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Startup-yritysten roolista journalismin uudistajina on ristiriitaisia näkemyksiä, mutta niiden katsotaan kuitenkin yleisesti tuovan alalle uusia toimintamalleja ja haastavan vakiintuneita instituutioita. Sijoittajien merkitys journalistisen startup-yrittämisen kentällä on jäänyt vähälle huomiolle, vaikka he viime kädessä päättävät, millaiset yritykset saavat mahdollisuuden käynnistää tai kehittää toimintaansa. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastelemme startup-sijoittajia SCOT-teorian kehyksessä journalismin portinvartijoina ja journalistiseen metadiskurssiin osallistuvina keskustelijoina, joilla on alan kehittämiseen liittyvää valtaa ja vastuuta. Tavoitteenamme on tarkentaa kuvaa siitä, millaiset ajattelutavat ohjaavat journalismin rahoittamista startup-kentällä ja miten sijoittajat hahmottavat startupyritysten roolin ja oman merkityksensä journalismin kehittämisessä. Aineistomme koostuu startup-sijoittamisen asiantuntijoiden haastatteluista, joita analysoimme diskurssintutkimuksen näkökulmasta. Haastateltavien puheessa hahmottuu journalististen ihanteiden ja sijoitusdiskurssin välille ristiriita, jonka valossa journalistinen startup näyttäytyy lähes paradoksina. Satunnaisia uudistavan ajattelun alkuja löytyy tulkinnallisesta joustavuudesta, kun journalismin määritelmää venytetään viihteellisten sisältöjen suuntaan tai pääomasijoittamisen määritelmää vastuullisen sijoittamisen suuntaan. Aineistossa puhuva sijoittaja ei asemoidu vastuulliseksi portinvartijaksi vaan arvioi journalismin näkymiä neutraaliksi rakentuvasta positiosta, jolloin kentälle syntyy vastuutyhjiö. The role of startup companies in renewing journalism is a topic of debate; however, startups are generally thought to challenge incumbent institutions and innovate new ways of doing things. The significance of investors in the field of journalistic startups has, to date, garnered little attention. Yet it is investors who decide which companies get a chance to launch and develop their business. In this study, we examine startup investors in the field of journalism through the SCOT theoretical framework, as journal-ism’s gatekeepers and discussants in the metajournalistic discourse –actors imbued with power and responsibility with regard to the future of journalism. Our aim is to de-scribe the ways of talking and reasoning that guide funding decisions in the journalistic startup field, with the focus on how investors conceptualize their own role and the role of startup companies in the evolution of journalism. Our data comprises interviews with startup investment experts, which we analyse from a discourse analytical view-point. The analysis reveals in the interviewees’ talk a fundamental contradiction be-tween the ideals of journalism and venture capital investing, which defines journalistic startups as something of a paradox. There are, however, traces of more transformative thinking. These are based on interpretive flexibility such as stretching the concept of journalism towards entertainment or the concept of venture investing towards socially responsible investing. The investor subject speaking in our data does not position themselves as a gatekeeper with power or responsibility. Instead, they assess journal-ism and its prospects from an assumedly neutral position, thereby creating a vacuum of responsibility peerReviewed

Robot process automation (RPA) is the process of utilizing “virtual robots” through computer software emulation to manipulate existing software application in the same way as humans do and implement automation in an effort to increase efficiency mostly at rule-based repetitive tasks. The technical report is based on the implementation of an RPA designed to solve the problem of the donor registration process for a real donation project for the Community Chest of Korea and the First Republic of Korea Army which eventually raised over 1.3 million US dollars from multiple one-dollar donations. It gives a detailed explanations the entire design and implementation processes for the RPA including subdivision and identification of the automatable tasks, exploration and determination of suitable software technology for each task, verification and implementation of the technology, and finally the integration and testing of the RPA system as a whole. Also, the effectiveness of the RPA was analyzed and potential improvements for future work was identified and suggested. The report attempts to illustrate the strengths of RPAs and what changes and evolutions they could bring to industries of virtually all fields, especially considering that the research on the topic has only begun recently. The STS thesis is based on an entirely different topic of societal influences on currently operating transportation system in South Korea. The paper attempts to perform detailed analysis on a number of transportation systems and the problems that are embedded in them. Through the lens of the social construction of technology, these case studies reveal how different social factors including social perspectives, government regulations, media, and infrastructure influence the development and adoption of transportation systems or technologies as well as determine the success or failure of the technology. Also, the paper identifies the causes and potential solutions for a number of problems and uses these understanding of the societal influences to propose viable approaches in dealing with newly emerging transportation technologies.

My technical paper and STS research paper are most related to my University of Virginia (UVA) major and minor degrees. I am majoring in computer science and minoring in data science. My capstone paper is based on my internship work and the research paper focuses on the artificial intelligence (AI) model, ChatGPT. The summer before my fourth year at UVA, I interned at General Atomics Commonwealth Computer Reasearch, Inc (GA-CCRi) as a backend software engineer intern, and I worked on a project called the MR Scraper. The scraper was a tool used to retrieve data from our GitLab Application Programming Interface (API) and format it in such a way that it is consise and understandable. My internship was directly correlated to my computer science degree wheras my STS research paper had a more data science premise. The topic of my research paper came to fruition because of the recent publicity spike of AI models like ChatGPT. I was interested in the many new AIs releasing, but ChatGPT especially caught my eye when I was instructed not to use it in one of the syllabus lessons for my computer science class during my last semester. My capstone is about the MR Scraper and how I helped to cement it into the GA-CCRi infrastructure. Before my time there they started working on the scraper, but had stopped developing it so they could work on other projects. The implementation that they were working with had issues and known flaws. I followed the software development life cycle to implement my solutions to these flaws. The MR Scraper successfully extracted crucial information from the API, including author details, timestamps, comments or titles, and approvers for all GA-CCRi’s projects and merge requests. This data was then processed and formatted to align with the requirements of Grafana, a graphing model used for data visualization. The integration of the MR Scraper allows the company to view the evolution of code changes through visually appealing graphs and tables, significantly enhancing productivity and aiding effective resource allocation. The STS research paper is about the large language model called ChatGPT. It works by predicting the next word or phrase when given a prompt. After the user sends a statement to ChatGPT, like they would talking to a chatbot, the program will use its trained model to predict the next word or phrase in its response. It will continue to make these predictions until a full answer is given. ChatGPT's response capabilities makes it a powerful tool for various applications, including research assistance and programming support. Instead of helpful tools, it can also be used to completely write essays and complete programming assignments. These reasons worry professors about students violating the honor code and using it to complete assignments. My paper helps to understand ChatGPT through the Social Construction of Technology framework and looks at the relevant social groups and how they have collaborated and will continue to do so until the technology has stabilized. My capstone provided a healthy reflection on my work at GA-CCRi. I did not fully comprehend the value behind visualizing the productivity of a team. I knew I was helping out the company with my work, but I now know how viewing the graphs and tables could optimize the company’s productivity as a whole. I am also glad I could have a deeper dive into a topic related to my data science minor with the research paper. After writing it, I am even more interested in the upcoming machine learning models and I’m both excited and scared for what the future brings with AI.

As society has begun to place a growing emphasis on sustainability and the environmental implications of our day to day operations, few industries have faced greater scrutiny than the aviation industry. As reported by the EPA, commercial airplanes and large business jets contribute 10 percent of U.S transportation emissions and account for 3 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In terms of the global CO2 emissions, aviation contributed 2.4 percent of the total in 2018. Though this contribution may seem insignificant, if global commercial aviation had been its own country in the 2019 GHG emissions standings, the industry would rank number 6 in the world. Thus the significant scrutiny pertaining to environmental sustainability that the aviation industry has found itself under is not without warrant. As a result, extensive research has been conducted into the practicality of many proposed mitigation strategies for the environmental implications of the aviation industry. This is the topic of concern for both my technical paper and my STS research paper. My technical paper focuses on the design of a hybrid-electric regional turboprop aircraft with an entry into service date of 2035. Analysis has shown that in terms of minimizing environmental impact, regional turboprops are superior to regional jets. This is largely due to the higher fuel efficiency of regional turboprops relative to regional jets. Thus the design of improved regional turboprops that could leverage hybrid-electric propulsion highlights a specific mitigation strategy pertaining to the environmental implications of the aviation industry. My STS research paper explores the role that society, comprising myriad relevant social groups with differing values and perspectives, plays in the exploration and implementation of potential mitigation strategies. This interdependency between the technology and the society must be understood in order to assess the complete sociotechnical consequences associated with the implementation of each of the most prominently proposed mitigation strategies. To aid in this understanding, it utilizes the framework of the social construction of technology (SCOT) to explore how the values of various groups in society including but not limited to the aviation industry, environmentalists, governmental stakeholders, and passengers both interact with the primary mitigation strategies being considered and conflict with one another in the development of a sustainable aviation industry. It then proceeds with a general analysis of these practical mitigation strategies through a sociotechnical lens to address environmental sustainability. By studying both the specific design of a hybrid-electric regional turboprop aircraft and the role society plays in the exploration and implementation of a sustainable aviation industry in concert, my research yields a more comprehensive understanding of the practicality and consequences of the most prominent mitigation strategies being pursued.

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Alblemarle County Regional Jail (ACRJ), the local jail in Charlottesville, Virginia, was pressured by increased risk of disease in the physical jail to decrease the overall inmate population. To do this, they turned to home electronic incarceration (HEI), more commonly referred to as “house arrest,” to limit the number of people in jail while still monitoring inmates and counting time served. ACRJ, commonwealth attorneys, and the judicial branch were all a part of HEI’s implementation and use, but none of these relevant stakeholders have done or seen any analysis into the effectiveness, or results, of this HEI experiment, to whom it was offered, and how its use was shaped by other stakeholders. The technical paper, “Analyzing the Efficacy of Home Electronic Incarceration on Return-to-Custody Rates for Inmates During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” presents results of data analysis on ACRJ’s databases to analyze the efficacy of HEI, measured by return to custody (RTC) rate, and the equity of whom HEI was offered to, measured by various demographic factors. The results of this are novel and offer evidence for local decision makers to base decisions on moving forward. The methods in the paper consist of comprehensive, quantitative analysis of booking data provided by ACRJ, in conjunction with insight from various community groups: Region Ten Community Services (locally known as “R10”, a provider of mental health resources), Offender and Aid Restoration- Jefferson Area Community Corrections (OAR-JACC) and the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless (BRACH). This compares post-Covid HEI sentences both with post-Covid non-HEI sentences, and with pre-Covid HEI sentences to compare the results of the newly adopted system and offer context with the minimally-used pre-Covid HEI system. Supplementing the core analysis, the capston team collaborated with key community stakeholders to better understand the state of the Albemarle-Charlottesville criminal justice system. The paper presents several key takeaways: pre-Covid, HEI was reserved for frequent offenders who typically were serving felony charges; post-Covid, ACRJ began placing individuals on HEI who were more representative of the jail population in terms of prior criminal history and charge type; individuals on HEI instead of tradiatinoal incarceration are incarcerated for significantly longer, as those in jail can serve decreased sentences for good behavior, while HEI participants are ineligible for such time credits; lastly, the calculated RTC rates at ACRJ shows that HEI inmates RTC less than traditional jail sentences, both pre- and post-COVID, and when split between misdemeanor and felony offenses. This analysis provides strong evidence for the efficacy of HEI as an alternative to incarceration in the Charlottesville area, supporting continuing or extending its use in Charlottesville and similar areas in the future. The STS paper, “The Forced Experiment of Home Electronic Incarceration in Post-Pandemic Charlottesville: A Case Study,” uses the boom in the use of HEI in Charlottesville as a case study in how stakeholders affect the development of a technology. I use Bjiker’s Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) as a framework to guide my analysis. SCOT describes how different social groups affect a technologies development and has four main tenets: interpretive flexibility – the shape a technology takes is dependent on the social environment it is formed in; relevant social groups – all those that share the same interpretation of a technological artifact are lumped into the same relevant social group; closure and stabilization – when all relevant social groups are satisfied by the technology’s design and it then stabilizes to its completed form; wider context – there is a wider cultural, political, and social context that the technology and social groups exist in. I use these tenets of SCOT to analyze how different relevant social groups, mainly the jail, courts, inmates, pubic, and law enforcement, determined how HEI was implemented in Charlottesville after the pandemic, and propose how it could be used moving forward. Interviews with Charlottesville Criminal Justice Planner Neil Goodloe and ACRJ Superintendent Col. Martin Kumer provide most of the information used to analyze the HEI system. There are plenty of groups both in favor and opposed to HEI for various reasons. First off, HEI and traditional incarceration are completely different approaches to punishment, but more specifically, HEI is a much cheaper alternative to traditional incarceration and arguably more humane/moral. Traditional incarceration is less risky, arguably more punitive, and, as the status quo, easier to operate. For these reasons, different social groups mentioned earlier have reasons to support or oppose HEI, which I analyze in depth with the SCOT approach. The technical report offers data-informed insights into the composition and effectiveness of Charlottesville’s post-Covid HEI system, while the STS report presents a qualitative study of how various stakeholders in the Charlottesville criminal justice system determined how HEI as a system took shape after the pandemic. Together, this portfolio can give readers an understanding of why HEI is in place in Charlottesville, how successful it was, and how it may be used moving forward.

My technical report focuses on the design and implementation of a virtual platform to test the NGS Shipboard. During my internship, I was part of the navigation team with a primary focus on enhancing the navigation and combat systems of naval gunfire ships. Our primary goal was to establish an effective platform for testing the navigation and combat capabilities of various naval ships. Our team successfully designed and developed a virtual shipboard model that recorded data from different ships. Its application extended to our project, where we utilized virtual reality to model and test ship designs. The Navy's decision to adopt virtual reality in ship design stemmed from the potential timesaving benefits it offered and the emerging advancements in virtual reality and how it is evolving. My STS research paper analyzes how businesses can enhance their understanding of how to create effective customer interactions that fulfill customer needs and expectations by examining the impact of technology and emerging trends. The widespread adoption of digital technologies has revolutionized customer-business interactions, leading to a shift in dynamics. Online experiences prioritize personalization, convenience, and speed and customer behavior and expectations are influenced by various factors, including cultural norms, social contexts, and individual preferences. This STS research paper highlights the rise of online shopping, saving customers time and making it easier to purchase products online over in-person interactions. The synthetic connection between the technical report and the STS research paper is the emergence of virtual reality. Augmented reality is a form of virtual reality, and it is used widely in e-commerce sales and enhances shopping experiences by providing interactive experiences. With online shopping becoming a more sociotechnical phenomena, and the navy utilizing virtual reality to provide interactive experiences to test ships, we can analyze the advancements in technology and how technology is saving us time.

ALS is a degenerative neuromuscular disease that affects many people in the United States, and around the world, that currently has no cure. Because of the nature of this disease and others like it, new technologies are being researched that will give affected persons ease of life and more autonomy in their daily lives. The creation of a fully-soft, wearable exoskeleton suit is one of the solutions that is being tested to help ALS patients with activities of daily living. The exosuit that is being created for the technical portion of this project is truly novel when compared to other products like it because of its fully-soft nature and the implementation of a Bowden cable actuator. Because of the nature of the project, it is important to understand how the technology will affect each stakeholder in the design and application of the suit. That is why it is our goal to make the suit accessible, affordable and adjustable so any victim of this disease can use it. The framework that will be used to analyze the problems in this research is the Social Construction of Technology framework from Pinch and Bjiker. By using this theory, I can find out which stakeholders are directly affected by ALS so that I can better understand the role of wearable robotics in the lives of patients, their families and their caretakers. This will help me analyze feedback from each of the parties to create the best design for the most people. By using the case study method, I plan on finding how wearable robotics are used for rehabilitation and how they are used for activities of daily living. This will allow me to collect data and information about the different movements that are desired by patients and doctors, and how our specific model can be created with the best intentions. This method will, hopefully, give me insight into the implementation of novel, wearable exosuits. This technology has the potential to affect the lives of ALS patients for the better, while simultaneously creating a more beneficial relationship between the patients and their family and caretakers.

As technology becomes more advanced and requires less human interaction to function, we must decide how to keep these self-reliant technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, as safe as possible. By keeping safety as a priority in the development of these technologies, it keeps the publics’ faith in the technology that it is doing more good than harm. NASA has grappled with this issue since its inception. Faulty launches have made the US public question why their taxpayer money is going to failed space programs that have killed Americans, but NASA also has the goal of striving for space technology innovation. This balance between maintaining safety while still making advancements in technology is a slippery slope that we have had to deal with in our technical project. The safety of people not only riding in our platoon of golf carts, but also those in the vicinity of them was a major priority in the design of our system. This priority of safety limited the potential of the golf cart platooning system but was a necessary trade off that we made. The technical project in this report talks about the development of two Club Car golf carts that have platooning capabilities. The motivation for this project comes from the limited transportation options for students and faculty at UVA who have movement disabilities. Charlottesville has steep terrains which hinder the ability of people at UVA to get around grounds. On top of that, the UVA transportation system, while robust, is not suited to serve the individual needs of this group of people. The system of platooning golf carts will allow a single person who is capable of driving to lead a platoon of golf carts that will autonomously follow the leader cart. The people riding in the follower golf carts will not need to interact with the driving mechanisms of the golf cart at all as the leader leads them to their destination. A major focus of this project was the implementation of safety features in the golf cart and the prevention of possible accidents. The STS research paper examines how the publicly funded nature of NASA has affected its ability to develop new space technologies. The paper then examines the modern rise of privatized space and how public and media attention will not have the same affect on these private companies as it does on NASA. The STS framework the social construction of technology (SCOT) is used to examine how public and media attention affected funding for NASA since its inception in 1958. The paper includes quantitative data focused on how NASA’s funding has changed with different geopolitical events and shows the stark contrast of funding methods for private space companies. Other sources used throughout the paper include media opinion articles on space exploration from different time periods as well as poll results related to space exploration. From this research paper, I found that the media and public attention surrounding NASA directly affected their funding, which reduced their likelihood to take risks on new space technologies. In contrast, private space companies have no obligation to the general US public, and therefore will take on more risk, but also create more advancements in space technology. Working on both my technical project and STS research paper simultaneously has made me realize the struggles of publicly funded research and technological innovation. When an outside source is paying for your research, such as the US public for NASA or UVA for our technical project, you are more passive in your approach and are less likely to take leaps of faith that may end in either a major breakthrough or a complete failure. Researchers that have this looming issue of having an obligation to the person or group who is paying for their research are hindered by this and are slower to make technological progress. Doing the technical project at the same time as my STS research paper put me in a position where I could relate to NASA’s peculiar position as a publicly funded research organization and how that affects their ability to do research.

Greenhouse gas emissions from non-renewable energy sources are growing at an alarming rate, causing extreme temperatures and climate conditions to occur; engineers must create and refine energy systems to protect the environment, as well as the general public, by expanding the use of renewable energy sources. The technical research consists of developing a 100% clean hydroelectric system for the Columbia River Basin. Our designed system effectively maximizes hydropower output and economic benefits, while also minimizing environmental consequences. The STS research deals with the social effects of dam construction and hydropower operations on local Native American tribes and communities. Specifically referring to the construction of the original hydroelectric system in the Columbia River Basin which caused thousands of tribe members to relocate, permanently altered their homes and sacred areas, as well as negatively affected their way of life and food sources. The technical and STS research are directly coupled, because in redesigning this area to be more environmentally friendly, I am preserving the region’s landscape and ecology as well as protecting salmon and steelhead populations – important aspects of Native American daily life and culture. In order to create a long-lasting energy model, my team produced a system that is economically beneficial, environmentally safe, and socially conscious. To effectively re-model the design of alternative hydropower operations in the Columbia River Basin for a more renewable grid, my technical research team ran two loosely-coupled models: the California Power Systems model (CAPOW) and a reservoir systems model. These models have 1000 years of synthetically generated weather and energy mixes as their inputs and additional components within them, such as the streamflow temperature model, the Vancouver water level model, and an electricity price model that emulates the power system model output. This entire model generates a series of outputs, including reservoir operations that maximize hydropower output and BPA revenue, in addition to minimizing environmental spills violations, peak flood height, and moderate flood frequency. These operations are optimized by a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm that finds different policies that trade-off performance on these objectives in different ways. The multi-objective optimization yielded 19 alternative reservoir operating policies whose performance we evaluated across three climate scenarios. After the generation of parallel axis multi-objective tradeoff plots, policy 10 was selected as the optimal policy because it has the least significant tradeoff between my model’s objective functions, including maximizing BPA revenue and hydropower output, while minimizing environmental spills, flood height, and flood frequency. The STS research question is: how do we ensure that the construction of dams and other hydropower systems does not overwhelmingly alter the lives of those living in communities near these structures while still producing ample energy? In order to answer this question, I developed an STS framework based on Pinch and Bijkers’ “Social Construction of Technology Model.” This framework requires engineers to evaluate the social consequences of their hydropower design and re-evaluate their model if these consequences are too great. In my project, I wanted to combat the noted issues of interference in Native American culture in addition to the ecological costs of hydroelectric systems. Therefore, I developed a system including the design’s effects on fish populations, community layout, local waterways and landscape, and sacred tribal grounds. Supporting my framework detailed above, there are several concrete solutions that I developed in order to effectively evaluate my hydroelectric system. First, I developed a streamflow temperature model, which predicts future streamflow levels and temperatures and identifies times when hydropower operations would cause unsuitable habitats for migrating salmon so preventative measures can occur. Secondly, I did extensive academic research on the historical effects of the original Columbia River Basin construction on local tribes, such as community relocations and tribal grounds destruction. Therefore, in future developments, these same mistakes can be avoided through fair communications in the planning process and reforms to the already existing Columbia River Treaty. Lastly, monitoring and predicting flood heights and frequencies at influential reservoirs will ensure public safety for these communities as well as protect local waterways and landscapes. The expansion of hydroelectric systems is essential to combat global climate change, but it is important to understand the drastic social effects these systems can have. As seen in the Columbia River Basins, dozens of tribes and thousands of Native Americans’ home lives and traditions were permanently altered. In order to create a better future, engineers have an overarching responsibility to society to make innovative and equitable technology systems.

This study is comprised of two sections: the first covering the design, implementation, and development of a floating hydroponic farm, and the second exploring the viability of such technologies within the United States agricultural ecosystem. As this module is designed to be built and used within small island developing states (SIDS) outside of the US, both the material choice and cost were taken into consideration during the developmental process. As these economic restrictions did not hamper the ability to implement hydroponics to the project, I began to question why these technologies were hardly seen in today’s agricultural sector here in the United States. This was the motivation behind the second portion of this study which explores what else may be stopping the integration of hydroponics when they appear to circumvent many of the problems present in conventional farming methods. The technical section of this document discusses the implementation of hydroponics aboard a self-sustained platform that is capable of being closed to withstand the environmental hazards present in communities vulnerable to tropical storms. The project aims to provide a resilient means of food production that will lessen the detrimental effects on coastal communities imposed by flood events and high-speed winds. Additionally, the module was designed to contain onboard power reserves that may be used to either sustain the crops growing within during the days following a severe storm in the event that no one is able to tend to them manually or used as an emergency power reserve. Hydroponics were chosen as this method reduces water consumption as this is a resource which is highly valued in developing countries. The sociotechnical research portion of this study explores the various social influences that have contributed to the extraordinarily slow integration of hydroponics to the United States’ agricultural producers, both large and small. With a focus on the contributions of researchers, producers, regulatory agencies, and consumers, this paper discusses the development of contradictory perspectives which have resulted in a myriad of misconceptions between parties. These misconceptions have in turn, exacerbated the problem, creating a divided consumer base with fragmented knowledge of hydroponic produce that has diminished the market for such products. By analyzing how this came to be, my paper seeks to identify critical points by which these misconceptions might be remedied in order to release the holds preventing the integration of what many consider to be a superior form of cultivation when compared to convention, open-field farming.

Introduction: At the start of the semester, our team of mechanical engineering students sought to create a portative pipe organ as a way to better understand airflow in closed systems. In buildings all throughout the U.S., the implementation of airflow systems allows buildings to remain temperature controlled and comfortable for building occupants. These airflow systems function under a broader system known as a building’s heating, cooling, and air conditioning system, or “HVAC” for short. At the helm of this massive infrastructure, mechanical engineers work to build airflow designs that suit the needs of the building and adhere to building codes. Though mechanical engineers have a relatively comprehensive understanding of HVAC, climate change and society’s push for sustainable design call upon mechanical engineers to draw up new or modified HVAC systems. In response to this, the goal of our capstone project was to better understand the fluid dynamics of airflow within a closed, hermetic system, optimizing energy expenditure along the way. This capstone project motivated my subsequent STS research in which I discussed the political and social obstacles of sustainable HVAC design. Capstone Project: The pipe organ is a combination of a piano and a flute. The keyboard keys activate valves that allow air to escape from the wind box; resonance ensues, and a euphonic pitch sounds off. While older pipe organs rely on someone to manually push a bellow to get the pipe organ to play, our group wanted to try to build a 21st-century pipe organ—one that would play automatically without the help of a person. To do this, we would need to incorporate a new subfield of mechanical engineering: mechatronics. Mechatronics has burgeoned over the last few decades. While strictly mechanical systems still exist, the coupling of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering is becoming more and more common. Mechanical designs incorporating transistors, solenoids, and other electronics prove to be more precise and less prone to failure. With this in mind, the group believed that a mechatronic application would work well as the basis for the pipe organ’s airflow system. We designed the pipe organ’s exterior with acrylic—cut and processed with sophisticated machining tools. For the pipes themselves, we modeled their design in SOLIDWORKS after extensive computational fluid analysis. Afterward, we 3D-printed the pipes out of ABS plastic. For the mechatronic bellow system, we used a mechatronic scotch yoke to oscillate the bellows and provide airflow to the wind chambers. All in all, the organ worked as intended and showed that mechatronic systems can be a vital tool in the construction of airflow systems. STS Research: In my STS research, I contextualize the exigency of climate change and HVAC’s current role in it. However, I show that HVAC need not be a driver of climate change, given that newer HVAC designs have little to no carbon emissions. However, despite these great advancements, old HVAC systems continue to be built. In trying to understand this dissonance, I argue that a lack of legislation is responsible for the slow adoption of sustainable HVAC systems, and corporations and other societal actors hinder the progress. The research aims to understand why there has not been more legal progress for sustainable HVAC implementation and to identify the social motivations that have led to this situation. I examine state and federal legislation and track the attitudes of major actors to understand the obstacles to progress. The research sheds light on the societal structures and views that have shaped the current HVAC engineering reality and provides a framework for a more sustainable future. Conclusion: Throughout the capstone project, I gained a better understanding of mechatronics and its utility in bettering airflow systems. Mechatronic systems can be turned off and on easily, which means that they are generally easier to maintain. The mechatronic pipe organ saved enormous amounts of energy and performed very well in moving air during prototyping. As airflow is the foundation of HVAC, I began to wonder to what extent mechatronic applications have a place in HVAC design. My work on the portative pipe organ spurred questions and new ideas about the implementation of mechatronic systems in sustainable HVAC design. Given I had come to this epiphany myself, I thought that surely others have as well. Sure enough, many new HVAC systems and modifications had been introduced that were reported to save energy and increase efficiency. Even so, my further research revealed that these promising systems were not at the prevalence they could be. I wanted to know, from an STS perspective, why this was the case and what we can do about it.

The "Ambitious Expectations Contributing to the Monstrous F-35 Budget" research paper is an STS analysis of the development of the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. The paper uses the Social Construction of Technology framework to explain the role of the public, Congressional committees, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and the Department of Defense in the excess delays and budgetary overruns of the project. This analysis is done in order to discover patterns that result in budgetary waste. The technical report "A Tool to Track U.S. Infrastructure Maintenance" is a proposal for an application civil engineers and government agencies can use to bookkeep public construction projects. It details the application’s overarching technical design, expectations, limitations, contents, anticipated results, and potential future development. Such a tool would allow more appropriate allocation of funds for current and long-term maintenance. Furthermore, a centralized location for such data will streamline communications between agencies. Both the analysis of the F-35 project and the development of an infrastructure tracking application are directly related to government spending. By analyzing the F-35 project I hope to find persistent practices that result in spending waste and by implementing the infrastructure tool, I hope to provide a means to mitigate spending waste.

My technical work and STS research are loosely connected in the aspects of their motivation. The motivation for my technical work is researching hypersonic technology, which has both military and civilian applications, with military applications being a short-term goal. For the military, hypersonic weapons have a unique combination of speed and maneuverability that makes them difficult to defend against. On the civilian side, applications include advanced, high-speed air travel and space exploration. Hypersonic technology is being heavily invested into because rival countries like China have recently made major breakthroughs in this field. This connects to my STS research because it is motivated by seeking to understand the political relationship between the United States and China in the space sector, especially when complicated by developments in fields like hypersonic technology. In the following paragraphs, I will describe in more detail what my technical work and STS research entails and the value of working on both projects simultaneously instead of separately. For my technical project, called the Hypersonic ReEntry Deployable Glider Experiment (HEDGE), we are developing a flight vehicle that can be launched by NASA as a CubeSat but can reconfigure itself as a hypersonic flight vehicle for reentry. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of using CubeSats for low-cost, hypersonic flight experiments via natural deorbit and reentry. CubeSats are small satellites that can be launched relatively inexpensively and designed with many commercial off-the-shelf parts, can be used for undergraduate education. Hypersonic flight experiments are usually expensive to perform on rockets and difficult to replicate with a wind tunnel or numerical simulation. By using a CubeSat, university students can conduct these experiments at a lower cost, and with greater accessibility than traditional means. Currently, HEDGE is undergoing the critical design review step of NASA’s project life cycle. The critical design review determines if a system is mature enough to proceed with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration, and test. In other words, to pass the critical design review, the design must be almost completely completed and feasible enough to proceed with fabrication. As part of the power, thermal, and environment sub-team on HEDGE, we ensure that all the subsystems on HEDGE are receiving their power needs, that the spacecraft remains intact, and that HEDGE remains within temperature ranges where systems can function. Through succeeding in these tasks, coupled with the success of the other functional teams, HEDGE will serve as a proof-of-concept for a hypersonic CubeSat and allow for the collection of temperature and pressure data in a hypersonic environment. My STS research is on understanding the reasons for the implementation of the Wolf amendment and how it continues to hinder the complex and strained political relationship between the United States and China. I provide a literature review that examines previous cooperation between the two countries and the origins of the Wolf amendment. I analyzed opinions and reports from officials and journalists in the space sector on the bilateral cooperation between the two countries. I drew upon the social construction of technology (SCOT) theory to analyze how these groups view the effects of the Wolf amendment. I delved into sources to understand the possible benefits of cooperation between the U.S. and China in outer space. I provide explanations for why the Wolf amendment has persisted in law even though some groups have maintained efforts to have it repealed. The Wolf amendment seeks to isolate China while they are developing their capabilities in space, prevent China from stealing sensitive information from the U.S., and to change China’s attitude towards its human rights violations. The Wolf amendment has not accomplished its goals that it set forth when it was passed in Congress. From working on both projects at the same time, I was able to gain a broader perspective on technological research and how they impact political global relations. By considering the impact of foreign policies, I saw how that could play into the desperate and heavy investment of the United States into hypersonic technology. This allowed me to more deeply appreciate the technical work that I was doing and how it can have implications that will lead to real world effects. I also understand why the Wolf amendment has remained in effect because of all the sensitive information involved within my technical work, yet this begs the question of how cooperation between the United States and China could alleviate tensions through transparency and the sharing of research.

Antibiotic resistance is a global issue that has plagued the medical community for decades. Finger pointing runs rampant, and meanwhile millions globally die every year from pathogens which have mutated beyond treatment capabilities. Antibiotic overprescription is typically cited as a root cause, but the origin of overprescription itself remains incompletely understood. The two projects contained in this portfolio approach antibiotic overprescription by targeting two distinct driving forces behind overprescription: overprescription due to incorrect diagnosis, and overprescription despite correct diagnosis. The goal is not to establish which is the “true” root cause of antibiotic overprescription, but to approach an inarguably multifaceted issue with a similarly diversified set of solutions. The focus of the technical project is to design a diagnostic tool to differentiate between different types of otitis media (OM), or middle ear inflammation. OM is one of the most common childhood illnesses (Schilder et al., 2016). OM can be classified into two types, Acute Otitis Media (AOM) and Otitis Media with Effusion (OME). Currently, there is a 50% misdiagnosis rate of OM type among pediatricians (Pichichero & Poole, 2001). This is of concern because the standards of care are different; acute otitis media (AOM) is bacterial and thus can be resolved with antibiotics, while otitis media with effusion (OME) is nonbacterial and may require surgical drainage of MEF (Schilder et al., 2016). NADPH is a promising biomarker for OM type, as it is found in exceptionally high levels in neutrophils and is autofluorescent. Neutrophils are a subtype of white blood cells that migrate to sites of infection, and are known to be found in higher numbers in AOM MEF in comparison to OME MEF (Elbistanli et al., 2017; Nassif et al., 1997). Therefore, the goal of the technical project is to develop a diagnostic method capable of measuring NADPH autofluorescence levels with a degree of sensitivity that enables differentiation between the concentrations of NADPH found in healthy, AOM, and OME MEF. The purpose of the STS research project is to elucidate the extent to which the patient prescriber dynamic serves as a factor in the overprescription of antibiotics. To this end, this research project aims to answer the following question: in the context of antibiotic resistance, how does the placebo effect impact antibiotic overprescription in the United States? Discourse analysis and evidence from documentary resources are utilized in order to answer this research question. Beginning with the discovery of penicillin, the history of antibiotic use is evaluated for their impacts on patient and prescriber attitudes towards antibiotics. The Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) then provides the framework for a discussion of how patients and prescribers, as distinct relevant social groups, have shaped the development of antibiotics and their meaning as a technological artifact. An analysis of action bias, power differentials, and economic and emotional factors provide insight into the enduring lack of closure of the meaning of the antibiotic. Results from this research project are pertinent to the fields of science technology and society, public health, psychology, and patient advocacy. Working on the technical and STS projects concurrently was helpful in gaining an appreciation for how inexplicably linked social forces and technical knowledge are in the field of medicine. Writing a prescription, for example, is inherently a social activity, as the physician must speak with and examine the patient to determine a treatment plan. However, the techniques of assessment and the treatment plan itself frequently involve technologies, such as the otoscope and antibiotics in the case of otitis media. It became increasingly evident throughout the research process that medicine is a truly sociotechnical phenomenon, which reinforced that to stop antibiotic resistance, overprescription would need to be addressed on both technological and interpersonal fronts. Not only are the capstone and STS projects related thematically, they are mutually dependent on the other’s success.

The focus of my STS research paper was centered around the development of novel technology that occurs in the aerospace industry and analyzing how the management of these projects led to differing results. As for my technical project in my Spacecraft Design course, we worked on developing a design for a low-cost CubeSat that can be sent into orbit and collect data when re-entering the atmosphere in the hypersonic regime. This type of technology and experiment has yet to be done at a cost-effective scale, and demonstrating that university students can accomplish this task sets up a precedent for future work in this type of research. The connection between these projects, then, is the idea of working on creating technologies that are novel for their time and being able to approach the problems with multiple teams of engineers to produce an effective solution and design. The extent of my technical resulted in a prototype and Critical Design Review (CDR) to pass along to the next year’s students in the course, and potentially garner interest from the government and defense industry to continue developing these CubeSat models. Our Hypersonic Re-Entry Glide Experiment (HEDGE) is a proof of concept mission determining the feasibility of using CubeSats as a means of low-cost sustained hypersonic flight. The concept is to deploy as a cube on a commercial launch vehicle and be sent into orbit at second stage separation in a low earth orbit (LEO) where it will slowly lower its altitude and eventually re-enter our atmosphere. At these speeds, when returning to Earth, it will pass through at hypersonic speeds and with sensors onboard collecting temperature and pressure data to allow us to learn more about this regime of flight, which is an expanding area of aerospace. The previous iteration of this course concluded with a preliminary design review (PDR) and through my work, my class developed a full-scale physical and software prototype accompanying a critical design review (CDR) for the next iteration of the class. Specifically, I am a member of the software and avionics subsystem team, which is 1 of 6 on the project. My team’s work has been focused on selecting an onboard computer to go inside the chassis of the CubeSat and then developing a code structure to interface with the sensors and other subsystems to communicate with satellites and onboard power, as well as be able to perform tasks in flight autonomously, since we will not have contact with it while re-entering. My research paper was a comparison between the Concorde project of the late 20th century and Airbus, a modern aerospace company that has been in place since the late 20th century as well. I selected these two entities since they are both European based projects/companies and have experienced very different results when the final product was put on market. The analysis delved into the project structure and setup of the teams and how this impacted communication, design, and manufacturing of the project and eventually its use by the end-users. What this analysis found was that having an integrated and collaboration focused project structure leads to a better designed and performing final products, following Airbus’ approach to these, whereas the Concorde failed in the aspect of having a static and convoluted structure and communication channels between engineering teams, executives, and contractors all working together. While what they were doing was difficult, the lack of effective communication and collaboration led to a worse design and a poor performing product for the Concorde. Airbus continues to strive for and bring in new ways to connect different disciplines in their company and try to have successful products as they continue to be a major part of the aerospace market. The focus of my time spent in the aerospace engineering major was to analyze systems and components using primarily numerical methods to look at how they perform given certain conditions. What this research paper and capstone design has allowed me to practice in terms of analysis is stepping back and examining the social impact of engineering. Working on this research which had an emphasis on organizational setup in tandem with working with multiple engineering teams on my capstone taught me a lot more about our interactions between teams as we were all new to this sort of work and needed to design something very complex and unique. Had I worked on the research without having the capstone at the same time, the impact may have been less profound, since these types of projects were more unfamiliar to me up until that point, but having the ability to step back and see the parallels, in my mind, helped contribute to an overall better capstone project. The communication aspect of our work was a major hurdle to get over since each team had other responsibilities and schedules, and learning about what leads to better project results influenced how I approached that. Immediate communication in my team was relatively unaffected since we had the same goals and similar schedules, but between teams it allowed me to make better decisions about approaching others for requirements and deadlines for our work and getting the information we needed throughout the project. I didn’t have the appreciation of just how involved these projects can be that I was analyzing for my research until I had gotten into the design phase for my capstone, but having the opportunity at the same time to work on both was impactful in the way that I approached my specific tasks and work with others in the class.

Construction sites are well known for being significant sources of air and noise pollution, impacting both individuals who work on those sites and surrounding communities. While the presence of dust and other sources of pollution has been observed across jobsites, existing site management techniques do not provide opportunities to understand the causes or extent of various pollution events. The purpose of this project is to develop a prototype environmental monitoring dashboard which incorporates real-time data from air and noise quality sensors installed on-site, and link the data to specific construction activities on a detailed as-built schedule. The development of this type of monitoring system has become much more feasible in recent years due to the increased availability of affordable and reliable sensors and this project shows this type of technology can be utilized in a construction context. Sensors are installed in high traffic locations on-site including on the first two floors of the building under construction and in the jobsite trailer to specifically track noise, CO2, VOC, PM2.5, temperature and humidity levels at 5 minute frequency. Information related to on-site activities is collected through an analysis of construction documents, like a detailed schedule and plan sheets. Spatial trends found included the first floor of the site having higher PM2.5 levels, PM2.5 levels decreasing from the roadside to trailer side, and the second floor having higher noise levels. Time trends include lower noise and PM2.5 levels at noon and higher levels between 8AM-11AM and 1PM-3PM. Lastly, there the middle first floor sensor PM2.5 levels was found to be significantly correlated with a masonry subcontractor’s daily hour with an R squared value of .6125. Employee monitoring systems give rise to employee concerns about data security and storage, specifically that of health data. Social construction of technology (SCOT) may be applied to data security systems as there are multiple social groups that influence their design, such as the owner of the system, its customers, its employees, and the government. Generally, these groups value a secure system and view it initially as secure. However, a data breach may change this perception and lead to changes. To see how SCOT applies, four data breach cases were described and analyzed. They were described based on how they occurred and what harm could have resulted from the stolen data. The response from the owner of the data storage system was analyzed to observe if any improvements were made. In all four cases, upgrades were made since the owner now perceived the system as having failed after the breach. In some cases, more upgrades were required by the government to ensure the system’s security. The organization running the system should strive to initially create the most secure data security system possible since it will be beneficial to them and their users.

The development of a financial literacy education curriculum is an innovation relatively new in the public education system. Based on a 2022 survey conducted by the National Endowment for Financial Education, eight in ten (80%) of U.S. adults claim that they wish they were required to complete a semester or year-long course in personal finance during high school (NEFE, 2022). While states begin mandating a personal finance curriculum, school boards, and researchers continue to examine the best way to teach these subjects. Teacher-led lectures, worksheets, free online websites and tools, robotics, etc. are all potential learning sources currently being studied for effectiveness. This portfolio will examine two main topics: the viability of utilizing AI robotics for teaching financial literacy and the inequalities that arise in the ability to gain a financial education in the U.S. AI robots in education is still a relatively new and unexplored field that this portfolio intends to tap into. However, inequalities in financial education typically have to deal with demographic and socioeconomic status within households that limit the student’s ability to access certain resources or have a foundation of knowledge in certain topics. Thus, the relationship between the technical and STS portion of this portfolio lies in the potential disadvantages that the technical tools may put on underprivileged students. The technical project studies the efficacy and feasibility of utilizing AI robotics to teach young students financial literacy. More specifically, the technical portion of this portfolio includes an experiment at a local Charlottesville school, Greer Elementary School. Two fourth-grade classrooms were studied: the control group was given a financial worksheet, and the experimental group went through the same lesson plan being proctored by an AI robot. This experiment aimed to study the efficacy of the embodied AI system, the robustness and feasibility of the product, and the level of student enjoyment for each teaching method. Due to the increase in popularity of artificial intelligence and robot use, this research acts as a good starting point for larger studies. The STS portion of this portfolio dives deeper into why inequalities in financial literacy exist across the U.S. and potential solutions to this divide. Within the last decade, financial education has become increasingly important due to an increase in options for saving plans, bank loans, credit cards, etc., and major decisions such as retirement plans being pushed to the individual level (OECD, 2006). As the stress on financial education increases, so does the inequality due to demographic and socioeconomic status. The research question analyzed throughout this paper is what solutions to financial ineducation are being explored and accepted by social groups in the U.S.? Specifically, the social construction of technology (SCOT) framework is utilized to understand the relevant social groups being impacted (the financially illiterate communities) and those attempting to make the changes (school systems, nonprofits/entrepreneurs, and financial institutions). The solutions being researched in this portion of the portfolio are in-class financial courses, free online learning tools, and subsidized financial services. Researching the technical and STS portions of this portfolio simultaneously stressed the idea that for every technical advancement, there are social implications that must be considered. In order to be engineers innovating, we need to understand that there are marginalized groups that may be affected by the outcome and must always be considered. The SCOT theorem provides a structure that does an excellent job of considering all relevant social groups that help promote new technologies. In this portfolio, readers will learn about new artificial intelligence innovations that may disrupt the financial education market and about the disadvantaged groups that may need alternative inventions to promote equitable access to such education.

Big Technology companies have come to dominate the development and trajectory of the technologies we, American technology users, operate in our daily lives. “Silicon Valley’s access to data makes the [technology] industry different in some important ways”, where the monopolies of Apple, Google, and Amazon have user data to curate consistently influential products within their field (Fung, 2020). I am incredibly interested in how these companies have maintained their influence without providing complete transparency into how they make and use these products behind the scenes. Non Disclosure agreements (NDAs), a document employers sign to pledge they will only discuss company information within their teams, create a barrier between the public and the company, and this opaqueness may be at the detriment of the public. For instance, many user lives were saved because tech workers at Theranos, the creators of Elizabeth Holmes’ fraudulent blood testing device, risked breaking their NDAs to expose the faultiness of the device (Ovide, 2022). There have also been many instances where users’ data was leaked from large companies, including Amazon falling short to tell a user that their audio recorded by Alexa had been sent to a different user, complete with all the conversations they had with Alexa since its purchase (Murnane, 2018). If these significant technology companies are refraining from sharing these leaks of privacy, what else aren’t they telling their users and the public? I had the opportunity to focus on two different topics within this curiosity of the influence of Big Tech companies. For my technical project, I was able to write about my software engineering internship at a large technology company, and focus on the impact of the Non Disclosure Agreement on my work and others’ within similar companies. During my summer internships with a Cupertino-based technology company, I came in with many ideas for possible new features and worked with my team members to craft and narrow down the project with the most potential. Over the course of twelve weeks, I coded to build out the feature to a working prototype. While it was not tested on real users due to the confidentiality, there was much feedback that would be resolved with this feature, so I anticipate it would be well accepted by the public. The limitations of my collaboration within the company however, as well as the inability to discuss with others outside of the company lead me to explore the effects of the NDA on developers and companies. My Science and Technology in Society (STS) project shifts focus from within the companies, to within the homes of the users. I analyze the differing opinions on surveillance within smart homes, between Big Tech companies that produce this technology and civil rights groups. Major technology companies and consumer advocacy groups see smart homes in different lights: in how they approach the scope of privacy, knowledge gaps, and existing regulation and solutions. Big Tech’s idea of their scope of responsibility for the privacy of the public has allowed them to focus only on the user rather than those that may be around the user, such that they may market a safe home with their device, where only the privacy of the house is preserved. While a safe device is marketed, some big tech companies have also neglected certain regulations that would uphold those security standards they promised to the public, leading to more controversy of the impacts of the smart home. Finally, I consider how the civil rights groups advocate for more technical or safety knowledge to the users and non-users and also speak out to hold the companies accountable. After completing these two analyses this year, I have come to a better understanding of some of the values in Big Technology companies. In my education here at the School of Engineering, a lesson my Computer Science classes have taught me is about the trade offs in programming. This includes trade offs like efficiency for storage, accuracy for time, or lower level code for ease of human understanding. This has translated into the technology space as well, where often companies have traded collaboration for privacy of information or user security for ease of operation. Both of these projects have related to these trade offs in tech and have influenced my entrance into the professional world, where I may think more critically about the established norms within a company or team. I will be sure to listen to what the public has to say in regards to the device I’m developing, as well as about others’ devices so that I have a better hold of what is changing in the field in which I’m working. Completing these research studies together has helped me to be more thoughtful of who I’m interacting with in the tech space, and who I am impacting with my work.

My capstone project addresses the problem of food insecurity in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) due to natural and economic factors. The main factor that our capstone team is trying to combat is natural disasters that can severely damage the crops and agricultural infrastructure of the communities in the SIDS that they hit, creating food insecurity and a lack of job opportunity for many families. In order to help solve this problem, our capstone team is modifying and finalizing an existing hydroponic crop cultivation (HCC) system called the “Fold-out-Farm”. The Fold-out-Farm is completely self-sufficient – it has its own water collection system, solar-based power generation, and on-board growing pods. The unit can float to combat disaster consequences from incidents such as hurricanes. Specifically, the project is working to add a rainwater harvesting system and validate the structural integrity of the unit during a flood. Since this technology is being implemented in SIDS where many of the local farming families have low income levels, it is important to consider the human and social dimensions in order to make the system affordable as well as efficient so that the farmers that use this technology can afford to maintain the system. The STS theory of Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) might apply to analyze the problem solving approach of this project as not only does the culture and current economy of the communities that our system is intended to be implemented in affect the way that we design our system, but the implementation of this technology also affects the way that these communities operate and the habits that they form. In order to conduct my STS research I plan on using data and examples from my technical capstone project as well as using literature review from pre-existing articles and data. The data analysis methods in my research will mostly consist of content analysis and case comparison, creating or reviewing statistics from the evidence and data collected in my research. Through my STS research I expect to discover the vast list of benefits of using hydroponic farming methods in comparison to conventional farming. My STS research topic and capstone project are tightly coupled, therefore the findings of my STS research will potentially allow me to help design a better product in the final stages of my technical project.

With the advent of more advanced internet infrastructure, data has become ever more important. Because of this increased data reliance, I aimed both my technical and STS research projects on thinking about the long-term sustainability of data. For my technical project, I developed a robust full-stack data monitoring, visualizing, and alerting system for engineers to use at a local hydroponic start up. In my STS research project, I investigated the effects of data centers on the Northern Virginia community and how these facilities can be integrated better. In both of these projects, I was able to develop creative solutions in creating an environment for better data usage, whether that be in a more technical one to improve data accessibility and visibility for engineers or in a more societal one to improve data center presence in regions that feel threatened by its increasing prevalence. For my technical project, I worked at a local Charlottesville start-up, Babylon Micro- Farms, which specializes in developing smart cabinets for automated hydroponic produce farming. The company needed a new system for better monitoring of its incoming data from their hydroponic farms. As a data science intern, I was tasked with building a new dashboard of sensor metrics to improve how engineers would see their data. On top of this, it had to be easy to use and aesthetically pleasing enough to be presentable to potential investors. Working in an Agile environment to complete the project, I used languages and technologies I was familiar with such as Python, Linux, and version control on top of a myriad of new tools learned throughout the internship experience. In building the system, thinking about how the application could be sustained past my internship was a key priority, mainly thinking about how it would be sustainable for continued development with future engineers. This included building it well enough to withstand changes in data format, data ingestion, and other backend alterations the engineers could perform. In the end, I developed, for both internal and client use, a full-stack data scraping, visualizing, and alerting application to fully monitor all of the company’s farms while prioritizing longevity and robustness to ensure successful future use of the system. As a way to think about how data and its related technologies can be better for society and endured usage, I focused my STS project on analyzing the effects of data centers on the lives of residents in Northern Virginia, one of the most prominent places of data center construction. Also motivated by my own experience living in the area and hearing complaints about data centers encroaching on the community, I aimed my project on interviewing community members, both those involved with data centers/related technologies and those that aren’t, to understand how they perceived data centers being built in their backyards. At the conclusion of the project, I found that these sprawling facilities were seen to be positive in that they bring jobs to the area and stimulate the economy, however, are greatly detrimental to the community by overusing natural resources, driving up living costs, and ruining the local suburban culture and aesthetics. With understanding what effects data centers have on the community, I also understood how they can be better integrated in their human environment, which included converting abandoned buildings into data centers and using more discreet facades to better blend in with the area. By accomplishing projects with sustainable data and technological uses in mind, with one in the technical sphere and one more in the community-oriented sphere, I really got to understand how the two seemingly disconnected worlds could actually go hand-in-hand. For example, just seeing the sheer amount of data there is, even for a small start-up company like Babylon, worsened my concern that data and internet operations are a taxing endeavor for data storage and processing facilities, which partly inspired my investigation on how to improve data center integration. Furthermore, one key principle of software design is creating systems that can be maintained for future and continued use. This was an integral part of my technical project and one that made me think about how it could be applied to non-technical areas, such as with local community integration of data centers. With internet needs becoming ever more apparent, data centers will become a staple in many other areas of the country, so thinking about how the construction, operation, and continued use of them can be better embedded in residential areas for future use is an important concern to ensure the relationship between technology and community continue to healthily coexist together.

Hypersonic vehicles are capable of flying over 5 times the speed of sound. Their immense speed, coupled with the ability to maneuver, makes them a technology of high militaristic interest. Hypersonic weapons could accurately strike a small target, or deliver a full nuclear warhead. They are significantly more difficult to detect, track, predict, and intercept. The rate of hypersonic technological development has skyrocketed in the past two decades due to advancements in material sciences and avionics. The United States is allocating billions each year towards hypersonics research and development. My technical capstone project presents an extreme low-cost alternative to conventional hypersonic flight testing. This alternative testing platform was based on the infrastructure of educational cube satellite. If funded, the cube-sat will have its first orbital test flight in the near future. Working on my technical capstone revealed the potentially destabilizing nature of hypersonics. My STS research investigates the ramifications of the proliferation of hypersonic technologies, and the factors impeding stronger arms control. This was done in part by examining the social context surrounding hypersonic arms control efforts. Both projects are strongly connected through the topic of hypersonic technologies. Together, the projects present the social and technical ramifications of hypersonic technology research. My capstone project was a collaboration with the other graduating aerospace engineering fourth years. Together we refined the design of the Hypersonic ReEntry Deployable Glider Experiment (HEDGE), a cube-satellite-based hypersonics testing platform. HEDGE will deploy from the second stage of a rocket into extreme-low earth orbit. After a few days, it will re-enter the atmosphere. During the early stages of re-entry, HEDGE will transmit data relevant to the development of hypersonic technologies. In two or three years and after more refinement, HEDGE may be launched. I am a member of the structures and integration team. We have worked on the design of the aerodynamic surfaces on the cube-sat, deployment mechanisms, and internal layout of electronic components. While designing, we had to take extra care to ensure that the changes we were making would not jeopardize the aerodynamic stability of HEDGE. Solving these problems has involved advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses and extensive computer-aided design (CAD) work. Being in the structures and integration team also involved substantial collaboration with the other subsystem teams. While they selected which components to use, we worked together to determine the appropriate internal placements. My STS research paper establishes that the strong arms control approach of a testing ban addressing the proliferation of hypersonic weapons has not been passed in part due to influences from militaristic and manufacturer social groups on international policy. The paper includes a summary of the existing literature on hypersonics arms control and opinions of relevant social groups. A methods section discusses the sources and research methods used in the investigation, including an explanation of the social construction of technology (SCOT) STS framework. In my results, the unique perspectives of three social groups relevant to hypersonic technologies are analyzed Through the lens of SCOT. These groups are military leaders, hypersonic manufacturers, and arms control advocates. I discuss why certain groups influence arms control more than others. Finally, the possible effectiveness and lack of implementation of a hypersonic testing ban are discussed in relation to the findings of the SCOT analysis. My goal with the STS research paper is to contribute to the understanding of difficulties involved with international hypersonic arms control policy. Working on both my capstone project and STS research paper simultaneously was extremely symbiotic. The most significant benefit was how the technical knowledge I obtained working on my capstone project empowered me to explore the more technical contexts behind hypersonic arms control. For instance, a significant factor standing in the way of hypersonic arms control is the difficulty in distinguishing between hypersonic and conventional weapons tests. Working on a proposal for a hypersonic testing platform provided a first-hand glance at these technical similarities. Furthermore, working on my technical capstone project involved navigating the infrastructure of the military-industrial complex. The military-industrial complex plays a significant role in my analysis of the social influences around hypersonics arms control. Finally, my STS research served as a reminder to consider the ethics and social impacts of engineering. This is especially important in the design of technologies like hypersonic weapons, which can have the most extreme consequences.

As individuals have increasing access to personal health data and technology that can guide/make recommendations to improve our lives and wellbeing, we must consider the benefits and drawbacks regarding the efficacy and ethical integration of these products. While the capstone project focuses on the benefits of aligning one’s daily schedule to their natural circadian rhythm, my STS research paper explores the current problems of wearable devices in workplace wellness programs. The two papers work in tandem to provide evidence of how human wellbeing can be improved through greater awareness of one’s health, but also shows how the current implementation of wearable device technology and the infrastructure surrounding wellness programs continues to isolate already marginalized communities within the medical field. The capstone project seeks to improve human wellbeing and productivity by increasing awareness of personal rhythms. The human body follows a natural circadian rhythm, influencing sleep timing, cognitive abilities, and physical energy, but many people live contrary to this biological rhythm, leading to reduced cognitive performance and sleep loss. The research team investigated the feasibility of circadian-based activity scheduling for college students through three increasingly personalized levels of scheduling: (1) common activity timing according to circadian rhythms research, (2) timing curation according to sociodemographic context, and (3) timing adjustment based on individuals’ specific constraints and context. In developing the activity timing schedule with sociodemographic context, the research team conducted a survey of college students’ daily activity habits, wellbeing, and activity timing preferences. Once the three approaches were developed, the team conducted a three-week user study, one week for each recommendation approach, of college-aged participants investigating the impact of following increasingly personalized recommendations on wellbeing. The results of the study indicate that participants who followed more of the recommended activity timings reported a higher well-being, but increasing the level of personalization did not significantly impact improvement in wellbeing. These observations provide useful insights into design requirements for future circadian-aware recommendation systems. In my STS research paper, I explore the origins of workplace wellness programs, the integration of wearable devices into these initiatives, and the inequities created by the employer - wellness program - wearable device system. In the paper, I primarily use the Social Construction of Technology framework, along with Disability Studies and Race Critique, to analyze the development of the modern workplace wellness program which boast improving employee’s health, reducing absenteeism, and allowing companies to reduce their overall health care costs and premiums. Wellness programs often incentivize employee participation through financial benefits, either as direct rewards or reductions in health care premiums for employees that meet their fitness goals. Though wellness programs have seen success with already “healthy” employees, their current structure, underlying issues with wearable device technology, and limited government regulation prevents disabled (wellness program goals are usually not designed with disabled employees in mind) and employees of color (wearable devices have significantly higher error rates on skin with higher melanin levels) from benefiting from the programs at equal rates. This is especially concerning because people with disabilities and people of color have been historically marginalized from medical treatment in the United States. Without a fundamental change in the wellness program structure, the country’s healthcare access divide will continue to grow. To solve the issues outlined above, I propose: (1) encouraging technology developers/manufacturers to improve the accuracy of wearable devices on all skin tones by using both infrared light and green light technology as well as incorporating a more diverse set of participants during testing; (2) creating freely available, alternative fitness plans for disabled employees with federal standards; (3) increasing awareness of how wearable technology continues to develop but the data collected is not protected as medical information; and (4) providing flexibility in wellness program schedules in the post-pandemic era where work from home jobs are becoming more common.

To gain a better understanding of the factors that may contribute to the lack of finance courses across the United States, my STS project focuses on why students lack the opportunities to learn about finance concepts in their K-12 education. On the more technical side, my technical project addresses the issue of financial illiteracy by programming a Nao robot to interactively teach elementary school students, specifically fourth and fifth graders, about certain topics within finance, topics like credit. My STS project and my technical project are closely related in that one attempts to understand the reasons for the limited finance courses while the latter attempts to implement a way to address the financial illiteracy in students. These perspectives will provide a new insight into why finance courses are not offered and discover new ways to allow students to gain the necessary finance knowledge they need while they are in school. For the technical capstone, a Nao robot was used to interact with students to teach them about a finance topic and encourage them to learn about new finance topics starting at an early age. We chose to use a Nao robot because it is commonly used in the education and research fields, making it a suitable technology for our research. It is also able to move, speak, and listen to someone as they interact with it. Since this project is a continuation of last year’s project, a lesson plan was already created from last year. We incorporated the lesson plan into Choregraphe, a technology that is used to program Nao, and used the Wizard of Oz method to test if a Nao robot is a good way of keeping students engaged in their learning. Wizard of Oz is when someone is controlling a piece of technology behind the system to allow someone to interact with that technology. At the same time, if a student needs help at any point in the lesson plan, we will give them a hint verbally or through the robot and record that data to analyze the effectiveness of using a Nao robot to teach students. To see if teaching through a robot is a good way to keep students engaged, we had one group of students learn through robots while another group learn through worksheets. It was found that students enjoyed learning through robots much more than worksheets while both groups improved in their understanding of the finance topic that was taught. For the STS research paper, different relevant social groups were analyzed through the lens of the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework to see why there is a lack of finance courses in K-12 education in the U.S. It was discovered that teachers had low financial literacy and because of it, they lack the ability to teach finance to students. Teachers also have a lot of materials to teach to students earlier on in K-12 education, which makes it harder for more teachers to offer finance to students in early education. School boards and districts realize that finance is a complex topic that not many students take, and because of this, not a lot of resources are put into finance programs. Students also lack exposure to finance topics from not only at school but also from the people around them. Some might argue that students may not even need exposure to finance topics until after K-12 education. Since the technical capstone and the STS project were completed at the same time, they built on each other in terms of considering a technical project from real world prospectives, especially when the two projects both try to solve the same issue in different ways. Without the STS project, I would not have understood why a robot that teaches finance was needed to help more students learn about finance, especially elementary school students. Without the technical capstone, I would not have been able to given the chance to help in the development and testing of a way to compensate for the fact that there is not a lot of teachers qualified for teaching finance. The value of having both projects at the same time introduced me to a new relevant issue that is important to future generations’ education and career and can help in discovering new ways to decrease the socioeconomic gap.

The current standard for external fetal heart rate monitors (fHRs) utilizes Doppler ultrasound (US), a sound-based, non-invasive technique. However, the current standard of US fHRs cannot identify and locate heart rates (HRs) of multiple gestation pregnancies. In addition, most fHR monitors secured around the waist also obstruct the lower back, which is the location where an epidural is administered. My capstone group developed a novel fHR monitor, measuring the frequencies of multiple heart-rate replicas in a phantom gel using an array of microphone pickups. With the continued development of this project, healthcare would have an accessible, non-invasive, safe, and accurate way of measuring multiple fHRs, which is unattainable with the current clinical standard of monitors. Since their introduction to the public, there have been concerns regarding the possible safety implications of using these devices. For this reason, it is important to consider the human and social dimensions of this technology. In addition, to the direct implications of inaccurate fHR monitoring, these monitors also bear heavy political implications, such as topics on abortions and eugenics. While my technical project measured heart rates for multiple gestation pregnancies, I analyzed the dynamics of the Edison blood analyzer (EBA) against various social groups using the social construction of technology (SCOT) theory. The EBA was a technology developed by Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos, now a bankrupt entrepreneur and a defunct company, respectively. It was the hasty development of the EBA and the deception from their investors and agencies that resulted in such a collapse. While many have used SCOT to create a socio-technological network regarding successful products, I studied the contrary: I sought to develop the network of the social groups involved in the development of the EBA, and I carried this out through prior literature and online media sentiment analysis. From prior literature, regulatory agencies, media outlets, and key individuals are highlighted as impactful social groups. In terms of sentiment analysis, there exist trends in certain online searches over time similar to that of Theranos, and some of those related searches will be companies participating in VAM development, such as Sight Diagnostic Inc. and Karius. This research has supported the way in which my Capstone project is developed: if the implications of how my technology is developed are ignored, then the greater ultrasound market and users of the device could be greatly affected, just as how the EBA impacted the blood analyzer market.

Organoids are 3D tissue constructs that have the ability to replicate structural and functional properties of human organs and tissues, giving them great potential in the field of medicine with applications in the study of disease progression, drug testing and development, and even organ transplantation. Despite this potential, the development of organoids is hindered by the fact that organoids must be seeded into biomaterials for growth and differentiation, a process that is currently done by hand, making it imprecise and time-consuming. These issues caused by manual seeding lead to slower progression in organoid research and technological development. To address these issues our team has created an automated organoid seeding device that utilizes image detection software to precisely and efficiently seed organoids into biomaterials. The current technical limitations are not the only factor holding back organoids as a medical technology, there are also important social factors to be considered, particularly ethics. Organoids are derived from embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which carry significant ethical concerns in the fact that harvesting ESCs can be seen as the ending of a human life. This is an important factor to consider as these concerns potentially impact the amount of investment that organoid research receives and thus its technological development. In order to analyze how a social factor such as ethics can impact the development and evolution of a technology, my research will be done in the context of the theory of social construction of technology (SCOT). This research will be done in the form of semi-structured interviews with both stem-cell researchers and investors in the space along with literature review in order to determine if organoid and ESC research receives lower investment as a result of ethical concerns and if so, how this lack of investment has affected the development of organoids as a technology. Through this research, I expect to discover the extent to which a social factor like ethics can actually impact how a technology like organoids is able to evolve, particularly in relation to the theory of SCOT. The overall goal of the combined results from both the STS research and capstone project is to allow for organoids to reach their full potential as a medical technology so that they can be used in their extensive applications to save lives and create treatments for diseases that currently cannot be effectively treated. With the capstone project addressing one of the major technical issues involved with organoids and the STS research addressing a major social problem, the combination of these results will aim to remove some of the barriers currently holding organoids from reaching their potential.

Cyber attacks and crime have risen exponentially in the past decade. The global reliance on technology to store data, perform daily tasks, and function as a society has enticed malicious hackers to exploit these often weak systems and their vulnerabilities. One such entity that is constantly under attack from adversaries is the United States Air Force. The majority of their equipment relies on digital systems and transmissions in order to function which makes them vulnerable to cyber attacks from adversaries. Specifically, their equipment can be jammed via certain radar waves that are sent to disrupt their signals. To address this problem, I created a way to be able to identify the difference between normal, everyday radio-waves that are harmless to defense systems and the malicious adversarial radio-waves being sent by potential adversaries to disrupt communications. I did this through a combination of computer programs and data analysis in order to sort, compile, and display data to make this distinction. It is important to consider the human and social dimensions of this because the U.S. government is tasked with defending its citizens and if they cannot properly do that, then there can be serious consequences. From an STS perspective, we can analyze the broader question, how have past cyberattacks affected how different social groups use and interact with software technology today? I used the social construction of technology theory to analyze this question by determining how different social groups have affected how our software is developed currently. To conduct this research, I used four different case studies of real cyber attacks and analyzed the attack, consequences, and impact on society. In this, I learned that the motivating factors behind the majority of cyberattacks were money, data, and geopolitical factors. I found that users of the technologies targeted in the attack were mostly to blame for the attack due to their poor online safety practices. Software developers may have been able to write more secure code for some of these attacks, but in the end the users bore the responsibility. In response to the attacks, there was very little governmental initiative. With the exception of a few laws and regulations that were passed, the government did not enforce sweeping legislation following the attacks. Throughout the research, I found that there was very little information being shared publicly about how the attack occurred from a technical standpoint. Without this information, software developers are not able to properly respond and learn from an attack on another company or institution. Greater emphasis on online safety training for users as well as more transparency following attacks will help to mitigate future attacks. Using this information, we can decipher where we have failed in the past and use these lessons to better secure our future. Together, both the technical project and STS research have real implications. They provide both an analysis of what we have done in the past to solve the problem of cyber security and an example of what we are doing currently. This can give us an insight into what we can do in the future by looking at our current technology and learning from our past mistakes in order to create a safer and more secure future.

Cet article questionne le lien entre tourisme et aménagement dans les territoires de montagne. Basé sur l’observation des Pyrénées catalanes, il vise à étudier la place de la planification stratégique dans la construction d’un projet touristique territorialisé articulant les stations de sports d’hiver dans leur environnement. Nous mettons en évidence le rôle de l’élaboration du schéma de cohérence territoriale (SCoT) dans la définition d’un projet touristique intercommunal ainsi que les freins à l’intégration des problématiques touristiques dans ce document de planification. This paper explores the link between tourism and spatial planning in mountain territories. Based on the observation of French Catalan Pyrenees, it focuses on the place of winters sport resorts into urban development plans (territorial coherence schemes). It explores limits and opportunities of the integration of tourism in contemporary spatial planning practices. Este artículo explora el vínculo entre el turismo y la ordenación territorial en los territorios de montaña. A partir de la observación de los Pirineos catalanes franceses, se centra en el lugar de las estaciones deportivas de invierno en los planes de desarrollo urbano (esquemas de coherencia territorial). Explora los límites y las oportunidades de la integración del turismo en las prácticas contemporáneas de ordenación territorial.

Through the Amazon Influencer Program, Amazon customers can follow influencers whose content they enjoy. Before the implementation of my technical project, customers had to locate each influencer individually. During my internship at Amazon, I implemented a recommendations widget to suggest influencers and their content to customers. This widget provided a dedicated place for customers to discover new content and used machine learning (ML) to optimize recommendations based on what customers liked. The technical portion of this paper provides an overview of the design, architecture, and results of the recommendations widget project. It describes the full technological stack, from the frontend decisions to the backend construction with machine learning extensibility. Though the machine learning algorithm behind this particular widget was simple, it brought to mind the issue of customer data privacy. Since machine learning algorithms become more effective with more data, this issue of data ethics is a complex sociotechnical dilemma. Additionally, there is a blatant lack of transparency behind tech companies and their user data. This problem is further compounded by the lack of effective legislation, both on public and private levels, to oversee the ethical use of these immense volumes of data. To demonstrate why machine learning applications have become so prevalent, I first investigate their power, specifically in the form of recommendation engines that help users find new content through personalized suggestions. The dominance of these applications lies in their potential to provide revenue, personalization, and content discovery. I then frame the issue of customer data privacy using the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), or the idea that social groups dictate nearly every aspect of a technology to shape its function in society. Given the sociotechnical complexity of this issue, algorithmic bias often appears through the implicit bias of the engineers implementing the ML, despite the algorithms seeming objective. This is dangerous as it ignores the nuances of the social groups that the data represents, resulting in discriminatory outputs. To explore the ethics of data collection and transparency, I analyze recommender systems using utilitarian and virtue ethics. To explore my research question “To what extent is it ethical, from a utilitarian and virtue standpoint, for tech companies to use customer data to provide more personalized experiences?” I conduct several research methods. First, I survey my UVA peers to gauge stances on software companies using their data for personalized services. The survey results highlight an interesting paradox: respondents were generally uncomfortable with companies tracking their data, but also would not stop using these services due to their unique value and lack of viable alternatives. I then analyze two case studies of ML algorithmic bias and data persistence across different platforms. In the first, juridical deliberation in Broward County, Florida used ML to assign recidivism scores to 18,000 criminal defendants, but systematically overestimated for black people. In the second, the Chinese government used artificial intelligence (AI) to profile the Muslim Uighur minority, marking the first known example of a government using AI for racial profiling. This research demonstrates a severe need for effective data policies to promote ML data collection in ethical and effective ways.

Sociotechnical Synthesis The AIAA hold an annual design competition in which teams of ten members may submit an aircraft design based on a series of constraints. This year’s prompt dealt with Responsive Aerial Firefighting Aircraft or RAFA. The goal of this competition is for teams to develop a conceptual aircraft that can be a cost effective, novel aircraft to aid in total fire suppression. This comes in light of the devastating 2020 California wildfires. Additionally, in 2021, the Boeing 747 Supertanker was retired from service. The Supertanker was by far the largest tanker in service able to hold over 19,000 gallons of fire retardant. With its retirement, new methods of fire prevention and mitigation must be created. An in-depth analysis into a new firefighting aircraft will be discussed within this paper. In addition to the regular ground teams and firefighting aircraft, California has developed a program involving prisoners as firefighters. The California Department of Correction (CDCR) hosts a program in which non-violent criminals may work in Fire Camps and earn money. This program has existed for decades, but in the wake of covid-19 some camps were shut down. However, some in California believe this program to be beneficial and should be expanded. Additionally, as wildfires increase in frequency and magnitude, there is a distinct shortage of man-power. One negative aspect of this program is the actual pay the inmates receive. Some organization like the ACLU see this as potential exploitation given how dangerous the work is. On the other hand, former members of the program only speak highly of the experience. This complex situation will be analyzed using the Social Construction of Technology STS framework. When it comes to the problem of firefighting, there are high-tech solutions and low-tech solutions available. The difficult problem facing Californian officials is which solution to devote funding towards. On one hand, aerial firefighting covers a large area and helps control fires spread. However, it is extremely expensive making It restricted to only large fire complexes. On the other hand, inmates provide a cheap source of labor on par with traditional firefighters. The downside is the risk it poses to the inmates and whether or not they are being exploited.

Space has always been a fascination of mankind. Wondering about what lies beyond our terrestrial atmosphere, and feeling insignificant against the scope of the universe is almost a universal experience of human beings. In efforts to satiate this hunger for the unknown, space exploration technology –– whether it be as simple as a telescope or as robust as the International Space Station –– has been a central part of human history for many years. Nowadays, spacefaring is possible, opening up a host of possibilities for how space tech can benefit humanity. The STS paper aims to address and analyze the adaptation of spaceflight technology to the needs of society over time, and even predict some future adaptations. The technical portion of the paper describes the design of an orbital reentry experiment experiencing hypersonic flight conditions. While the STS portion covers a variety of use cases for spaceflight technology, the technical paper covers just one of those cases in great detail. Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, humans have been using spacefaring technology to satisfy a host of needs. The type of needs and the way in which the technology was used to satisfy said need, is always changing. The sociotechnical paper uses the STS framework known as Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) to analyze and explain how society morphed and adapted spaceflight technology to satisfy its contemporary needs. Examining this topic through the lens of SCOT shows that spaceflight technology has transitioned through a few major use cases: diplomatic, scientific, and commercial purposes. What was interesting, however, was that the transition was not chronological. The interpretation of the technology would bounce around between the aforementioned use cases (sometimes occupying multiple at once) depending on the needs and state of society at the time. Beyond examining existing and past use cases, the paper aims to predict some future interpretations of the purpose of spaceflight technology and a handful of externalities that could arise. Hypersonics (flight speeds of Mach 5 and above) has been a rapidly growing area of interest within defense and general engineering for the past couple decades. The technical report describes the design of the experiment titled Hypersonic Atmospheric Reentry Deceleration Experiment (HARD-E). HARD-E consists of a 10 cm x 30 cm CubeSat designed to reenter Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds while collecting and relaying flight data. HARD-E is equipped with pressure sensors, thermocouples, and accelerometers to measure hypersonic flight conditions in an effort to help researchers and engineers better understand a hypersonic flight environment. Research, including literature reviews of similar experiments, as well as expert consultation was conducted to help with component selection and logistical planning of the experiment. 3D modeling software was used to design the CubeSat and arrange the components. Thermal, stress, and flow simulations were all conducted to verify the integrity of the design and ensure that it would survive the atmospheric and flight environment. The technical paper also serves as an official proposal for NASA and other governmental space agencies to fund the experiment. The STS paper uses SCOT to identify a variety of interpretations of spaceflight technology that society have adapted over time. The technical paper describes the design of spaceflight experiment within the context of the use case of scientific advancement. Space-tech can certainly lend itself well to the advancement of society, and understanding its interpretative flexibility is key in doing so.

The focus of my Technical Report is the restoration of the Millwald Theatre, which is one of many of the efforts made to revitalize downtown Wytheville, Virginia. I have a significant investment in this community as it is where I grew up, where many of my friends live, and where I will likely revisit. In my time working for the Millwald Theatre, I interacted with many of the groups involved in Wytheville's revitalization and got a glimpse into their actions and motivations. This inspired my STS Research Paper, where I took a comprehensive look at how these types of groups interact in towns of similar size across the United States. My aim is to inform these groups' future actions such that they may more closely align with the motivations of others. Additionally, I want to provide outsiders with a digestible analysis of the complex issue of downtown revitalization.

My technical report and STS research paper have a common theme of the role of ethics in the field of computer science, particularly in how ethical analysis through the innovation process can lead to better outcomes for society. In both, a primary motivation of my work was to encourage computer scientists to prioritize ethics in our careers as a means to prevent or mitigate risks of harm. I chose to focus on undergraduate computer science education within my technical report because just like how important it is for students to develop technical skills and problem solving techniques, I believe it is also important for students to be aware of how their work will engage with the real world and consider what impacts it will have. I chose to explore in my STS research the issue of deepfake technology being used to create non-consensual sexual media. It was alarming to me that the kinds of technologies I am excited to study and create have been weaponized against people, and I wanted to know how this issue with deepfakes arose and what actions during the research and development stages could have prevented it. For my technical report, I proposed a 1000-level computer science course to teach new students about ethics of computing. In the paper, I emphasize how there are many ethical issues in the field of computer science and that computer scientists and computer science educators have responsibilities for preventing harms in the real world as a result of technologies we develop. By teaching students how ethics intersects with computer science at early stages in their academic careers, they will be equipped to analyze the ethical implications of technologies they encounter and develop throughout their academic, professional, and extracurricular endeavors. My work also highlights that awareness of ethical challenges in the field of computer science may foster senses of purpose, passion, and fulfillment for computer science students as they study and work. For my STS research paper, I applied STS frameworks to the issue of deepfake technology being used to create non-consensual sexual media for my STS research paper. In the paper, I argue how the great harms primarily perpetrated against women, the LGBTQ+ community, and youth through this new form of “revenge porn” possibly could have been safeguarded against if researchers had invested more time into exploring and mitigating risks of deepfakes as the technology to produce them was being developed. This research serves as an example of the application of the framework of Anticipatory Technology Ethics. I additionally utilized the STS framework of the Social Construction of Technology to analyze how deepfake pornography became such a large problem so quickly after the software tools that can create the videos were made accessible to users with access to consumer-grade hardware. Both frameworks are utilized to analyze this important issue for the purpose of raising awareness that there are preventative actions we can and should take to protect people. Working on both projects simultaneously broadened my perspective on how ethical issues within computer science are addressed. It is difficult to be enthusiastic about new innovations that are supposed to be exciting when those same technologies are being used in psychologically damaging ways against people, especially people of demographics I identify with. It was empowering to be able to learn about and vocalize potential solutions to mitigate risks of similar harms in the future. These ideas strongly connected with the overarching goal of my technical report, which is to educate computer science students about ethics early on in their careers. I am always eager to find systemic level solutions, so exploring ways computer science research and development practices as well as educational standards could be updated was exciting to me. By working on these papers at the same time, not only did I get to explore an ethics related issue in computer science and discuss how researchers in particular could be proactive in preventing harm, but I also had the opportunity to consider how to spread awareness to computer scientists about why incorporating ethical analysis in their work is important in the first place. Through this experience, I have gained a thorough understanding of ethical challenges and possible solutions within the field of computer science.

The technical work addresses testing a hypersonic flight experiment on a 3U CubeSat platform. Motivations behind conducting hypersonic experiments are to provide affordable and accurate flight data for military and commercial applications. The STS research paper discusses the role that artificial intelligence contributes to the United States legal system in how it mitigates or worsens bias. The topic of the STS research paper is loosely connected to the capstone assignment; the technical component of the software and avionics sub team connects to the use of software in the form of algorithms in the legal system. The motivations behind the STS topic are to explore the effects – intended and unintended – of technological developments in fields that traditionally rely more on human actions. The subject of the Capstone project describes the design of a proposed hypersonic flight experiment, conducted on a CubeSat platform. The proposed design will be submitted to the Department of Defense and NASA for funding approval. The CubeSat will collect hypersonic flight data – temperature and pressure – during the mission duration. The proposed project will launch a 3U CubeSat with a launch provider, such as Northrup Grumman. Then, the CubeSat will be released from the dispenser to fall toward Earth. During its re-entry, CubeSat will enter hypersonic flight and data collection will begin. Pressure and temperature data will be collected through sensors and transmitted via the Starlink network. After the period operation, the CubeSat will burn up and the mission will conclude. The subject of the STS research addresses the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States legal system. The rising usage of artificial intelligence in the legal field primarily targets the component of recidivism in judicial sentencing, as data driven decisions are sought after for their perceived unbiased performance. However, researchers and law reviews have suggested both biases in recidivism prediction, as well as legal concerns over the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) algorithm specifically. Thus, the STS paper addresses the following question: how does the use of AI in the United States legal system reduce or exacerbate bias, compared to traditional sentencing? To analyze the question, the STS frameworks of the “technological fix” and Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) are used to analyze algorithm usage policies, law review publications, and statistical analysis. Using both frameworks, the research provides an understanding of the social and political context that this technology arises out of and the results of its application to “fix” societal problems. The results found should inform policy makers and algorithm designers on how to create equitable solutions and manage bias within the legal system, when using algorithms to inform sentencing. In working on both projects, insight into the connections between technological and non-technical aspects of both projects were gained. As part of the software and avionics sub team, determining what components to select and how they will operate with other systems demonstrated how interdisciplinary engineering projects can be. The CubeSat project consists of 15 people and working between each sub team demonstrated the difficulty in communicating requirements and objectives of different subsystems. Working on the STS research paper with the CubeSat project was enlightening in understanding how non-technical factors could contribute to a project’s success or failure. For example, the different methods of communication presented a challenge to the team. Technical documentation and explanation of components required enough scientific and comprehension skills to understand. Non-technical skills have an immense effect on the project. Similarly, the STS research paper demonstrated how a background in engineering could be useful in a non-STEM area. Understanding the basics of statistics and machine learning were beneficial to reading the work of several researchers from different fields. Overall, the value of working on both projects has tremendously aided my technical and non-technical skills.

Natural lighting has proven health benefits, but it can be inconvenient to adjust lighting throughout the entire day as the sun’s position changes. For example, one potential cause of the myopia epidemic, an increase in nearsightedness in children, is children’s lack of exposure to natural light. My technology automatically adjusts windows blinds throughout the day to maintain a consistent light level. This makes it easy and convenient to take advantage of natural light using Internet of Things (IoT) Technology. It is important to consider the monetary cost of this product and the security of this device. Both will affect how readily consumers adopt this technology and therefore directly impact the total effect of this technology. Social construction of Technology can be used to analyze this problem. Multiple users are enumerated such as consumers and engineers that create demands of the technology and ultimately construct the specifications for such a technology. Each actor has its own interpretation of what the technology would mean for them. To conduct my research, I plan to interview the consumer and engineering actors enumerated in the previously mentioned framework. To increase the reach and scope of my research I plan to give surveys to individuals who can not interview due to limitations in both of our availabilities. I believe that I will find that consumers ultimately care more about new features on IoT devices then they do about security of said devices. The result is that engineers make devices that are less secure in favor of adding more features that consumers will happily take in exchange for accepting potential security vulnerabilities. This would imply that the government or some other regulatory body is required to step in to regulate the development of IoT for the sake of the people. However, the government should also carefully weigh the benefits that IoT technology can bring to the people.

This thesis portfolio aims to provide clarity into modern spaceflight by examining the design of a hypersonic glider and detailing the evolution of the spaceflight industry in the United States. Though both the technical report and the thesis deal with modern spaceflight, the technical report focuses on the design and deployment of a specific instance of current spaceflight technology, while the thesis analyzes the role of society in shaping human spaceflight technology through shifting political, economic, and social climates. Hypersonic flight data is notoriously difficult to acquire, in addition to be unreliable. The technical project was pursued to assess the feasibility of using CubeSats as hypersonic test vehicles. The technical report provides a mission overview, mission architecture and concept, conceptual design, schedule, and cost for a CubeSat designed to glide and collect flight data at hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere. A strong measure of feasibility is whether the CubeSat is able to collect data well, and how costly the vehicle is; for this project, the upper limit on total cost was $67,722. An additional objective of the project was to facilitate the learning and development of future engineers in the University of Virginia undergraduate Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering program. The thesis analyzes the evolution of the human spaceflight industry in the 21st century, and, more specifically, how advocates of human spaceflight have furthered their agendas. To understand this, it delves into the beginnings of the major participants in the industry, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United States Department of Defense, and private firms like SpaceX. This is done within the Social Construction of Technology framework, which emphasizes the interactions between diverse participants as catalysts for technological development. These participants and their values, interests, problems, and solutions are discussed. The analysis finds that the decentralization of the space industry has allowed for exponential growth in human spaceflight capability, but will present new problems as societies advance into the future.

Heating, Ventilation and Cooling (HVAC) control systems waste money by cleaning air all day, even for empty rooms. To solve this, my capstone team is making a dynamic HVAC control system that reduces ventilation to empty rooms. Our system also increases ventilation rates to occupied rooms for better air quality. This shift to a dynamic system can save wasted money for the university while improving occupant health in rooms with increased ventilation. The social construction of technology (SCOT) comes into play by describing building occupants as potential designers in the University’s future – a social group shaping technology within a sociotechnical system. Occupants may share values like environmental sustainability and worker productivity, and tracking these values drives better decision-making. SCOT also explains why businesses and universities prioritize occupant health in building designs. To observe SCOT in practice, I tracked word usage in articles describing seven different healthy buildings to find important themes in their construction. Keywords including, “air” and “sustainability”, identify different values for the community in charge of each building. Through this search, I found that industries tend to focus on how healthy buildings contribute to a productive work environment while universities tend to emphasize the role of the healthy building in the context of sustainability and campus spaces. Considered together, SCOT and dynamic HVAC systems push building technology towards a healthier, more sustainable future. SCOT harnesses community sentiments for better decision-making, and dynamic HVAC offers a replacement for wasteful HVAC systems.

The projects included in this Thesis Portfolio both contain research regarding fleet vehicles. The Technical Report describes how data analytics were used in order to create relevant training resources for the University of Virginia Facilities Management fleet, in order to improve both safety and sustainability. Proactive and reactive training methodologies were tested, with the former occurring before any violations of safety or sustainability occurred, and the latter addressing specific violations the week after they occurred. Statistical tests were used to determine which of the two training programs were more effective. The STS Research Paper aims to further explore fleet sustainability by using the social construction of technology in order to determine if work force fleet’s desire for electric vehicles is socially constructed. Using this framework, both corporate and government fleets are explored, with research conducted on specific instances of electric vehicles being incorporated into these organizations. The University of Virginia’s Facilities Management (FM) Fleet consists of around 260 total vehicles, and is committed to safe and sustainable driving. These vehicles contain telematic tracking systems which provide feedback on a multitude of driving behavioral measures, including speeding, harsh braking, hard acceleration, seatbelt usage, harsh cornering, and idling time. Last year, data collected on these measures was used to develop relevant educational materials on mindful driving. Our capstone project team aimed to further improve safe and eco-friendly FM driving behaviors by analyzing if reinforcement training (additional scorecards and manager conversations) proved to be effective when given proactively or reactively to increased violations of driving behavioral measures. The technical report outlines the process we used in determining when and how to administer the proactive training program. A separate group of shops received the reactive training after any significant increase in driver incidents was detected. These reinforcement training programs were largely based on the professional FM driver education modules and provided conversation templates for managers to use in order to re-educate their shop’s respective drivers. Electric vehicles (EVs) are rapidly gaining popularity among corporate and governmental fleets across the world. Many fleets are replacing traditional internal-combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) with electric delivery and work vehicles. However, electric vehicles do not yet compare to traditional cars in terms of mileage, infrastructure, and general reliability. As electric vehicles do not emit greenhouse gases, they are more resource-efficient than ICEVs. They are a crucial step in making transportation more eco-friendly, so analyzing the root of their demand is extremely important in looking at the future of their relevance. This research paper uses the social construction of technology (SCOT) framework to analyze the increased fleet interest in EVs in order to answer the research question: can the increased interest in electric vehicles among work fleets, both corporate and governmental be attributed to socially constructed desires? Exploring this question will ultimately prove beneficial when discussing the future of vehicle-manufacturing, as electric vehicles become more commonplace. Completing both of these projects simultaneously was valuable, as working closely with the University of Virginia’s Facilities Management allowed me to understand the inner workings of a vehicle fleet while writing about larger and more complex fleets. I was able to understand the logistics of an organization incorporating electric vehicles into their fleet, as the university begins to add their own EVs. Focusing on aspects of sustainability in the STS Research Paper made me further appreciate the value of the Capstone Project, in which we aimed to reduce environmental infractions through training programs.

The technical report details the usage of modern machine learning techniques to make a model more efficient. Work was carried out through a summer internship with Envestnet, from June 2021 to August 2021. Natural language processing techniques were used to optimize a model that used an older, slower, and inefficient method to tag words in a phrase. Envestnet wanted to look into natural language processing to see if any benefits in training speed/efficiency were possible. Natural language processing is an up-and-coming field in machine learning that involves natural language inputs or outputs, such as words, phrases, and sentences. The specific natural language processing technique that I used was called Word Embeddings, which translates words into numerical vectors that carry information about the word and its surrounding context words. The data was organized into credit card transaction phrases, with each phrase containing identifying information about the transaction. Each word could be tagged with six possible options – vendor name, city, state, payment type, store id, and other. By the end of training, words in the phrase were tagged with 95% accuracy using the new model. This accuracy was similar to the original model, but with massive improvements in training time (24 hours vs. multiple days). Next steps could include feeding more data to the new model to increase accuracy, and to predict more tags (currently, 6 tags were used). The STS research paper explores the implementation of Superblocks in Barcelona. Superblocks are made up of multiple city blocks with vehicles restricted or prohibited on the internal streets – any vehicular traffic is rerouted outside the perimeter of the superblock. This creates a quieter, shared space between city blocks that can be used for a variety of purposes such as gatherings or play areas for children, from space previously reserved for cars. The primary motivation for this paper was to explore how the development of new technologies, such as Superblocks, are influenced by human behavior and social groups. The STS framework used to analyze this was Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), which asserts that human action shapes technology more than technology influences human action. In Barcelona, the Superblocks were a technology that was created by BCNEcologia, an NGO, but evolved to take on different sizes and shapes based on community groups and the rules they decide to enforce.

The technical portion of the thesis aimed to answer the following question: how can a hypersonic glider flight experiment fit in a CubeSat platform? Hypersonic flight occurs at speeds exceeding five time the speed of sound and is an expanding research field in the aerospace industry with military and civil applications. Military applications include hypersonic missiles, both offensive and defensive, and high-speed aircraft. Civil applications include access to space and commercial air travel. A CubeSat is a small satellite flown in low earth orbit that is well suited for undergraduate education. Hypersonic glider flight experiments are difficult to replicate in wind tunnels and expensive to achieve on rockets and aircrafts. By using a CubeSat, university students are able to conduct these experiments at a lower cost, and with greater accessibility. The STS research portion of the thesis is aimed to answer the following question: how are space enterprises striving to make commercial human spaceflight more accessible? Human spaceflight became a reality as a result of the Space Race between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. This competition to achieve the best spaceflight capacity skyrocketed the ability for private companies to develop their own space industry. Through researching different space enterprises' motivations for sending more humans to space, three main goals were identified: scientific research, exploration and colonization, and space tourism. The paper looks at what different American commercial space companies are doing to send more humans to space specifically for those goals. The Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) STS framework was used to show how society's desire to pursue each of these goals results in commercial space companies developing new technologies. The discussion section outlines how the three goals identified all ultimately work together and it is argued that each goal will be achieved more quickly if they are all pursued at the same time by different companies as opposed to all space enterprises focusing on one of those goals at a time. Both the technical and STS topics connect together by answering the following general research question: how can outer space be reached by more people? The technical project shows how university students can realistically work on a project that will one day be sent into space. The STS portion shows how much the human spaceflight industry is expanding. It identifies how private companies are striving to send more humans to space along with their different motivations behind this goal. In order to carry out the technical portion, the team developed a conceptual design review for their proposed CubeSat hypersonic glider flight experiment. The team utilized the Space Mission Engineering process of going from broad mission objectives or a vague concept to an operational mission. The team developed primary and secondary objectives, identified the mission architecture, outlined the mission concept, developed functional and operational requirements and system constraints, proposed a tentative schedule for the construction and fabrication of the design, and estimated the total cost of the mission. The team consisted of 15 aerospace and mechanical undergraduates. The members were divided into six sub teams: Project Management, Communications, Software and Avionics, Power, Thermal and Environment, Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADACS) and Orbits, and Structures and Integration. The project manager oversaw the mission and made sure the technical sub teams were supported and on track. The five technical sub teams each developed subsystem level requirements and focused on their specific aspects of the CubeSat design. The final design consisted of a 3U CubeSat with hinges that allows it to transform into a cone-cube shape when re-entering the atmosphere to prolong hypersonic flight. The final technical report was in the form of a proposal to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) for funding to carry out the rest of the project.

The technical report within this portfolio consists of a detailed proposal to the Department of Defense or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for support of a hypersonic reentry deployable glider CubeSat experiment. The project began during the scholastic year 2021-2022 with a team of fifteen, each divided into six sub system component groups and will be completed in the year 2025 with deployment. This scholastic year began the design process of the hypersonic deployable glider CubeSat concluding with a conceptual design review. Within this proposal the team has finalized key mission details through the guidelines of the Space Mission Engineering process. This includes outlining the Project Overview, Mission Statement, Mission Objectives, Mission Architecture, and Mission Concept. Furthermore, the team was able to finalize subsystem requirements, constraints, and component selections. This proposal will also include details concerning any Federal licensing requirements as well as scheduling and budgeting. Through the first phase of this experiment the team was able to gain an understanding of how to apply the Space Mission Engineering process to a university level application as well as an understanding of common spacecraft subsystems functionalities. As a high functioning performing team, much was able to be accomplished for the project during this scholastic year. The STS research paper within this portfolio consists of an ethical analysis regarding the concerns of privacy loss with the commercialization of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) through the Science, Technology, and Society framework, Social Construct of Technology (SCOT). Recommendations to certain changes within society and regulations were provided as possible answers to the challenges concerning privacy loss to businesses using UAVs, these challenges being power dynamics, over collection of information, and dangers of the lack of knowledge of what happens to this information. Through this STS research paper a further understanding of society’s relationship with technology was gained as well as some of the challenges presented by technology and sociological reasoning for them. This analysis allowed for understanding of the importance in recognizing different group perspectives on a technological artifact and how design and use interpretations can lead to disagreement of issues concerning those of the related groups. With this, many examples were seen with how businesses’ can interpret the use of commercial UAVs at the expense of an individual's privacy. Analysis of the ethics and regulation involved in the commercial use of UAVs under the Science & Technology in Society framework SCOT is valuable to individuals because of the importance of understanding the concept of human drive in technology as well as promote reflection on human rights being compromised for technological innovation. Understanding the ethics and societal impacts of technology through the SCOT framework can also help with analyzing the effects of using a CubeSat for a hypersonic glider experiment and how different groups may perceive this space technology. It is important to recognize the social implications of aeronautical and aerospace technologies and the ethical issues common within the industry concerning human drive in technology as well as differing interpretations among relative groups concerning the industry’s technology.

The importance of the human ecological footprint and potential solutions to environmental changes has become a high priority in the last few decades. This portfolio discusses the analysis and results for two research papers which align under the central theme of ocean based environmental issues. Human induced pollution in Chennai, India has contributed to the inability to safely access nearby freshwater sources, leaving the city in frequent water scarcity. A team of four peers designed a desalination plant which uses reverse osmosis to produce potable water from seawater. Furthermore, increased human activity in the Great Barrier Reef has greatly contributed to its immense ecological decline in the last two decades. The STS research paper attempts to answer the question: How can media tactics used to disseminate information about climate change be utilized to educate the public on anthropogenic causes of the wicked problem of the Great Barrier Reef decline? Effectively broadcasting the consequences of the reef’s deterioration is crucial if we want to begin to enact change. In Chennai, India, a combination of climate change and increased water pollution has led the city to a shortage of 300 million liters per day. The implementation of a proposed RO desalination plant producing 150 MLD of potable water, will reduce the current freshwater deficient in Chennai by 50%. The proposed design is a Reverse Osmosis (RO) Desalination plant that will input 196 million MLD of seawater from India’s Bay of Bengal and perform a separation process to produce two products: 150 MLD of purified freshwater and 1.9 million kg/day of crystallized salt. This desalination plant consists of a twofold pretreatment method, which removes sediment, pollutants, and unwanted metals, and contains a strainer, ultrafiltration unit, and nanofiltration system. The treated seawater then enters the RO process where RO membranes remove the salt content in the water; the resulting freshwater and brine are sent into post-treatment. During the final stage of production, freshwater is injected with chlorine and calcium dicarbonate in order to meet India drinking water standards, and the brine is run through electrodialysis and a crystallizer where NaCl is transformed into a crystalline salt form. The proposed design will have a significantly high positive impact on its community due the plant having a total recovery rate of 77.5% — a production rate over 35% higher than most saltwater desalination plants currently in production. In addition to water pollution, on the coast of Australia, anthropogenic activities and increased tourism have increased mortality in marine life in the Great Barrier Reef. Though there is significant evidence indicating this occurrence, Great Barrier Reef marine ecosystem decay has been largely obscured by the televised threat of climate change. As the degradation of reef and marine life worsens, it has become crucial for the scientific community to educate the public on anthropogenic issues. This STS paper examines the effectiveness of techniques used to disseminate information about climate change and how these techniques may be utilized to educate the public on anthropogenic causes of the Great Barrier Reef decline. Historical case studies, scientific literature, and statistical reports are reviewed to determine which educational techniques have been most impactful in terms of public sentiment shift and the sociopolitical changes incurred. The decline of the Great Barrier Reef and its future is evaluated under the lenses of the Wicked Problem theory and the Social Construction of Technology, which highlights the importance of addressing the root anthropogenic causes of the reef’s environmental issues, and the necessity for public awareness to promote environmental change. Mass media is analyzed to understand how it maintains a position of scientific educational authority over the public. Results should apprise the scientific community of ways to use mass media platforms to inform the public of human-induced ecosystem decline in the Great Barrier Reef. The dual focus on saltwater treatment and the absence of public scientific literacy provides two complementary angles to the overarching topic of solutions to ocean based environmental issues. The completion of these papers simultaneously allows for an exchange of knowledge specifically relating to human induced ocean water quality decline. The technical research paper offers a specific solution to a lack of potable water issue in India, and the STS research paper discusses a broader worldwide concern regarding obscured marine decay in the Great Barrier Reef. This portfolio affirms the importance of anthropogenic influence on the environment with tangible evidence for a constructed desalination plant design and a theoretical discussion of public environmental illiteracy.

My technical project and STS research paper both centered around cloud computing. The technical project focusing on using cloud provider tools to secure a system, and the research paper focusing on maintaining security on the cloud through new innovations. In my summer internship, which was my technical project, I was a part of the cloud engineering team at Viasat, a satellite internet company. My job was to implement automated security checks for all the accounts the team had to manage by making additions to their API. This was done by utilizing various tools from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the leading cloud provider, and integrating them with the existing security tools of the team. The process involved figuring out what could be potential weaknesses in the current system, extensive discussions, and code reviews to make sure our implementation was secure. The API additions made it to production by the end of the internship, and able to be used by the team and other engineers at Viasat. For my STS research paper, I focused on cloud computing’s role in the healthcare industry using the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework. The healthcare industry is one of the most plagued by data breaches, as medical data is very valuable and healthcare systems are vulnerable. Cloud adoption in healthcare is continuously rising to aid in this, but there are still vulnerabilities with traditional cloud security, as cyber attackers adapt to the more sophisticated systems. There are many aspects to security that need to be maintained, and different groups like the cloud providers, government, and health IT can have different views on what the best solution is. The research paper covered potential solutions and innovations like blockchain, automation, mutual authentication, and cloud provider guidance that could potentially solve different aspects of healthcare data security. The work that was involved in finishing these projects was very fulfilling. The technical project was my first foray into a professional work environment and cloud computing. It allowed me to see how secure systems worked, and how to make additions using existing cloud provider tools to make them even more secure. It also motivated me to explore cloud even further for my STS research paper. During my research, I realized how complex systems could be, and how even the tools that are currently available are not enough to fend off cyber-attacks. It also opened my eyes to new ways that security can be maintained, and that innovation is always happening in this field.

Persian hogweed (Heracleum persicum Desf. ex Fischer) is native to Iran but was introduced to Europe as an invasive plant. It has medicinal and edible values. Its fruits have been used to relieve flatulence, stomach aches as well as a flavoring as a digestive and an antiseptic. This medicinal plant forms many geographical populations in the country, particularly in mountainous regions; however, we have no data on the genetic structure and genetic diversity of this plant species. Such information can be used in gene pool identification and future genetic conservation and breeding programs. Therefore, the present study was performed with the following aims: 1- Provide data on genetic diversity of geographical populations, 2- Identify the potential gene pools for future genetic conservation and breeding programs. We used both Inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) and the Start Codon Targeted (SCoT) molecular markers as these are suitable molecular markers for genetic diversity investigations. There are highly polymorphic, reproducible, and relatively low cost markers. The present study revealed that both ISSR and SCoT markers produce data on the genetic variability and genetic affinity of the local populations. Both molecular markers revealed a good level of genetic variability within and among Heracleum persicum populations. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) produced a significant differences between geographical populations for both markers. We could identify few ISSR as well as SCoT bands which can differentiate the studied populations. The moderate to a good level of genetic diversity we observed within each H. persicum may be due to cross pollination. In conclusion, we suggest using combination of ISSR and SCoT molecular markers to study population genetic variability in H. persicum geographical populations for future genetic conservation and germplasm collection of this medicinal plant.

National audience

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a halophytic crop that can withstand a variety of abiotic stresses, including salt. The present research examined the mechanisms of salt tolerance in five different quinoa genotypes at four different salinity levels (control (60), 80, 120, and 160 mM NaCl). ISSR and SCoT analysis revealed high polymorphism percentages of 90.91% and 85.26%, respectively. Furthermore, ISSR 1 and SCoT 7 attained the greatest number of polymorphic amplicons (27 and 26), respectively. Notably, LINE-6 and M-28 genotypes demonstrated the greatest number of unique positive and negative amplicons (50 and 42) generated from ISSR and SCoT, respectively. Protein pattern analysis detected 11 bands with a polymorphism percentage 27.27% among the quinoa genotypes, with three unique bands distinguishable for the M-28 genotype. Similarity correlation indicated that the highest similarity was between S-10 and Regeolone-3 (0.657), while the lowest similarity was between M-28 and LINE-6 (0.44). Significant variations existed among the studied salinity treatments, genotypes, and the interactions between them. The highest and lowest values for all the studied morpho-physiological and biochemical traits were recorded at 60 and 160 mM NaCl concentrations, respectively, except for the Na and proline contents, which exhibited the opposite relationship. The M-28 genotype demonstrated the highest values for all studied characteristics, while the LINE-6 genotype represented the lowest in both seasons. On the other hand, mRNA transcript levels for CqSOS1 did not exhibit differential expression in roots and leaf tissues, while the expression of CqNHX1 was upregulated more in both tissues for the M-28 genotype than for the LINE-6 genotype, and its maximum induction was seen in the leaves. Overall, the genotypes M-28 and LINE-6 were identified as the most and least salinity-tolerant, respectively.

Commiphora gileadensis L. is a medicinal plant, known as balsam, with pharmaceutical potential for its phytochemical activities and chemical constituents. Genetic diversity is a genetic tool used in medicinal plant evolution and conservation. Three accessions from C. gileadensis were collected from three localities in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah, Jizan and Riyadh). Genetic characterization was carried out using physio-biochemical parameters, molecular markers (inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and start codon targeted (SCoT)), DNA barcoding (18 S rRNA and ITS rDNA regions), relative gene expressions (phenylalanine ammonia-lyase 1 (PAL1), defensin (PR-12)) and pathogenesis-related protein (AFPRT). The results of this study showed that C. gileadensis accession C3, collected from Riyadh, had the highest content from the physio-biochemical parameters perspective, with values of 92.54 mg/g and 77.13 mg/g for total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC), respectively. Furthermore, the highest content of antioxidant enzyme activity was present in accession C3 with values of 16.87, 60.87, 35.76 and 27.98 U mg−1 for superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) (mol/min/mg FW) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) (U mg−1 protein), respectively. The highest total number of bands and number of unique bands were 138 and 59, respectively, for the SCoT marker. The SCoT marker was the most efficient for the genetic diversity of C. gileadensis by producing the highest polymorphism (75.63%). DNA barcoding using 18 S and ITS showed the nearby Commiphora genus and clustered C. gileadensis accessions from Jeddah and Jizan in one clade and the C. gileadensis accession from Ryiadh in a separate cluster. Moreover, relative gene expression of the PAL1, defensin (PR-12) and AFPRT (PR1) genes was upregulated in the C. gileadensis accession from Ryiadh. In conclusion, ecological and environmental conditions in each locality affect the genomic expression and genetic diversity, which can help the evolution of important medicinal plants and improve breeding and conservation systems.

Characterization of genetic diversity in germplasm collections requires an efficient set of molecular markers. We assessed the efficiency of 36 new SCoT markers, 10 new ISSR markers, and 5 microsatellites for the characterization of genetic diversity in chrysanthemum core collection of 95 accessions (Russian and foreign cultivars). Seven new SCoT (SCoT12, 20, 21, 23, 29, 31, 34) and six new ISSR markers ((GA)8T, (CT)8G, (CTTCA)3, (GGAGA)3, (TC)8C, (CT)8TG) were efficient for the genetic diversity analysis in Chrysanthemum × morifolium collection. After STRUCTURE analysis, most Russian cultivars showed 20–50% of genetic admixtures of the foreign cultivars. Neighbor joining analysis based on the combination of SSR, ISSR, and SCoT data showed the best accordance with phenotype and origin compared to the separate analysis by each marker type. The position of the accessions within the phylogenetic tree corresponded with the origin and with some important traits, namely, plant height, stem and peduncle thickness, inflorescence type, composite flower and floret types, flower color, and disc color. In addition, several SCoT markers were suitable to separate the groups distinctly by the phenotypical traits such as plant height (SCoT29, SCoT34), thickness of the stem and peduncle (SCoT31, SCoT34), and leaf size and the floret type (SCoT31). These results provide new findings for the selection of markers associated with important traits in Chrysanthemum for trait-oriented breeding and germplasm characterization.

Within the past two decades the U.S. has been experiencing significant increase in energy production from the wind turbine. For the technical thesis, the technical project group develops a horizontal wind turbine blade which increases the efficiency of wind turbines. Then the wind turbine blades design which includes slits are compared to the control blades without slits in order to test the effectiveness of braking system upon the wind turbine reaching the cut-off speed. My STS thesis examines the wind turbine technology and its relation to the social structures within the U.S through the scope of Social Construction of Technology. The purpose of this examination is to analyze the flexible interpretations of wind turbine technology by the various stakeholders in order to better understand the closure and stabilization in the form of technological adoption.

Mental illness is a global issue that is increasing in numbers, yet diagnostic tools have not evolved to be as effective as possible. Statistics in 2019 found that mental illness affects nearly one in five American adults, with 50 percent of Americans being diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder in their lifetime. In 2020, 40 percent of U.S. adults had mental health concerns, highlighting the substantial effects of a global pandemic. While this jump is not the norm, there has been a general upward trend in psychological distress, especially for individuals aged 12 through 29. It would make sense to claim that these individuals may experience more stress during these ages due to education, job markets, and other external economic factors of our time, it is important to note that there has been a general upward trend in psychological distress for individuals who were born starting around 1985. With these increasing trends, it is crucial to determine the cause and improve the diagnosis and treatment options for mental illness. The STS research paper explores how different social groups have adopted internet-capable handheld devices and the respective effects on their mental health. Over the past few decades, technology has advanced at a rapid rate. However, different social groups did not adopt these technologies the same way due to the ages of each group upon release, which caused both distinct societal effects as well as different physical differences on the brain. The different social groups, namely Generation Z and millennials, are analyzed on both their utilization of internet-capable handheld devices as well as the respective effects on the structure of their brains. In turn, the changing brain structures are analyzed for similarities to structures of brains with mental illnesses. Conclusions are drawn on the potential effects of these technologies on mental health issues due to the changes in the brain. This research is crucial in determining if there is a link between technology use on developing and or developed brains and an increased risk of developing a mental illness. If there is probable cause, increased awareness of the issue should be spread by health officials, as well as possible changes to the technology. The capstone project is an analysis on machine learning for psychiatric diagnosis of mental illness. The current method for diagnosis is not as reliable as it should be. Instead of psychiatric evaluations by medical professionals, which can have many unreliable factors, machine learning could aid in diagnosing psychiatric disorders through neuro-imaging data and other evaluations. Previous research has been able to distinguish between patients with mental health conditions and patients without. However, until recently, research was not able to distinguish between different psychiatric disorders with similar symptoms. This project analyzes three different studies of machine learning and mental illness diagnosis. The first analysis is of a study conducted to determine the importance of symptoms, cognition, and other multilevel variables for psychiatric disease classifications by machine learning. The second analysis is of new research by the University of Tokyo, which used machine learning to train six different algorithms to differentiate between MRI scans of patients who were either neurotypical, schizophrenic, or had autism spectrum disorder. Lastly, a study on symptom differences of Major Depressive Disorder in psychiatric and general hospitals in China is analyzed. With each study, analysis will identify questions, discuss limitations, and propose further research. The analysis also discusses the importance of a secure database to store research data. The use of machine learning in correctly diagnosing psychiatric disorders could change the way we view mental disorders and subsequently progress treatment options. Early and accurate detection of these illnesses could drastically improve or save lives. In both topics of mental health, further research is needed to draw firm conclusions and develop more effective industry standards. Mental illness is not an issue that will disappear on its own, especially if it is progressively worsening among individuals. Finding additional causations of mental illness, like increased technology use, is important in preventing worsening mental health in future generations. Improving diagnostic standards is also crucial in improving quality of life for individuals facing mental health issues. In short, mental health is a significant aspect of our lives, and research should continue to progress preventative measures, diagnosis, and treatments.

This thesis covers both the Technical Report of Tap2Change, an application which enables cashless transactions for panhandlers, as well as the STS Report which looks into fostering empathy within a community through the use of storytelling. As students at the University of Virginia we often interact with not only peers and professors, but also Charlottesville locals as we walk up and down the streets of the Corner. Being a high foot-traffic area, many homeless individuals and panhandlers from the Charlottesville area set up signs asking for donations from passersby, practically depending on the kindness of strangers for their next meal or new clothes. Despite the high volume of people passing by on a daily basis, it’s clear to see that these individuals struggle to make a living and get by on scraps. This led me to question why more people, myself included, don’t donate to their cause when most of us have money to spend on frivolous items for ourselves. Is it because we don’t have cash to give? Is it because we are untrusting of where the money will go or what it will be used for? Or is it simply because we are unwilling to give? Through the research conducted in this paper, I aim to identify and develop a solution which can not only improve the financial situation of homeless individuals, but also help to systemically uplift and empower them to break out of cycles of poverty.