Concrete develops strength rapidly after mixing and is highly influenced by temperature and curing process. The material characteristics and the rate of property development, along with the exposure conditions influences volume change mechanisms in concrete, and the cracking propensity of the mixtures. Furthermore, the structure geometry (due to restraint as well as the surface area-to-volume ratio) also influences shrinkage and cracking. Thus, goal of this research is to better understand and predict shrinkage cracking in concrete slab systems under different curing conditions. In this research, different concrete mixtures are evaluated on their propensity to shrink based on free shrinkage and restrained shrinkage tests.Furthermore, from the data obtained from restrained ring test, a casted slab is measured for shrinkage. Effects of different orientation of restraints are studied and compared to better understand the shrinking behavior of the concrete mixtures. The results show that the maximum shrinkage is near the edges of the slab and decreases towards the center. Shrinkage near the edges with no restraint is found out to be more than the shrinkage towards the edges with restraining effects.

An important facet of daily memory function is prospective memory, which is one’s ability to complete established intentions in the appropriate temporal and spatial context. Many factors contribute to impairments in prospective memory, such as limited cognitive resources or aging. A factor that has been subject to recent investigation is how cannabis use may have an impact on the mechanisms that contribute to prospective memory. Cannabis use has been on the rise across the world, and in the United States more states are pushing to legalize its recreational use, if they haven’t already. As this substance becomes more easily accessible, akin to alcohol use, the necessity to investigate its potential consequences on cognition is needed now more than ever. Prospective memory is an appropriate measure of cannabis-induced deficits due to the wide literature looking at neural correlates of the component mechanisms that contribute to successful prospective memory, attentional and memory processes. The current study employed two experiments to measure this argued claim. Experiment 1 replicated well-defined effects from the prospective memory literature by measuring task accuracy (memory), response times (attention), and pupillary dynamics (attention). Informed by the research looking at the brain regions suspected of experiencing the most functional impairment, Experiment 2 aimed to extend these findings with a sample of participants following acute cannabis administration, however, results indicated cannabis group performance was similar in accuracy and showed faster mean latencies to that of the control group.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy is a type of cancer immunotherapy has shown promising results in engineering the T cells which targets a specific antigen. Despite their success rate, there are certain limitations to the use of CAR-T therapies that includes cytokine release syndrome (CRS), neurologic toxicity, lack of response in approximately 50% of treated patients, monitoring of patients treated with CAR-T therapy. However, rapid point- of- care testing helps in quantifying the circulating CAR T cells and can enhance the safety of patients, minimize the cost of CAR-T cell therapy, and ease the management process. Currently, the standard method to quantify CAR-T cell in patient blood samples are flow cytometry and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). But these techniques are expensive and are not easily accessible and suitable for point- of- care testing to assist real- time clinical decisions. To overcome these hurdles, here I propose a solution to these problems by rapid optical imaging (ROI)- based principle to monitor and detect CAR-T cells. In this project, a microfluidic device is developed and integrated with two functions: (1) Centrifuge free, filter- based separation of white blood cells and plasma; (2) Optical imaging- based technique for digital counting of CAR T- cells. Here, I carried out proof- of- concept test on the laser cut prototype microfluidic chips as well as the surface chemistry for specific capture of CAR-T cells. These data show that the microfluidic chip can specifically capture CAR-T positive cells with concentration dependent counts of captured cells. Further development of the technology could lead to a new tool to monitor the CAR-T cells and help the clinicians to effectively measure the efficacy of CAR-T therapy treatment in a faster and safer manner.