AEC 2015 Sciences

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AEC 2015 Sciences

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86 item sets

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  • A Sum of Products Trick

    Begin with any positive integer n. Write it as the sum of two smaller positive integers, say a and b. Compute the product ab. Repeat the same step in any order for each of the smaller numbers a and b. Continue this process until the only numbers left are 1s. Add up all the products. Regardless of the order in which the final 1s are obtained, the sum of the products will be the same. This talk will present the mathematics needed to explain why the products are the same and show how the ideas may be extended to other types of products whose sums will again be identical.

  • A Tale Of Two Habitats: Analysis Of Small Mammal Activity And Diversity On Ksc Property

    Few studies have evaluated the ecological significance of Keene State's riparian woodlands. The goal of this study is to compare small mammal activity and diversity in two distinct campus habitats: the wooded banks of the Ashuelot River and an early successional field dominated by forbs and small shrubs. We assembled track tubes, in which animals attracted by a bait leave ink prints on contact paper. We placed the track tubes at sampling stations along a line-transect in both habitats, checked tubes daily, and followed a sampling cycle that alternated use of stations to minimize oversampling of individual animals. We used ImageJ software to objectively quantify track marks. Observations over a 2 month period revealed far greater mammal activity in the riparian habitat. Finally, we plan to compare the species which left prints at field and riparian stations

  • An Exploration of the 'Slackers' Among Us: An Ethnography of Art Students

    Students declare art as their major because they're lazy. They're 'slackers' who don't take college seriously and want the easy way out. Right? Wrong. During the fall 2014 semester I conducted an ethnographic study within the art department, talking to students who are minors, majors, or in the Bachelors of Fine Arts degree program (BFA). Through participant-observation and interviews, I began to better understand these students, who they are, what they value, and their goals. Rites of passage, language, and beliefs concerning nudity, sharing, and levels of trust among art students are also distinctive. Although art students live among other undergraduates, the moment they enter the doors on the third floor of the 'Fern' they are in their 'cultural scene.' This area 'feels like home' and allows likeminded individuals to come together in a vibrant subculture.

  • An investigation of Thiosemicarbazone Ligands in 'Green' Palladium Cross-coupling

    Organometallic catalysts are a diverse class of molecules utilized in the manufacture of natural products, pharmaceuticals, and other specialty chemicals. As further efforts are made to understand catalytic mechanisms and abilities, a broader range of viable and economical alternatives to existing production methods can be established. Currently, there is a need to design new complexes that can function selectively and under ?green?, or environmentally sustainable conditions, such as avoiding excess solvent and energy usage or reducing chemical waste. This research reports the synthesis and characterization of novel thiosemicarbazone ligands and their associated palladium(II) complexes. An examination of the catalytic activity of these compounds, under mild conditions (lower temperatures) with aqueous solvents (reduced hazardous waste), has shown them to be effective in cross-coupling reactions. The formation of new carbon-carbon(C-C) bonds through cross-coupling has simplified existing synthetic routes and made an extensive category of new chemical compounds possible to produce.

  • Assessing Alternatives: Chemical Content Analysis Of Biodiesel Vs. Diesel Fuel Emissions

    With climate change an increasing concern, the push towards alternative energy sources from fossil fuels is very strong. Biodiesel fuel is one such alternative; however, it is important to consider that the combustion of biodiesel may contain toxic and harmful organic compounds that are emitted into the atmosphere. For this study, airborne particulate matter was collected on filters over a ten-day period for both diesel and biodiesel fuels at two workspace locations within the Keene Recycling Center. Collected particulate matter was categorized by size using multiple filters within an impactor device. Filters were analyzed for the presence of 61 different organic compounds using gas chromatography mass spectrometry with high sensitivity. Results will be presented that compare the differences in chemical content found in the emissions from the two fuels and examine these chemical differences with specific ranges of particulate matter size.

  • Body Satisfaction In College Women Following Exposure To Images Of Underweight Models

    The current study examined the impact of three experimental conditions on women's body satisfaction (BS), self-esteem (SE) and eating disorder symptomology (EDS). Specifically, participants were exposed to either underweight, average weight, or male models. Participants were 91 females from Keene State College and the Keene community. Participants viewed 20 images of models, completed questionnaires and had their height and weight measured. The results showed that women exposed to images of thin models had lower BS compared to the women exposed to average weight models; there were no other significant findings between groups. However, there were significant correlations between BS and EDS, BS and SE, and SE and EDS. Lastly, participants with the highest BMI discrepancies had the lowest body satisfaction scores.

  • Chemical Profiling Of Microalgae Communities Associated With Eelgrass

    Many different species of microalgae live on the surface of eelgrass leaves and can limit the growth and survival of the eelgrass. Microalgae are single-celled photosynthetic organisms, and overgrowth by epiphytic algae has been implicated in the decline of seagrasses worldwide. Traditionally, microalgae have been identified using microscopy, which is difficult, time consuming, and relies on qualitative observations. The purpose of this research project is to develop an analytical method to measure extracted photopigments as a means of microalgae identification. High Performance Liquid Chromatography will be used to separate and measure photopigments chlorophyll a, fucoxanthin, and zeaxanthin, which are common to many microalgae communities. Calculated ratios of the three photopigments can be used to identify microalgae taxonomy. Results from this project will investigate the relative abundance of different microalgae communities on eelgrass collected from field sites in Massachusetts and examine how algal community structure varies with eelgrass health.

  • Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Campaign Contributions In The 2012 Congressional Elections

    What determined political contributions made to congressional candidates in the 2012 election? The existing literature on the subject is problematic in that it is too specific and will only focus on particular aspects of contributions. According to my research hypothesis there are variables that can be used to analyze a national race that include all levels of contributors to determine why candidates received the contributions they did. My equation has total contributions, according to Federal Election Commission filings, made by each candidate for the two year period in which that election cycle occurred, as the dependent variable. The explanatory variables are margin of victory for both the congressman and the presidential candidate of their party, committee chairmanship and other key leadership roles, the productivity of the congressman, per capita income of the district, and years of incumbency.

  • Determining The Separation And Position Angles Of Orbiting Binary Stars: Comparison Of Three Methods

    Binary stars are two stars that are gravitationally bound in orbit about one another. In fact, the majority of stars in the universe belong to binary or multiple star systems. Studying binary stars is important because measurements of their orbits provide astronomers with the easiest and most precise method to determine their masses. Due to the large number of binary systems and their continually changing positions, it is of great importance for measurements to be updated periodically. The US Naval Observatory maintains a catalog of all known binary stars called the Washington Double Star catalog. This catalog encourages and, to a great degree, relies on amateur astronomers to make the measurements. Students spent the Fall Semester 2014 learning how to assemble and use a telescope to make measurements and analyze data describing several different binary systems using three separate methods. The results compare well with cataloged values.

  • Elliptic Curves: How The National Security Agency Hacked Our E-mail

    Elliptic Curves will be explored from a mathematical perspective as well as from a cryptographic perspective, where they have important applications to modern information security. We will address what elliptic curves are, explore integer and rational solutions to elliptic curves, and explain how the National Security Agency hacked our e-mail. A computer program written in Octave will be used throughout to elucidate these concepts.

  • Environmental Chemical Analysis Of Inorganic Ions In Beaver-Dammed Vs. Free-Flowing Sections Of Local Rivers

    This project seeks to further the understanding of how river chemistry is altered by beaver dams and aims to measure concentrations of ions in water samples using an analytical separation technique called capillary electrophoresis (CE). Using standard chemicals and calibration curves, the CE method will quantify inorganic ion species. These ions will be analyzed in water samples collected from rivers with beaver ponds interspersed between free-flowing sections. The measured ion concentrations will be compared in free-flowing reaches versus beaver ponds to assess the impact of beaver dams on the in-stream chemical state. To measure this, the CE instrument separates mixtures within a glass capillary and measures each ion individually. A specialized detector is connected to the instrument for measuring separated ions where concentration is a function of conductivity. Positive ions of interest can be separated in under eight minutes, and negative ions of interest can be separated in under six minutes.

  • From the High Seas to Life Insurance: The Mathematics of Nathaniel Bowditch

    Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838) was an American mathematician who pulled himself out of a life of poverty through self-education. Fulfilling an early passion for mathematics, he taught himself advanced topics by reading the works of the masters; he learned Latin, French, and German on his own to read mathematical texts. He became an influential mathematician, influencing future generations of research mathematicians. Bowditch corrected the mathematical tables of existing navigational references and the mathematical work of such luminaries as Newton and Laplace. In this talk we discuss how Bowditch was influenced by predecessors and in turn influenced future generations. He explained mathematics in a way accessible to all, inspiring American navigators and educators, as well as earning the respect of contemporaries, including Thomas Jefferson. Our purpose is to reveal that the mathematical work of early eighteenth century Americans, particularly Bowditch, was at a higher level than many believe.

  • Gold Complexes And Novel Caffeine Derivatives

    The range of applications for gold complexes is rapidly growing since they have potential uses in chemical and biological sensing, electronics, and the pharmaceutical industry. This project involves the preparation of complexes of gold derived from caffeine, a well-known stimulant that is commercially available. Interestingly, the molecular structure of caffeine includes an imidazole ring and, as such, it is susceptible to chemical transformations, including the formation of carbene derivatives. More specifically, methylation of the unsubstituted nitrogen on caffeine forms an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) precursor, which was converted to the corresponding thione and selone derivatives. These monodentate ligands have been coordinated to gold(I) halides, and these results will be described in detail in this report. These gold complexes serve as molecular models for the binding of thiones and selones to gold surfaces.

  • Greener But More Toxic? Investigating The Differences In Health Effects And Composition Between Diesel And Biodiesel Particles

    While biodiesel is considered a greener alternative to diesel fuel, there is little information on health effects from exposure to biodiesel and diesel particulate matter (PM) generated in 'real world' combustion operations. PM is comprised of chemicals which induce production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), which have been linked to adverse health effects in humans. During the summer of 2014, PM samples were collected inside the cabin of a heavy duty front loader that operated on both fuel types. I exposed a human lung cell line to PM from each fuel type and measured the ROS generated. Our team also analyzed PM for water soluble organic carbon (WSOC) in order to investigate potential associations between WSOC and ROS. In this talk, I will present our experimental results examining the impact of fuel on PM composition and ROS generation. The overall goal is to better understand biodiesel's potential health effects.

  • Home Sweet Home: Housing Participant Satisfaction Survey

    This study used a mixed methods approach to examine the topic of public housing in Keene, New Hampshire, a small city in central New England. A Resident Satisfaction Survey was designed to inform Keene Housing about their property managers' performance and learn more about residents' needs. This survey evaluated Keene Housing tenants' attitudes regarding safety, food security, and access to childcare programs, healthcare and technology. Other survey questions explored elements such as criminal activity and technology access. Quantitative and qualitative survey results were synthesized and were statistically analyzed to explore differences between public housing properties. The results indicated that there is a lack of programs for Keene Housing tenants to utilize, and confirmed that residents have unequal access to key services within the community. Also, we found a significant difference among housing properties with regard to resident satisfaction.

  • Hopelessness And Aggression: Exploring The Role Of Perceived Oppression, Abandonment, And Personal Limitations

    In this study, the relationship between three different forms of hopelessness (i.e. forsakenness, oppression, and limitedness) and their potential role in fostering aggressive tendencies will be explored. Both explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) hopelessness and aggressive thoughts are being studied. It is hypothesized that undergraduate college participants who report higher levels of oppression or forsakenness will score higher in levels of aggression as compared to those harboring feelings of limitedness (self-perceived deficits). Stronger associations are expected at the implicit level between hopelessness and aggressiveness. Explicit hopelessness and aggressive thoughts will be assessed via standard questionnaires whereas implicit levels of these constructs will be measured with picture-story exercises and an implicit association test. If the study hypotheses are confirmed, the findings will counter media portrayals linking conditions of helplessness with violence and instead focus discussions on the role of perceived disruptions in attachment.

  • Impact Of 'Real World' Biodiesel And Petroleum Diesel Combustion On Particulate Matter Composition And Oxidative Potential

    Biodiesel blends are known to reduce emissions of particulate matter (PM) mass compared to diesel, but less is known regarding the impact of PM on toxicological responses, specifically PM generated in 'real world' operations using biodiesel. The dithiothreitol (DTT) assay is a method used to approximate oxidative potential (measure of the tendency to lose electrons) of chemical species in fuel related PM. Oxidative potential is a measure of PM ability to generate components called reactive oxygen species and is associated with adverse health effects. The DTT assay was performed on diesel and biodiesel PM collected in the summer of 2014; additionally, we measured the water soluble organic carbon (WSOC) content of the PM to investigate any relationships between DTT consumption rates and WSOC content. Our goal is to better understand the impact of 'real world' combustion of biodiesel in comparison to potential health effects.

  • Income Inequality And Political Polarization In American Politics

    American politics has ground to a halt in part due to increasing partisan behavior in Congress. Since the 1960s, the Republican and Democrat Parties have experienced significant ideological divergence on economic and social issues. By measuring the change in the ideologies of members of Congress from each state since 1960, I will identify which states have undergone the most rapid ideological polarization. I will then calculate the change in economic inequality of each state over the same time period. Using these data sets and regression analysis, I intend to establish a correlative link between greater degrees of political polarization and greater levels of economic inequality.

  • Investigating Criminal Intent with Mobile Botnets

    Over the last few years there has been a convergence of human activities using mobile computing with devices such as tablets or smartphones. This research will investigate one of the biggest criminal security threats called a mobile botnet, responsible for criminal activities known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. A mobile botnet refers to a collection of infected mobile devices (bots) that interact to accomplish some distributed task (DDoS attack) for illegal purposes. The bots are controlled by an attacker (botmaster) through various command and control channels implemented by mobile applications. In this research, we will first simulate a mobile botnet system called mongoose running on mobile devices. Thereafter, the communications between the botmaster and bots using the mongoose application in order to understand DDoS attacks targeted towards a centralized business or academic server.

  • Investigating How The Abundance Of An Argonaute Family Protein Is Controlled In The Mustard Plant Arabidopsis Thaliana

    A family of proteins with very similar amino acid sequences known as Argonautes is found in all plants and animals. Proteins from this family play critical roles during an organism's development and helping the plant or animal fight off harmful viruses. Argonautes carry out these tasks by silencing a specific set of the organism's own developmental genes as well as genes encoded by viruses, relieving the cell of unnecessary or even harmful genetic codes. This phenomenon of destroying certain genes has immense scientific and pharmaceutical implications. In this set of experiments, we examine one of the ways in which an Argonaute protein's activity is controlled. We aim to create a system to study the role of the Argonaute4 protein in the mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana and how its abundance fluctuates in order to meet the changing needs of the plant during its life cycle.

  • Is the President of the United States Responsive to Public Opinion?

    Through the analysis of the Obama Administration's public position taking on two controversial issues in public addresses, this paper will attempt to answer the question 'Is the President of the United States responsive towards public opinion?' The two issues that will be analyzed are same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization. The logic behind analyzing these two issues is their similarity. Both issues are a state-by-state policy with a slowly increasing public favorability measured by a ten-year trend on Gallup, and both issues are based on personal beliefs with cleanly divided opinion groups. Although controversial, President Obama has addressed both issues in major public addresses at specific points in time. I will utilize the statistics collected by Gallup to analyze public opinion trends for same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, and determine if there is a pattern that initiates such a public address where a stance is taken by the Obama Administration.

  • Life Stress, Competitive Anxiety, and Affective Outcomes Related To Athletic Performance

    This study will examine possible relationships among life stress, competitive anxiety, and an athlete's emotional state following competitive games. Examination of an intercorrleation matrix may suggest how these variables interact to produce interference with optimal athletic performance and expose the importance of the mental-aspect of sport. The participants will be varsity athletes from men's and women's basketball, lacrosse, baseball and softball teams. The participants will complete five surveys. The Demographic Questionnaire and the Life Events and Stress Scale will be taken one week prior to competition. The modified State-Trait Anxiety Inventory will be administered on the athlete's day off. The Competitive State Anxiety Inventory 2 will be taken two hours before competition and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule scale will be taken directly after. The data collected will be analyzed using a correlational model where statistical significance is tied to p-values of .05 or higher.

  • Optimum Arrangement Of Points

    Given an area enclosed by a convex curve, the problem is to find the optimal arrangement of N points within the boundary such that the minimum distance between any two points is as large as possible. This particular problem is closely related to the optimal packing of N equally sized circles in the same boundary such that the radius of the circles is as large as possible. This talk will concentrate on the cases where the convex curve is a circle, equilateral triangle, and a square, and the values are less than 20.

  • Organometallic Synthesis Of Novel Thiosemicarbazone Ligands And Metal Complexes And Structural Analysis By X-Ray Diffraction

    Thiosemicarbazones are an interesting class of metal binding compounds. They have been shown to display biological activity including anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial and anti-tumoral properties. Further, both the unbound compound and their metal complexes have shown anti-tumor activity, however the metal complex was found to have enhanced pharmacological activity. The properties of these compounds can be differentiated by adding and changing substituents on the ring that contain varying electronic effects. A variety of novel thiosemicarbazones compounds have been developed and reacted with palladium or platinum complexes to make their corresponding productions. The goals are to synthesize and structurally characterize the ligands and metal complexes using X-Ray Diffraction which is an effective method for determining molecular structures of crystalized compounds. Eventually the library of complexes will be investigated to see the effect changes in structure have on their biological activity.

  • Perceptions And Practices Of Sustainability Within Keene, New Hampshire

    This research involved a study of sustainability initiatives employed by Keene State College and throughout the City of Keene. Interviews of college employees and city officials were conducted to ascertain what initiatives are currently being implemented by Keene State College and the City of Keene. Downtown business owners and managers were surveyed to determine their current sustainability practices. Business survey results were incorporated into a student survey designed to gauge student perceptions of sustainability. Analyses of data resulting from student surveys demonstrate that students perceive sustainability initiatives as important and influential to their behavior. Maps were developed to highlight sustainability efforts across campus and downtown Keene. Findings were compiled into a comprehensive sustainability profile to inform the public what sustainability actions are being taken in our community. Overall findings demonstrate that Keene State College and the City of Keene are incorporating numerous sustainability initiatives into their respective master plans.