Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Effect Of Coca-Cola™ On Fresh And Latent Blood Stains, Brittany Johnson, Bethany Smith, Katie Steigerwald, Rachel Eberle

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Basic

Synthesis And Characterization Of 5,6-Fused Ring Pyridazines, William Hobbs, Joshua Bird, Stephen Carter

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Utilization Of Solid-State Catalysis For Screening Of Peroxidase Library, Zachariah Hutcheon, Alexa Deckert

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Synthesis Of Re(Co)3[1,2-C5h3(Coc4h3s)2], Chloe Vernon, Ryan Renfro, Wilmar Janusz

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Rotoscoping Image Processing, David J. Blackstone

Student Scholar Showcase

I wrote a program to perform rotoscoping image processing. Rotoscoping is an animation technique that is used to turn real images into cartoon images. This is a lengthy process to do by hand, taking hundreds of hours. To make this job easier, I have written a program to do automated rotoscoping. This program uses many algorithms and techniques such as edge detection, blurring, directional detection, and edge tracking. What once would take hours by hand, takes seconds!

Mapping The Impact Of A Trailway System On The Amount Of Trash Present Within Two Watersheds Of Lynchburg City, Virginia, Lillian Smith

Student Scholar Showcase

Transportation of trash debris within water systems is a prominent occurrence which has been linked to natural and artificial processes such as wind, rain, and littering. Recreational areas, such as activities along greenway trails, have been determined to be a source of debris found in waterways. This study examines whether the presence of an established recreational trail system limits trash accumulation in the entirety of a watershed. Trash data collected at Blackwater Creek, which contains an established trail system, was compared to trash data collected at Fishing Creek, containing a non-established trail system, to answer this hypothesis. A distance of …

Mathematical Model Of Devil Facial Tumor Disease (Dftd) Spread In Tasmanian Devils, Abigail Collins

Scholars Week

Applications of disease models can lead to insight on spread of diseases, population movements, and wildlife health safety. This exploration of mathematical models sought to determine the spread of wildlife disease, specifically devil facial tumor disease (DFTD). Tasmanian devil populations have been negatively affected by DFTD. The basic SIR disease model was modified to better fit the spread of DFTD, along with a network model to inspect the rate of infectivity. It was found that the population of Tasmanian devils will continue to decrease in size and multiple populations are connected to each other. Models of wildlife disease have the …

Probing Small Heat Shock Protein Chaperoning Activity Through The Interaction Between Myoglobin And Guanidine Hydrochloride, Jacob Mcdowell

Celebration of Research

Myoglobin is a small biological protein found in most muscle tissues. When in the proper form (native/folded), myoglobin can serve its primary function: binding oxygen. However, like all proteins, myoglobin can denature through a variety of processes into a form that no longer binds oxygen. One denaturant, guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl), is the biological product of protein metabolism. Another class of biological proteins is small heat shock proteins (sHSPs), which have the function of chaperoning other proteins to prevent the denaturing process. Previously, in physical chemistry lab, we explored the GuHCl-induced denaturing of myoglobin. Former Northwestern students used fluorescence correlation spectroscopy …

Evaluation On Appropriateness Of Fluoroquinolone Use In An Acute Care Hospital, Cynthia Huang

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

Participation In Curriculum And Cultural Ambassador Group To Enhance Student Belongingness, Jake Tuft, Jacob Schvaneveldt

Annual Research Symposium

COVID-19 negatively impacted students' abilities to participate in live, in-person events; students were unable to interact with peers or build relationships critical to success and well-being. Quarantine, social distancing and video conferencing did not create this problem however, it simply amplified the fact that dental students seemingly lack camaraderie and a sense of belongingness. The Curriculum and Cultural Ambassador group was created to allow students to bond over shared goals in the hopes of improving their experiences within dental school. This group gives students the ability to “Be the Change” on campus and enact real-time change to foster a sense …

Room Temperature Phosphorescence Material For Use In Low-Cost Lighting Technology, Mujeebat Bashiru

Arkansas Women in STEM Conference

Light is a key element in our daily lives. An environment with eye catching navigation to offices, lecture halls and buildings is very essential in a high citadel of learning since the campus will always be occupied by students or diverse group of people trying to make way into their respective destination. Herein, the goal of the project is to investigate multifunctional carbazole compounds with ease of tunability to design, develop, and characterize (including basic understanding of the essential chemical and physical phenomena), using prompt and inexpensive methods. More specifically, photodynamic properties of newly designed carbazole-based cored compounds with room …

Combination Chemo-Pdt Ionic Nanomedicines As Enhanced Therapeutics For Cancer, Samantha Macchi

Arkansas Women in STEM Conference

Cancer remains as one of the leading causes of death in humans worldwide. Nanotechnology has made great strides in improving treatment for the disease. This work describes a simplistic approach to design self-assembled combination nanomedicines. A facile one-step ion exchange reaction is utilized to combine a chemotherapeutic (phosphonium) cation and photodynamic therapeutic (porphyrin) anion. An aqueous nanomedicine is prepared from the hydrophobic ionic combination drug via a single-step reprecipitation method. Upon conversion to ionic combination drug, improved photophysical properties of porphyrin were observed. These characteristics subsequently led to increased photodynamic therapeutic activity of nanomedicines—explained by greater singlet oxygen quantum yield. …

Surface Area Enhancement Of Doped Carbon Materials Via Novel Freeze-Pore Methodology, Iris Denmark

Arkansas Women in STEM Conference

Supercapacitors are one of today’s growing means of alternative energy. They are portable, produce much higher capacitance than traditional capacitors, and operate under lower voltages than that of batteries. Herein, we have synthesized a series of supercapacitor materials from sodium lignosulfonate, otherwise known as lignosol, which are co-doped with phosphorus and nitrogen. The materials are synthesized utilizing a green and time-efficient microwave irradiation process. Subsequently, these materials have been optimized by utilizing a novel process by which surface area and electrochemical properties is enhanced by freezing of their porous surface. Materials undergoing this method have shown significant increase in BET …

Ingredient Classification Using Food Ontology, Ricky Flores

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A food label provides some of the most crucial information for a food product. The food label is a key resource for many health-conscious consumers for understanding ingredients. It is also vital for individuals to avoid food allergens or help patients follow dietary recommendations. While the food labels in the United States are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) many labels contain additional information or statements that are not regulated. Moreover, the food label may be complex or contain terminology that the layperson may not understand. Evidence has indicated that consumers often find nutrition labels confusing, especially when …

Seizure Prediction In Epilepsy Patients, Gary Dean Cravens

NSU REACH and IPE Day

Purpose/Objective: Characterize rigorously the preictal period in epilepsy patients to improve the development of seizure prediction techniques. Background/Rationale: 30% of epilepsy patients are not well-controlled on medications and would benefit immensely from reliable seizure prediction. Methods/Methodology: Computational model consisting of in-silico Hodgkin-Huxley neurons arranged in a small-world topology using the Watts-Strogatz algorithm is used to generate synthetic electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals. ECoG data from 18 epilepsy patients is used to validate the model. Unsupervised machine learning is used with both patient and synthetic data to identify potential electrophysiologic biomarkers of the preictal period. Results/Findings: The model has shown states corresponding to …

Synthesis Of Asymmetrically-Substituted Tetraphenyl-Class Porphyrins, William J. Davis

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

Porphyrins are macrocyclic compounds that can be synthesized and used in photodynamic therapy (PDT), a noninvasive and selective method designed to eliminate diseased tissue (such as cancer) without killing healthy tissue. PDT involves the following three steps. A photosensitizer enters a cancerous cell, is excited by electromagnetic radiation, and transfers the energy to molecular oxygen which is then converted into singlet oxygen, which triggers cellular apoptosis. However, for a porphyrin to be utilized as a therapeutic in PDT, it must satisfy the following two criteria: the porphyrin needs to possess the correct solubility to pass through the cell membrane and …

Analyze And Examine Wildfire Events In California, Aleena Hoodith, Sakim Zaman, Safoan Hossain, Jiehao Huang

Publications and Research

•A wildfire is an unplanned, unwanted, uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation starting in rural areas and urban areas. •Recent studies have shown that the effect of anthropogenic climate change has fueled the wildfire events, leading to an increase in the annual burned areas and number of events. •California is one of the places having the most deadliest and destructive wildfire seasons. With the global warming effect of 1°C since 1850, the 20 largest wildfires events that have occurred in California, 8 of them were in 2017. (Center For Climate And Energy Solutions) •Climate change is primarily caused …

Mapping Of Non-Native Invasive Plant Species Using Remote Sensing And Gis: Assessment Of Human Impact On Kudzu (Pueraria Montana) Spread, Harshitkumar Godhasara

Scholars Week

Remote sensing methods provide tools to identify and map non-native plants. Biophysical characteristics of plants can be utilized to recognize and distinguish non-native invasive plants from other native plant species. Kudzu is an invasive plant, which causes economic loss and decreases biodiversity. Moreover, kudzu doubles emission of nitric oxide and increases ozone pollution. The impact of human activities on the spread of noxious plant species like kudzu can be assessed utilizing remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) tools. Kudzu spread in the USA was mapped using in situ data including the actual coordinates of kudzu sites. Geographic distribution of …

Pilot Study Exploring The Impact That Laboratory ​Instruction Has On A Student's Stem Professional Identity​ ​, Datiel Dayani, Dr. Michelle Head

Symposium of Student Scholars

STEM professional identity serves as one lens through which researchers have used to study factors that influence achievement in chemistry courses and persistence in a STEM major. The literature has proposed that the high attrition rate among STEM majors may result from the student’s evolving professional identity, motivational factors, and how they correlate a STEM career to their future aspirations. There is limited insight into how laboratory classes and teaching practices affect a student’s professional identity development. To investigate this, this study employed James Marcia’s identity development theory to understand the relationship between a student's identity status and their perception …

Nudging Students To Use Stronger Passwords: A Test Of Big Five Personality-Based Messages, Shelia Kennison, Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cybersecurity breaches can occur when one uses an easily hacked password. Prior research has investigated 1) possible steps to encourage users to use strong passwords and 2) how personality is related to users using strong passwords.

We investigated whether personality-based nudging messages based on Big Five traits could nudge people to create stronger passwords (c.f., Jones et al., 2021). We also examined how personal characteristics, such as gender, age, personality traits, password knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, and need for cognition, were related to password strength.

We tested the hypothesis that passwords created following messages matching participants’ personality would be stronger …

Tweets R Us: Predicting Personality From Language And Emoji Use On Twitter, Maxwell Meckling, Sarah Shoup, D. E. Chan-Tin, Shelia Kennison

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The research investigated the suggestion from prior research that language and emojis use on Twitter and other social media platforms can predict users’ personality and gender (Adali et al., 2014; Golbeck et al., 2011; Li et al., 2019; Moreno et al., 2019; Raess, 2018). Some studies have also analyzed Twitter language to identify individuals with specific health conditions (e.g., alcohol recovery, Golbeck, 2012; sleep problems, Suarez et al., 2018).

If strategies to predict Twitter users’ characteristics prove to be successful, future efforts to direct persuasive messages related to recommended practices in public health and/or cybersecurity will be possible. Commercial applications …

The Application Of Machine Learning To Help Identify Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 In Shales, Marc Mechem

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

No abstract provided.

Numerical Modelling Of A Novel 3d T-Junction Microfluidic Droplet Generator, Andrew G.H. Roberts

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

No abstract provided.

You Are What You Eat: Micro-Ct Analysis Of Early Triassic Coprolites, Olivia N. Benest

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Poster summarizing coprolite research, micro-CT analysis results, and future studies.

Synthesis Of Photoluminescent Metal-Chalcogen Clusters For Potential Oled Applications, Aaron Mitchell

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

No abstract provided.

Speed And Accuracy For Partial Differential Equation Solvers, Aidan Grasby

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This Research project consisted of testing multiple software used to solve partial differential equations to determine the fastest solver while not compromising other aspects such as accuracy. The larger project involved using electrodes and electric fields to treat brain tumours. An optimization program is required to determine electrode placement and this program must solve partial differential equations to determine the electric field for each electrode configuration. This optimization step is extremely slow so it is critical a faster partial differential equation solver is found. Therefore, I tested various software to determine the fastest solver that could then be linked with …

Studies Of Subvarieties Of Classical Complex Algebraic Geometry, Wenzhe Wang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

My project in this USRI program is to study subvariety of classical complex algebraic geometry. I observed the orbit of elements in the unit sphere in space ℂ² ⊗ ℂ², the structure of unit sphere of ℂ² ⊗ ℂ². After this, I tried to generalize the result to ℂ^n ⊗ ℂ^n.

A Paleoseismic Study Of The Twin Lakes Fault, Mount Hood Fault Zone, Oregon, Charlie Carr, Ashley R. Streig

McNair Symposium

Recent geologic mapping on high-resolution topography from lidar has led to the discovery of a zone of active faults on Mount Hood. The Mt. Hood Fault Zone consists of four separate faults, and stretches ~55 km from south to north, and crosses the summit of Mount Hood. The focus of this study is the northern section of Twin Lakes Fault, which lies directly south of Mount Hood and adjacent to OR35 and the White River. Lidar topography reveals the west side down normal displacement on the Twin Lakes fault. The highest tectonic seismicity rates in the Mount Hood area occur …

54fe(D,P)55fe Single Neutron Transfer Presentation, Matthew Quirin, Raymond Saunders

Physics and Astronomy Presentations

During our summer research at the John D Fox Laboratory, we used the 9 MV Tandem van de Graaff accelerator and the Super Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph to make measurements of the neutron transfer reaction 54Fe(d,p) 55Fe to observe and explore excited states of 55Fe and shell structure beyond the magic number N=28. We have created momentum spectra and angular distribution plots of the protons from the reaction which will be analyzed to determine the angular momentum values of states and single-neutron energies in 55Fe in an effort to better understand nuclear structure.

Binder Cover Garden Ecology, Center For Urban Resilience

Module 10: Garden Ecology

No abstract provided.