Employer Highlight: Faurecia
As a global player in the automotive industry, Faurecia now counts all the world’s major automakers among its customers. With sales of almost €11 billion in 2005, the Group ranks second among automotive suppliers in Europe and ninth in the world.
Faurecia’s 60,000 employees in 28 countries are guardians of the company’s expertise in the design and production of six major vehicle modules, namely seats, cockpits, door panels, acoustic packages, front ends and exhaust systems. Faurecia passes on this expertise to its customers by forging an ever closer working relationship with them throughout the vehicle design, development and manufacturing phases.
The Group’s Research and Development policy enables it to design and make available to automakers the kind of innovations that set their products apart and that the end-user expects.
Our undergraduates are required to submit a senior thesis. It is a document describing the culmination
of their co-op work. Below are the most recent non-private theses.
Infrared analysis of human skin, bone, and hair for tracking and locating purposes
Human remains are often difficult to locate in wooded areas due to dense foliage cover and lack of a thermal signature. Traditional tracking and locating techniques used for live humans include thermal imaging. However, this method is not always effective since all mammalian species generate a thermal signature. Scientists from the Department of Defense have shown that spectral profiles from the live skin of Caucasian and African Americans are consistent and that race does not affect the spectral profiles. It is expected that data obtained from skin, bone, and hair may provide reproducible results. Since preliminary experiments have shown that skin reflectivity from live humans in the infrared (IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum is different than the reflectivity of vegetation, research may hold promise for the development of methods to track and locate humans as well as human remains.
The objective of this project is to determine the reflectivity of human skin (live) for tracking and locating purposes. The reflectivity of human remains will also be determined for possible development of a method to recover human remains using hyperspectral imaging technology. Reflectivity of skin and hair will be collected from both live and deceased humans, as well as bone from human remains. By using a handheld IR spectrometer, the reflectivity of each of these materials will be collected and used to determine characteristic wavelengths. If the data proves consistent and characteristic wavelengths are found, research may hold promise for the development of methods to track and locate humans as well as human remains by using hyperspectral imaging. More specifically, if the results of this work show good spectral separation between skin and other types of spectral clutter, discrimination algorithms could be developed for hyperspectral imaging to perform automatic search and location routines.
SIMPLE INHIBITORS OF HISTONE DEACETYLASE ACTIVITY THAT COMBINE FEATURES OF SHORT-CHAIN FATTY ACID AND HYDROXAMIC ACID INHIBITORS
Butyric acid and trichostatin A (TSA) are anti-cancer compounds that cause the upregulation of genes involved in differentiation and cell cycle regulation by inhibiting histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity. In this study we have synthesized and evaluated compounds that combine the bioavailability of short-chain fatty acids, like butyric acid, with the bidentate binding ability of TSA. A series of analogs were made to examine the effects of chain length, simple aromatic cap groups, and substituted hydroxamates on the compounds ability to inhibit rat-liver HDAC using a fluorometric assay. In keeping with previous structure activity relationships, the most effective inhibitors consisted of longer chains and hydroxamic acid groups. It was found that 5-phenylvaleric hydroxamic acid and 4-benzoylbutyric hydroxamic acid were the most potent inhibitors with IC50's of 5 uM and 133 uM respectively.
