more rumored to be the horizon, scientist have predicted that at least 80-85% of people will be fully vaccinated come September. “It’s tough to predict what may happen in six months,” Carroll said. “But if we continue to do what we’ve been doing for a year now, and continue to listen to the scientist/doctors, everything will play out the way it was intended to."

How Engineering Research Has Played A Role in the COVID-19 Vaccines

 By: Tyler Miller

Engineering can help with a lot of different things in today’s world that most people don’t even realize that it helps out with. Engineering played a big part in producing the vaccines for COVID-19 that are being distributed all over the world. Some people do extensive research on stuff like vaccines, especially Laura Rives.

Laura is a chemical engineer that works for a company that helps ship out some of the vaccines in coolers. She said that she really doesn’t do much research since she is always working, but when she gets free time, she does research on how engineering helped play a part in producing the vaccines. “I do work a lot and help ship out some of the vaccines in our coolers, and don’t get a lot of time to do my own research on things. But I do some research on how engineering has really helped produce the vaccines that people get today,” Rives said in an email. She also said that since her and the people she works with have to go through the process of putting the vaccines in coolers to ship them out to be distributed, it always interested her to research how engineering played a role. “Engineering plays a huge role in a lot of things today, especially vaccines and it always interested me to do some research on it,” said Rives.

She said her extensive research includes finding out how much chemical engineering has done for vaccine distribution and making of the vaccines.

Even students at Georgia Southern University who are engineering majors, don’t realize how much engineering plays a part in vaccines and the role it has in helping make and distribute them.

Peyton Iturrian, an engineering major at Georgia Southern, said that even he didn’t realize till he thought about it, how much engineering helped when it came to the vaccines. “Students like myself don’t realize how big a role engineering plays in the world. Especially when it comes to the pandemic that we’ve been in for over a year now. Once you think about it, you’re like oh yeah engineering does play a big role in the world especially when it comes to the vaccines,” said Iturrian.

Iturrian also said that once somebody does research on what role engineering plays, you realize how big of an impact you’re having in today’s world by being an engineering major. He said that engineering always interested him and when the pandemic hit, he realized after a while that he picked the right major because of his interest in it, and how much engineering really does for the world.

Clay Hester, also an engineering major at Georgia Southern, said that he had interest in being an engineering major back when he was in high school. He also said when it came to the role it plays with the vaccine, “When I first started being an engineering major at Georgia Southern, I had thought about what the impact was on the real world when it came to what I was doing. And recently with this pandemic and how dangerous COVID-19 really is, you start to research how much engineering has helped with the vaccines.”

Hester also added that he thinks that engineers don’t get enough credit for how much they helped with the vaccines and how much work they had to put in for it. “Those of us who are engineers I feel like don’t get enough credit for how much we’ve helped with the vaccines. All the work we’ve done to help make them so they can get distributed. We deserve more credit for that.”

Until somebody starts researching how much of an impact engineers have had on the COVID-19 vaccines, they don’t realize how much their work has helped.

 

 

 

Alternative Energy

lilRami · AlternativeEnergyAudio

Professor Makes Small Steps Forward Towards Cancer Research

(Statesboro, GA) A screenshot of an illustration by Tolentino over a zoom call to show the process of growing the cancer cell to be tested, a diagram to show what it is tested in, and a graph to show how the results are analyzed based on concentration of the compound, and the amount of time. Image does not include Tolentino's other parts of the image.

By John Roberts 

    A professor at Georgia Southern University is conducting research this semester to confirm the creation of a compound that shows activity against some cancer cells.

    Christine Whitlock, a professor and synthetic organic chemist, has been working with an iron compound called tris-indole amines for almost 20 years.

    The National Cancer Institute has a program called the NCI-60 Human Tumors Cell Lines Screen that allows scientists and researchers to send in compounds for free, and test their activity in 60 human cancer cells. 

    Whitlock sent in multiple compounds, but only received interest about the iron compound that showed some activity with cancer cells. 

    These surprising results for Whitlock from this compound led to the creation of a few derivatives, which are compounds arising from another compound already made. 

    Whitlock partnered with a colleague and cell biologist, Timothy Tolentino to test some of these derivatives in some cancer cells. 

    Tolentino tested them in prostate cancer cells and leukemia cells, and Whitlock said that the results in cell culture are just as active as some drugs that are on the market.

    Tolentino has a plethora of samples of cancer that he obtains, grows, and stores for tests for professors like Whitlock.

    The process to test the iron compound involved taking the sample of the cancers out of their freezer, providing nutrients and circumstances that would grow the amount of these cells to a strong place.

    Once this cancer cells grew up this point, Tolentino placed it in a certain contained environment, and places different concentrations of the the compound over different periods of time. 

    These results showed Whitlock and Tolentino the anti-cancer properties that the NCI program identified as well.

    Whitlock's research on iron compounds were not originally intended to treat cancer, but rather for chelating iron for people that have too much iron in their blood, also known as hemochromatosis. 

    This iron chelating process is designed to where a compound can grab or bond to iron in the bloodstream, and filter it out of the system.  

    The structure of the compound that Whitlock is working with is like claw of 3 molecules that grab onto iron, but differs from the original by using molecules Whitlock has chosen that are able to dissolve the iron more.

    "I think it has a lot of potential," Tolentino said.

    Both Whitlock and Tolentino observed that this iron compound is not toxic, shows anti-cancer properties, can treat for other medical issues and has the ability to act as a transporter based on its claw shape and iron chelating. 

    Tolentino said one of the biggest issues in cancer research is the fact that most treatments do not effectively target specific areas, and this compound possesses the ability to transport a drug to a certain location.

    Cancer treatment in most ways looks like a pouring food coloring in water to diffuse, rather than a precision missile to a specific area.

    The other issue has come that with more stronger doses of some cancer treatments has come to negatively affect other cells besides cancer cells. 

    Whitlock's research on this iron compound moves past these barriers.

    "It's not toxic, not radioactive, and kills cancer cells," Tolentino said, "Sounds good to me."

    Whitlock's research on the iron compound has a long distance to go before these observations get to a point where this could be a viable treatment.

    "You can spend years making a compound and then it doesn't work," Whitlock said.       

    

    Whitlock and her team have spent this semester making derivatives, and trying to confirm if she is the first person to make this compound, and to make it correctly.

    Once this point of the research is completed, it would move to tests on more cell culture, and then there would possibly be multiple years in between tests in cell culture, writing about it, peer reviewing it, and publishing it. 

    From there it would go to be tested on animals to be written about, peer reviewed, and published. It then would approach the possibility be used to be treated on a person. 

    Maegan Morrow, a senior undergraduate student in Whitlock's research, said that this research makes her very hopeful for future cancer research.

    "Even though we are far away from human trials, I believe this type of research and others could be a great alternative to current cancer treatments, and could possibly be able to cure it with future research and testing," Morrow said.

     

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

Cancer Research Progresses at Georgia Southern

By: John Roberts

2John · Cancer Research Progresses at Georgia Southern

"Health Services Robot" Senior Project Audio

 https://soundcloud.com/user-321619623/stem-hsrobot-mixdown

AI in the Field of Medicine: Advancements of Robots in the Healthcare Industry

With the rise and prominence of technology, it is argued that artificial intelligence has progressively become the future of virtually every industry-- including the healthcare industry. 

Recent innovations have been on the rise due to COVID-19 being the world’s current reality. Scientists and engineers are using artificial intelligence to program healthcare robots and implement them into the healthcare industry, making it possible for robots to take on tasks commonly performed by human healthcare professionals.

Robots in medicine have been around for decades. According to Matthews (2019), robots in the medical field first emerged in 1985 when a robotic arm called PUMA successfully assisted with surgery for the first time. 

However, according to healthcaredegree.net today’s robotic innovations are even more advanced. healthcare robots help to relieve “medical personnel from routine tasks that take their time away from more pressing responsibilities.”

Currently, the responsibilities of healthcare robots are programmed to disinfect patients’ rooms, carrying meals, and taking samples to transport, analyze, and store them. However, the future of healthcare and artificial intelligence strives deeper than the everyday tasks. Robots are now responsible for surgeries in small places and transportation of dangerous substances. 

In terms of daily routine tasks, Kayla Mullins, Licensed Practical Nurse at Candler Hospital located in Savannah, Georgia said that her routine tasks include providing vaccines and administering medications.

“I’d be nervous if they were providing medications, because certain patients need certain dosages, and of course robots are able to calculate dosages because they are programmed to do so, but who’s to say that your patient won’t have a reaction,” Mullins said. “The robot wouldn’t be able to actually revive the patient, or perform proper precautions if something happens.”

There have been questions raised regarding whether or not robots are unreliable in terms of healthcare, due to unavoidable inconsistencies that come with technology. Breyanna McCoy, senior Public Health major at Georgia Southern agrees with Mullins about the tasks that robots should be limited to. She expressed that healthcare robot’s jobs should begin and end with tasks such as storage and data collection, but feels strongly that most healthcare professionals' jobs are safe in terms of threat from robots infiltrating the industry. 

McCoy's main concern regarded the general reliability of computers, the cost and the funding it would take to incorporate them into the industry. 

“After a while computers start to die fast, they get viruses if you don’t routinely maintain and update them,” McCoy said. “The healthcare industry is a trillion dollar industry, with the money it takes to fix machines, I’m not sure why we would add a billion dollar problem to that.”

According to Mohammed Sorez, an Information Technology graduate from Georgia Southern University, artificial intelligence is essentially a handyman for technology.

“The whole premise of IT is that something is going to break, and you need to know how to fix it,” Sores said. “When it comes to a robot or AI messing up, that’s just what technology does, even when it comes to humans, there is always human error-- it’s just going to happen.” 

Funding is a major reason healthcare professionals aren’t sure just how fair AI in the healthcare industry will go. 

According to rn.com “robots in U.S. hospital workforce tend to fall into two categories: robots that replace a job previously handled by humans, and telemedicine-based robotics that connect clinicians and patients.”

In terms of future innovations of robots, as it relates to the field of medicine and artificial intelligence, questions have been raised regarding just how far advancements can and will go. Hope Fields, Medical doctor for Kaiser Permanente located in Smyrna, Georgia mentioned that in medicine, practitioners have to be both subjective and objective, but robots are only able to be objective. 

“Robots aren’t able to practice discernment,” Fields said. “In medicine we have to be able to be subjective, objective, assess, and plan-- I’m not worried at all about robots infiltrating this industry, you can’t replace humans when it comes to medicine.” 

The future of robots will likely have a strong foothold in the healthcare industry. Future innovations of robots will involve an integration of robotics and telemedicine which healthcare professionals refer to as tele-nursing. Tele-nursing involves robots becoming the nurse’s eyes, ears, and body. The advancements and components necessary to make tele-nursing possible are becoming increasingly mature with time.

From Race Horse To Race Power

Georgia Southern University offers the Excellence in Research Program to young engineers who are competitive in their focus.

Through this program young engineers are invited to use state of the art technology in a lab that took over 12 years and $3 million to build.

The Renewable Energy and Engines Laboratory is directed by Dr. Valentin Soloiu , a professor and engineer for over 30 years who is the Distinguished Chair of Renewable Energy and a Professor in  Georgia Southern's Department of Mechanical Engineering.

‘“The lab has about 10 students who are researchers and seven or eight trainees,” said Dr. Soloiu. “We start very early, we start practically sophomore year introducing students into research and they do research in three years undergraduate two year’s masters.”

Students in the lab are a part of Georgia Southern’s Excellence in Research Program which absorbs all the costs of what it takes to accommodate students during their time as researchers.

The knowledge the students gain from the research they do is evaluated through conference and journals papers peer reviewed at a national and international level.

 One of the students a part of this intensive, five-year program that requires a minimum of 10 hours of research a week, is Amanda Weaver in order to remain a part of.

Her research began two years ago and she is now a Georgia Southern graduate who is using her skills from the Excellence in Research Program to enter an even more competitive environment.

Ms. Weaver's abstract from her on-going research has been approved for her to display the progress of her research.

She is designing a high-pressure injection system that has a variety of different sensors to determine the different characteristics of fuels, how they affect injection systems, and  how they behave when injected.

She will showcase her research at a Virtual national conference in May which will determine the 10 students from across the country who will be accepted into the even more focus summer engineering program called the Department of Defense- National Science Foundation Research Experience for graduates that Georgia Southern hosts.

Ms. Weaver will continue testing the different types of fuels through her project and this will help focus on better ways to tackle the complexities of internal combustion.

Automotive engineering research such as Ms. Weaver’s are being done to accomplish better internal combustion in cars for them to be able to go faster.

“We have a jet engine in the lab that we run, we have special fuels from aerospace applications, both civil and military fuels,” said Soloui. “We tried to find the best fuels that produce less nitrogen oxide and greenhouse gases”.

The testing of these fuels will not only make cars go faster but they will also begin to help environmentally because the results will help to produce fuels that produce less carbon dioxide, less noisy jet engines and ground support.

Richard Smith, an undergraduate researcher, also works in the The Renewable Energy and Engines Laboratory.

“We do RCCI research, which is reactivity-controlled compression ignition, “said Smith. “It is using a bio-alcohol with traditional diesel compression ignition methods to produce lower emissions in the test engines”.

Ms. Weaver's love for cars and the automotive industry may stem from her interesting hobby, horseback riding.

Her agility and competitiveness from her equestrian adventures prove to give her the same need to produce speed.

In the future, Weaver has her sights already set as far as her occupation.

“I’m really into the industry, I want to go to Detroit to the automotive industry and work for Dodge,” said Weaver. “ I like their attitude toward automotive manufacturing and performance.”

 

 

Williams Audio Lab

Semaj' Williams · Audio Story

The Excellence in Research Program

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