ReportWire

Tag: University of Illinois

  • March Madness: Northwestern, Illinois among men’s basketball teams seeded in NCAA Tournament

    March Madness: Northwestern, Illinois among men’s basketball teams seeded in NCAA Tournament

    [ad_1]

    CHICAGO (WLS) — Northwestern University and the University of Illinois were among the teams Sunday who were selected and seeded for the March Madness college basketball tournament.

    Northwestern will be a No. 9 seed in the east region, playing No. 8 seed Florida Atlantic on Friday in Brooklyn, New York. Illinois will be a No. 3 seed in the east region, facing Moorhead State in a first-round game Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska.

    Most Northwestern Wildcats fans celebrating the announcement Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston said they were expecting to get in, and they can’t wait to keep cheering the team on.

    Just to see us in the dance for the second year in a row is incredible

    Will Klearman, Wildcats fan

    The Northwestern men’s basketball team is going dancing. For the first time in school history, the men’s team has clinched back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.

    The Northwestern men’s basketball team is going dancing. For the first time in school history, the team has clinched back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.

    Fans of all ages packed Welsh-Ryan Arena to take in the moment with the team.

    “I mean it’s incredible… it’s a blessing,” Northwestern fan Will Klearman said. “I’ve been coming to these games since I was four years old, and just to see us in the dance for the second year in a row is incredible.”

    Fans at the watch party didn’t have to wait long for the celebration as Northwestern’s matchup was quickly announced as the second matchup to open the selection show.

    “Very quick… not much time before the confetti started to fall, which was great,” Northwestern fan Elliot Kadar said.

    Some fans were never worried.

    “We knew we were making it,” Northwestern fan Yosef Bolkowitz said. “There was no sweating.”

    It has been a special year for the Wildcats, with the team upsetting some of the top teams in the nation during the regular season.

    SEE ALSO | Wrigleyville Draft Kings bar begins in-person sports betting just in time for March Madness

    Members of the team took time to sign autographs for kids after the announcement. The community continues to rally around the school.

    “It’s a great experience,” team equipment manager Jaren McGee said. “Northwestern back-to-back years in the NCAA Tournament… never happened before, so we’re happy to do this and bring our fans out, and experience this as well. It’s been great.”

    Fans know a tough road is ahead as the reigning national champs at UConn are in their region, but there’s no shortage of confidence as March Madness begins.

    “I’m happy. Go cats!” Northwestern fan Jayden Wharton said. “It’s our year, we’re winning the natty. Let’s go!”

    Defending champion Connecticut, along with Houston, Purdue and North Carolina, are the top seeds in a March Madness bracket that started going haywire even before the pairings came.

    Of the four top seeds, only UConn heads into the tournament coming off a win. That played into the Huskies receiving the No. 1 overall seed. The other three top seeds lost in their conference tournaments.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Copyright © 2024 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.

    [ad_2]

    Maher Kawash

    Source link

  • Where are Chicago’s College Students Going for Spring Break?

    Where are Chicago’s College Students Going for Spring Break?

    [ad_1]

    Are you still trying to figure out what to do for spring break? While time is ticking, there is still time to find your perfect SB24 destination. And what better way to do that than to take some inspiration from what your fellow Chicago-area collegiate travelers are doing? Whether it be Northwestern or University of Illinois, DePaul to UIC; the Chicagoland 18-22 year-olds are looking for a much-needed escape from the frozen tundra.

    So, whether you’re stuck as a solo traveler, or looking for the best accommodations for a potential group; companies such as JusCollege are here to help you craft your perfect college spring break. Here are 10 destinations cooking up the very best that spring break has to offer. From the luxury and status of Las Vegas to the sunshine and sandy cheeks of Cancun, we have you covered. 

    Fort Lauderdale

    Looking to stay local for Spring Break and don’t want to deal with the chaos of Miami? Then head 45 minutes north and enjoy your brand of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Listen, we get it. You’re growing up and have already done the Panama City Beach or Cancun things. You’re looking for something that blends ‘Spring Break’ and “I’m just trying to reset and recharge.” 

    JusCollege understands that the ultimate Spring Break experience is all relative. Fort Lauderdale is your spot for that ultimate balance; featuring some of the best hotels in the city, world-renowned beaches, and an unmatched lineup of events.

    Las Vegas

    Viva! Vegas is 100 percent a year-round destination. And truthfully, might be better suited for your Spring Break Mini Getaway because try and find me someone with the bandwidth to spend more than 4 days in Vegas. Regardless, Vegas is basically four cities in one. 

    It doesn’t matter your brand of break or the goal you and your crew have. Vegas suffices. Perhaps Vegas isn’t your spring break destination of choice. It’s damn good as a Fall Break spot if you’re looking for something in the lap of luxury. 

    Cancun

    The Godfather of Spring Break is easily Cancun. Are there better college Spring Break destinations out there? I’m sure, yeah. Is it ‘unoriginal’ to do Spring Break in Cancun? I’m sure some people might say that. 

    But you know what, who gives a damn. Smash two beers together like Steve Austin and get ready because if there’s one thing we know about Spring Break in Cancun it’s that it never fails you. Recreate all the greatness of OG Spring Break on the beaches of the Caribbean. There’s a reason LeBron is still scoring 30 a game at the age of 38. The GOAT’s remain the GOAT’s no matter how swiftly generations pass. 

    All of this is to say—there’s nothing wrong with trusting in what’s always come through to deliver yet again.

    Playa del Carmen

    Playa del Carmen presents a college spring break experience that’s just one step tamer than Cancún but still displays all the makings of a premiere destination. Playa provides the perfect level of luxurious resorts, shopping, nightlife, delicious food, and more. 

    Perhaps Playa presents a bit more laid back, family-friendly version of the Yucatan peninsula but don’t let that stand in your way of the perfect escape in the sun. After all, we love to party but you’re busy enough with school that you also deserve to relax. 

    Punta Cana

    Going to Punta Cana and going to Cabo aren’t all that different. It’s like going to Vegas and having to choose between staying at the Aria or the Bellagio. They’re both luxe but it really just depends on what particular brand of vodka you’re looking for. 

    In Punta Cana you’re getting the plush white sand coastline with more IG worthy captures than a European in New York City for the first time. The nightime provides modern clubs fit for dressing to the nines, relaxing daytime activities on a catamaran, beach bonfires, or ziplining through the jungle. 

    Cabo San Lucas

    Refer to the above analogy when envisioning your Cabo experiences, but just know that when you go to Cabo you’re basically committing to Debaucherous Summer Camp for 6 days straight. Cabo is the who’s who of Spring Break so much so that you’ll likely be gravitating toward returning sometime in your early 30’s. 

    For the best concerts, beach clubs, spending more money than you probably have, and hanging out with tens of thousands of students your age; Cabo is absolutely the place to be. 

    Puerto Vallarta

    PV used to have this rep as a place for old people. Maybe that’s just me because it’s where my parents went for their honeymoon in like 1995. Or maybe my parents just party. I don’t know. Either way, SBPV is back. 

    The lineups are set for a week-long concert extravaganza, the legendary scenic backdrop of mountainside estates, and sexy party-ready travelers on gorgeous beaches make this a can’t-miss spring break encore. 

    Puerto Rico

    Puerto Rico is a great Spring Break destination for two reasons (there are a lot more than two but play along with me here for a second): 

    • You don’t need a passport to get there as it’s part of the US.
    • Puerto Ricans can freakin’ party. Trust me, I am from Chicago after all. 

    That’s it. That’s the tweet. While Puerto Rico may not shine as bright to the naked eye as its other SB counterparts, there’s absolute treasure to be found there. The food is insane. The resorts and beaches are stunning. The nightlife is buzzing. There aren’t many downsides to Puerto Rico and we’re just waiting for the rest of the world to see it. 

    Miami

    I used to listen to Miami by Will Smith upon landing every time I flew to Miami back in the day. That “Bienvenidos a Miami!” slaps a little different these days, huh? Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 

    Bad Will Smith slapping jokes aside, there is nowhere in this here United States of America better for college Spring Break than Miami. Miami itself is basically spring break year-round and thus the hottest domestic destination for some of the best food, nightlife, and beaches around. It’s also home to some of the most beautiful human beings on planet Earth so go and spread your wings in the 305 if you need respite from customs headaches and all that. 

    Image by Michelle Raponi from Pixabay

    [ad_2]

    Brian Lendino

    Source link

  • U of I, UC Santa Barbara and Dow scientists crack upcycling plastics to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advancing a recent Science study

    U of I, UC Santa Barbara and Dow scientists crack upcycling plastics to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advancing a recent Science study

    [ad_1]

    Press Release
    –

    Oct 5, 2022


    URBANA, Ill., October 5, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Santa Barbara and Dow developed a breakthrough process to transform the most widely produced plastic — polyethylene (PE) — into the second-most widely produced plastic, polypropylene (PP), which will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

    The new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society announces a series of coupled catalytic reactions that transform PE, which is #2 and #4 plastic that make up 29% of the world’s plastic consumption, into the building block propylene that is the key ingredient to produce PP, also known as #5 plastic that accounts for close to 25% of the world’s plastic consumption.

    This study establishes a proof-of-concept for upcycling PE plastic with more than 95% selectivity into propylene. The researchers have built a reactor that creates a continuous flow of propylene that can be converted into PP easily using current technology — making this discovery scalable and rapidly implementable. 

    Why this matters: Preliminary analysis suggests that if just 20% of the world’s PE could be recovered and converted via this route, it could represent a potential savings of GHG emissions comparable to taking 3 million cars off the road.

    “If we are to upcycle a significant fraction of the over 100 million tons of plastic waste we generate each year, we need solutions that are highly scalable,” Damien Guironnet, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, said. “Our team demonstrated the chemistry in a flow reactor we developed to produce propylene highly selectively and continuously. This is a key advance to address the immense volume of the problem that we are facing.” 

    Read Full Story

    Source: University of Illinois

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Illinois Partners With NFT Pioneers Fantastec SWAP

    Illinois Partners With NFT Pioneers Fantastec SWAP

    [ad_1]

    Press Release
    –

    Aug 10, 2022


    URBANA, Ill., August 10, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Fantastec SWAP announced on Wednesday (Aug. 10) the University of Illinois has signed up to its pioneering digital collectibles / NFT platform.

    • Illinois Football NFT “Season Preview Collection” available starting today.
    • Over 100 current football players expected to benefit from the innovative SWAP platform.
    • Fantastec SWAP specializes in creating consumer-desired NFTs at scale, allowing all Illinois student-athletes to utilize the pioneering platform.

    Fantastec SWAP (www.fantastec-swap.io) will expertly bring together the intellectual property rights from any Illini student-athlete signing onto the platform, with distinctive logos, trademarks, and in-competition content of University of Illinois teams to craft unique NFTs. Using their unrivaled end-to-end NFT skills, honed with European soccer clubs since 2019, Fantastec SWAP will create NFT collections throughout the 2022/23 academic year to engage Fighting Illini sports fans. The Illinois football season preview collection is available today via the Fantastec SWAP APP (https://fantastec-swap.app.link/0L4qRxceinb). 

    “Our stable platform, tested by hundreds of thousands of global sports fans since 2019, allows us to quickly customize the various in-app features to better engage Illinois sports fans. The Illinois football team and fans will also benefit from Fantastec SWAP being on the highly sustainable Flow blockchain and having Fighting Illini collections alongside NFL All Day, The UFC, and NBA Top Shot, amongst others,” stated Simon Woollard, Co-Founder and Product Partner at Fantastec SWAP.

    “We have profound respect for the fam-ILL-y atmosphere Coach Bielema is building with the Illinois football program. Add to that you have some of the greatest sports support communities like Illini Pride and we get excited about creating memorable NFT collections for these extremely enthusiastic Fighting Illini fans,” continued Woollard.

    The Illinois football team will be the second Big Ten team to join the Fantastec SWAP community after Michigan State signed on in July. 

    About Fantastec SWAP: Downloadable via the Apple APP store and Google Play, Fantastec SWAP crafts authentic NFTs for sports fans. SWAP’s unique end-to-end NFT production process incorporates the curation of magical moments, consumer testing for design variants, NFT crafting at different scarcity levels, engineering smart contracts incorporating vital compliance, issues and minting on the Flow blockchain. Since February 2019, SWAP has created over 2 million official NFTs for sports stars and fans in 200+ territories and countries. SWAP began life via American Entrepreneur Steve Madincea and British product creator Simon Woollard in London, England. It now boasts U.S. and U.K. personnel, allowing SWAP to produce NFTs and engage with consumers 24/7. For further information about the Fantastec SWAP, please visit www.fantastec-swap.io or download the Fantastec SWAP app at any app store. For further information, contact: Muskaan Paintal (muskaan@fantastec.io)

    Source: Fantastec

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Flying Taxi Cabs in the Near Future? UIUC Researchers Say, ‘Heads Up, Everybody’

    Flying Taxi Cabs in the Near Future? UIUC Researchers Say, ‘Heads Up, Everybody’

    [ad_1]

    Press Release
    –

    Apr 26, 2022


    URBANA, Ill., April 26, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Thanks to a $6M NASA grant, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign mechanical science and engineering professor Naira Hovakimyan leads the way toward making flying taxi cabs a reality.

    Part of NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI), Hovakimyan’s project establishes the Center for Autonomous Vehicles in Air Transportation Engineering (AVIATE) at UIUC. 

    Hovakimyan, who is also serving as the new center’s director, said, “The primary goal for air taxis is, once the infrastructure is there and the vehicles are there to operate, you should be able to live in Urbana-Champaign in your affordable house, work in Ohio, and have your dinner in Chicago.”

    Hovakimyan’s L1 adaptive flight control system, currently used to provide maneuverability and safety in airplanes, is the key to making small autonomous aircraft a trustworthy mode of transportation and may be used to sidestep many of the challenges faced by self-driving cars.

    “It [small autonomous aircraft] can come sooner than a self-driving car on the road. On the road, you have pedestrians, other vehicles, and much more unpredictability,” she added.

    In addition to UIUC, other team members include researchers from MIT, Georgia Tech, North Carolina A&T and University of Nevada at Reno. Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada Corporation are also involved on the corporate side. The advisory board includes Boeing, Google Wing and Kitty Hawk. 

    Flying cars have long captured the imagination of Earth-bound humans, and now researchers seek to make this notion a reality sooner than expected, resulting in many practical benefits and more mind-blowing aspects.  

    Read Full Story 

    View AVIATE Website 

    About The Grainger College of Engineering

    The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the world’s top-ranked engineering institutions, and a globally recognized leader in engineering education, research and public engagement. With a diverse, tight-knit community of faculty, students and alumni, Grainger Engineering sets the standard for excellence in engineering, driving innovation in the economy and bringing revolutionary ideas to the world. Through robust research and discovery, Grainger Engineers are changing our world and making advances once only dreamed about, including the MRI, LED, ILIAC, Mosaic, YouTube, flexible electronics, electric machinery, miniature batteries, imaging the black hole and flight on Mars. And they are building a better, cooler, safer tomorrow.

    About Illinois Mechanical Science and Engineering 

    The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE) offers top-ranked degree programs in engineering mechanics, mechanical engineering, and theoretical and applied mechanics. Engineering is evolving from an empirical discipline to one that uses first principles to understand physical phenomena spanning multiple length and time scales. MechSE integrates basic sciences and engineering to address the critical societal needs of today and to identify and respond to emerging needs and issues. Our faculty’s research is impacting energy, the environment, health, manufacturing, security and defense, and transportation.

    Media Source:

    Naira Hovakimyan
    Professor 
    Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering 
    The Grainger College of Engineering | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    nhovakim@illinois.edu
    217-244-1672

    Media Contact: 

    Chelsea Hamilton 
    Associate Director of Communications 
    The Grainger College of Engineering | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    clhamil@illinois.edu 
    217-333-1474

    Source: University of Illinois

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • New Model Accurately Describes COVID-19 Waves and Plateaus

    New Model Accurately Describes COVID-19 Waves and Plateaus

    [ad_1]

    Social activity model shows COVID-19 will be endemic, sticking around like the flu and the common cold


    URBANA, Ill., December 14, 2021 (Newswire.com)
    –
    To better understand the factors governing the wave and plateau dynamics of the spread of COVID-19, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of California San Diego (UCSD), and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has developed an epidemiological model inspired by real-world observations based on proximity data, like the fact that any given individual’s social activity tends to happen in bursts over short time scales, with longer in-between periods reverting to average sustained social-activity levels. 

    The new model—dubbed the stochastic social activity (SSA) model—was paired with a traditional epidemiological model and validated against empirical data taken from four U.S. regions before introducing COVID-19 vaccines. Stochastic refers to individual social activity being random and unpredictable, a variable that can nevertheless be captured in mathematical equations through probability distributions that are averaged out over time. 

    The new model builds on the team’s earlier work published in April of this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that showed the concept of “herd immunity” does not apply to the COVID-19 pandemic because this type of collective immunity to the disease turns out to be short-lived. Instead, what emerges is a fragile and temporary state of collective immunity, which they coined “transient collective immunity” (TCI). The prior study also considers individual differences in the size of social networks. 

    The team reports in the current work that this newly accounted-for random dynamic factor will always produce waves or plateaus of infections—like those seen throughout the pandemic—whether the model also accounts for individuals changing their social behavior based on knowledge of current infection rates. The model further tells us that COVID-19 may be here to stay—it shows a clear path for it to become endemic in the global population, much like the common cold or the flu.

    “Our new model describes three phenomena: why during a pandemic a wave stops; how it can progress at a nearly constant rate, forming a plateau; and why new pathogens actually stay with us permanently, entering what’s called an endemic state. Classical theory tells us when a new pathogen is introduced, it will eventually kill itself off by infecting enough people that herd immunity is developed, unless biological immunity is very short-lived. But even in the case where long-term biological immunity is developed, we explain the scenario of how a new pathogen stays endemic in a population,” notes lead author and physicist in the Theory and Computation Group at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven Lab, Alexei Tkachenko. 

    “What we are providing here is yet another factor that contributes to the dynamics of a pandemic that consists of multiple waves. In our case, our waves are caused exclusively by changes in the time-averaged level of social activity of individuals. The fluctuations in activity level led to a significant change in the propagation of the epidemic in waves and plateaus,” adds Sergei Maslov, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of bioengineering and physics and Bliss Faculty Scholar.

    These results are published online in the Dec. 14, 2021, issue of the journal eLife.

    Read the full press release. 

    Alexei Tkachenko and Sergei Maslov performed the pen-and-paper calculations for the new model. Agent-based computer simulations applying those equations were developed by recent UIUC physics Ph.D. graduate Tong Wang, now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School. 

    Media Contact:
    Siv Schwink, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: sschwink@illinois.edu

    Expert Contacts:
    Alexei Tkachenko, Brookhaven National Laboratory: oleksiyt@bnl.gov
    Sergei Maslov, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: maslov@illinois.edu
    Nigel Goldenfeld, University of California San Diego: nigelg@ucsd.edu

    Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Related Media

    [ad_2]

    Source link