Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Environmental Education In New York State, Laura Schad

Honors Theses

Environmental education is vital to the sustainability of our society. It is often through programs and classes that citizens learn about processes that are harming the environment and how they can be remediated. This thesis explores two different, 501(c)3 organizations in New York State that aim at increasing public awareness regarding environmental pollution and degradation. The first study presented in on Five Rivers Environmental Education Center. This nonprofit offers class to the general public as well as to local schools aimed at increasing awareness of environmental problems. It has miles of trails dedicated to helping people develop a love and …

Incorporation And Characterization Of Optical Oxygen Sensors In Silica Aerogel Monoliths, Nathaniel Patrick Hawthorne

Honors Theses

This thesis presents the preparation and spectroscopic characterization of silica aerogel monoliths containing one or more types of entrapped luminescent species. We are characterizing the response of aerogel-platform sensors to environments with varying amounts of oxygen and investigating whether it is possible to detect changes in luminescence signal based on the movement of oxygen through the aerogel monoliths.

Our experiments indicate that for platinum(II) octaethylporphyrin (PtOEP) aerogels, the decrease in luminescence in the presence of oxygen is not linear with respect to the increase of concentration of oxygen. Various two-site models can be used to determine the accessibility of the …

Reading Between The Lines: Verifying Mathematical Language, Tristan Johnson

Honors Theses

A great deal of work has been done on automatically generating automated proofs of formal statements. However, these systems tend to focus on logic-oriented statements and tactics as well as generating proofs in formal language. This project examines proofs written in natural language under a more general scope of mathematics. Furthermore, rather than attempting to generate natural language proofs for the purpose of solving problems, we automatically verify human-written proofs in natural language. To accomplish this, elements of discourse parsing, semantic interpretation, and application of an automated theorem prover are implemented.

A Graph Based Departmental Spoken Dialogue System, Julia Isaac

Honors Theses

Spoken dialogue systems are automatic, computer based systems that are a great way for people to receive important information. In this project, I created a spoken dialogue system that people can use to learn about the Computer Science Department at Union College. The system was built by populating an open source dialogue system using a graph based dialogue manager. I improved upon a previous working dialogue system by making the conversations sound more natural, improving the flexibility of the system and making the system more robust. To help with this process a corpus was created using about 200 different dialogues …

Modeling Pulsar Trajectories Through A Galatic Potential To Determine Birth Locations, Brent Shapiro-Albert

Honors Theses

Neutron stars are the remnants of massive stars after their deaths in supernova explosions. Some neutron stars, called pulsars, are detected as periodic emitters of radio waves at very precise intervals. Pulsars typically have higher velocities than their progenitor stellar population due to either kicks from supernova asymmetries or from remnant velocities of compact binaries after they are disrupted by explosions. Their velocities are large enough that pulsars will typically move large distances from their birth sites. By determining a pulsar's present day location and velocity, we project back to twice the pulsar's characteristic age to constrain the location of …

Constraining Cosmological Parameters Using The Correlation Function, Michael Warrener

Honors Theses

As the European Space Agency prepares to launch the space telescope Euclid in 2020, we are interested in using its observations of galaxy clustering as a new geometry-based tool to constrain the cosmological parameters Ωm and ΩΛ. In this work, we use data simulated by Magneticum (a high-resolution cosmological structure simulation) to model the correlation functions of both galaxies and clusters at several redshifts. We fit analytic models to the simulated data centered at the baryon acoustic oscillation peak to extract both the matter density parameter Ωm and the dark energy density parameter ΩΛ: We find that the correct cosmology …

Sustainable Agriculture: How France Promotes Sustainability, Jordan Pulling

Honors Theses

High consumption lifestyles led to a rapid decline in natural resources. The daily gestures of the people of the world use a quantity massive resource and energy that cannot be replaced. Decision makers of the world are invited to consider what changes will be needed to focus about sustainable and sustainable practices if we want to continue living in the way which we have become accustomed to. The development of renewable energies was a first step towards total sustainable development. Recently, however, we have seen a new way to reduce negative impacts on the rights of the Earth: changes in …

Atomic Force Microscopy Of Poly(Ethylane-Oxide) Crystalization, Xavier Capaldi

Honors Theses

Polymer crystallization is a complex process which is influenced by a variety of factors. Atomic force microscopy is used to explore the material properties of polymer crystals. Poly(ethylene-oxide) is used in a variety of molecular weights as the sample. In addition, a variety of sample preparation methods and microscopy modes were tested. A relatively new imaging technique was identified for the characterization of polymer crystals: amplitude modulation-frequency modulation viscoelastic mapping. This mode was used to measure material properties such as stiffness and dissipation.

Blending Two Automatic Playlist Generation Algorithms, James Curbow

Honors Theses

We blend two existing automatic playlist generation algorithms. One algorithm is built to smoothly transition between a start song and an end song (Start-End). The other infers song similarity based on adjacent occurrences in expertly authored streams (EAS). First, we seek to establish the effectiveness of the Start-End algorithm using the EAS algorithm to determine song similarity, then we propose two playlist generation algorithms of our own: the Unbiased Random Walk (URW) and the Biased Random Walk (BRW). Like the Start-End algorithm, both the URW algorithm and BRW algorithm transition between a start song and an end song; however, issues …

Gasoline Confined In Nano-Porous Media, Matthew Giso

Honors Theses

The heat of combustion was determined for gasoline confined in nano-porous media of differing pore size by bomb calorimetry. The heat of combustion of the confined fuels was comparable to that of bulk within the experimental uncertainty. This suggests that all of the confined fuel burns without any flame quenching and no chemical interactions at the interface between pore walls and fuel mitigate combustion.

Computing The (Un)Computable: A Computationally-Augmented Perspective On The Yasukuni Shrine Controversy, Ryan Muther

Honors Theses

Computational methods have been used with increasing frequency in the social sciences and humanities, due to the availability of digital sources and computing power to study everything from changes in the meanings of words in Latin texts to how knowledge was categorized in eighteen century encyclopedias. Recent trends in the fields of digital humanities and computational social science include statistical methods like machine learning, requiring large pre-tagged and annotated sets of documents which in turn necessitates a great deal of prior work to create data to use with such methods. This reliance on large corpora of annotated data limits the …

Approaching Humans For Help: A Study Of Human-Robot Proxemics, Eric Rose

Honors Theses

In order for a robot to be effective when interacting with a person, it is important for the robot to choose the correct person. Consider an example where a robot is trying to perform a task but it isn’t capable of doing a subtask, like going up a flight of stairs. In this case, the robot would need to ask a person for help with the elevator, in a socially appropriate way. We have conducted an experiment to determine who would be the best candidate to approach in a situation like this. Should the robot choose to approach someone who …

The Effects Of Early Confidence Interval Training On User Efficacy In A P300 Brain-Computer Interface Spelling Task, Adam Starkman

Honors Theses

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology can provide communication for individuals suffering from degenerative neuromuscular disorders. The present study sought to demonstrate improved BCI performance in healthy individuals using confidence interval training with a P300 BCI spelling program. In this BCI interface, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded as participants attended to a specific target character within a matrix of flashing letters and numbers presented on a computer screen. The BCI uses the P300 Event Related Potential to select the intended character. In a prior patient case, use of a confidence measure that rejected questionable selections improved that user’s spelling efficiency. The present …

Automated Household Tracking System, James Triola

Honors Theses

The past few years have seen the highest recorded amount of waste produced in America. Despite several options of responsible wasting, landfills are still bearing the brunt of waste deposits. Although recycling is a common practice, it is still not accomplished with maximum efficiency, and composting is even less common in areas where it is not legally mandated. Food scraps and byproducts that could otherwise have been broken down in proper composting methods continue to pile up in landfills where they breakdown into methane gas. Although there is no easy answer to the complex problem that is consumer waste, the …

The United States, China, And Climate Change: An Analysis Of The Us-China Climate Pact And Its Implications For International Climate Negotiations, Joesph Fiorile

Honors Theses

Climate change increasingly is becoming a major issue for the international community. It is contributing to rising global temperatures, rising sea levels, drought, natural disaster intensification, and ecological damage, amongst other things. A scientific consensus has emerged over recent years that implicates greenhouse gases, chief amongst them carbon dioxide, for causing global warming. Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the greenhouse gas effect has been caused in large part by the spike of human emissions since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. To reverse the problem, the density of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, has to be reduced. …

Heat Of Fusion Of Primary Alcohol Confined In Nanopores, Harrisonn Griffin

Honors Theses

Melting behavior of physically confined 1-decanol in nano porous silica was probed using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC). In agreement with the Gibbs-Thomson prediction, we observe that the melting temperature of the confined 1-decanol scales inversely with the physical size of the pores. Contrary to the assumption used in developing the Gibbs-Thomson equation, however, the apparent heat of fusion decreases as the pore size decreases. Previously, several models have been proposed where interfacial layers of molecules do not participate in the phase transition and thereby would not contribute to the heat of fusion. While these could reconcile the seeming contradiction, …

Noether's Theorem: Symmetry And Conservation, Tristan Johnson

Honors Theses

A common calculus problem is to find an input that optimizes (maximizes or minimizes) a function. An extension of this problem is to find a function that optimizes an expression depending on the function. This paper studies how small (differentiable) variations of functions give us more information about expressions dependent on these functions. Specifically, Noether’s Theorem states that in a system of functions, each differential symmetry – or small variation where the system is invariant– constructs a conserved quantity. We will describe, interpret and prove Noether’s Theorem using techniques from linear algebra, differential geometry, and the calculus of variations. Furthermore, …

Direction Of Lead Diffusion In Geological Samples Using Rutherford Backscattering Sepctrometry, Andrew Mccalmont

Honors Theses

A Rutherford Backscattering (RBS) analysis experiment was performed on several pyrrhotite samples in order to understand their lead (Pb) diffusive properties and determine the diffusion coefficients for Pb into the sample. The pyrrhotite samples were prepared at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and were subsequently annealed for one to several days at temperatures on the order of 500–800℃. A 1.1–MV Pelletron Accelerator in the Union College Ion Beam Analysis Laboratory was used to produce beams of 3.3–MeV alpha particles. The beam of alpha particles collided with the samples and the backscattered alpha particles’ energies were detected using a silicon surface barrier detector. …

General Relativity And Differential Geometry, Harry Hausner

Honors Theses

N/A

Polychlorinated Biphenyl (Pcb) Pollution Of The Hudson River: Social Policy And Health Considerations, Laura Schad

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine pollution in the Hudson River and the role General Electric has had in creating this problem. The focus will be on social issues and problems that have emerged as a result of the environmental damage from pollution. Until recently, there was little research done on the health and environmental justice issues that impact the New York communities where GE’s factories were located. This paper examines the material collected and studies that were done which document Hudson River pollution and the contributions as well as cleanup efforts of General Electric. The overall problems …

13c Composition In Bryophyte Primary Sugars As An Indicator Of Water Availability, Olivia Hope Williamson

Honors Theses

Bryophytes (mosses and their relatives) are a major carbon sink, and their productivity, is expected to be affected by climate change. Changes in plant productivity caused by changes in the climate can be tracked through stable carbon isotopes. This research aims to find a connection between stable carbon isotope signatures and water availability in bryophytes by examining the composition of 13C in soluble sugars and bulk tissue. Similar to trees, which leave rings of growth every year, mosses build up peat deposits, which can be used to gain information about the weather and water availability of a region. Information on …

Pixe Analysis Of Aerosol Soil Artificial Turf And Running Track Samples, Joshua Yoskowitz

Honors Theses

Proton-induced X-ray emission spectroscopy (PIXE) has been performed on aerosol, soil, artificial turf, and running track samples using the 1.1-MV tandem Pelletron accelerator in the Union College Ion Beam Analysis Laboratory. PIXE analysis of the aerosol and soil samples was performed with 2.2-MeV proton beams. X-ray energy spectra were measured with a silicon drift detector and analyzed with GUPIX software to determine the elemental concentrations in the aerosol and soil samples. Of particular interest are the concentrations of airborne pollutants, such as sulfur that can contribute to acid rain and the acidification of Adirondack lakes such as Piseco Lake. PIXE …

Development Of A [2]-Catenane Synthetic Method And A Student Beliefs Survey For A Hybrid Organometallics Course, Jourdan E. Lakes

Honors Theses

In this study, the value-added of a new upper-level chemistry course, CHEM 372-Organometallics, was defined using a Student Beliefs Survey that was answered by students in CHEM 372 and by faculty who teach upper-level chemistry courses at Coastal Carolina University. The laboratory portion of CHEM 372 focused on the synthesis of a [2]-catenane, which is a molecularly interlocked molecule (MIM). The intention was to give the CHEM 372 students a goal to work toward over the course of the semester instead of different, unrelated, experiments each week. Using this style of lab teaching, the students were introduced to graduate school-level …

Was 2015 The Summer Of The Shark? Evidence From The Coastal Carolina University Shark Project, Brooke Anderson

Honors Theses

Winyah Bay is a 65-km2 estuary in northeast South Carolina and is considered essential habitat and nursery ground for several shark species of the western North Atlantic. As a result of a number of shark bites/attacks during the summer of 2015, many concluded there was higher abundance of sharks than in previous years. The objective of this study was to test this hypothesis using surveys of shark populations from Winyah Bay in the summer of 2015, and comparing the diversity and abundance of sharks from this survey to those of previous years from the same survey. From July to August …

Abundance And Distribution Of Microplastic Particles In Winyah Bay, S.C. ‌, Dillon King

Honors Theses

Plastics are incredibly durable synthetic polymers used in a wide variety of consumer products. Microplastics are generally defined as plastic debris ranging from 0.33 to 5 millimeters in size. Microplastic pollution in the environment is a global concern because of their propensity to serve as a vector for bioaccumlation and the spread of harmful bacteria. This study characterized the concentrations of floating microplastics in Winyah Bay, South Carolina, the surrounding freshwater river systems, and 10 miles offshore of Winyah Bay. Samples were collected according to NOAA standard techniques for microplastic collection in water using a 335 µm and 153 µm …

An Analysis Of Environmentally-Persistent Free Radical Formation On Surrogate Soil Systems Containing Iron(Iii) And Copper(Ii) And The Potential Remediation Effects Of Laccases, Andrew Paul Mullet

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Resonance Varieties Of Pure Braid-Like Groups, Jared Able

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Exogenous Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (Pufa) Scavenging Affects Phospholipid Profiles And Virulence Phenotypes In Vibrio Cholerae And Vibrio Parahaemolyticus, Anna Moravec

Honors Theses

AIM: This research had two primary objectives. First, this study sought to determine whether or not exposing Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio parahaemolyticus to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) would lead to changes in their respective phospholipid profiles. Secondly, if membrane remodeling occurred, this study sought to determine the impact of membrane modifications on bacterial fitness by evaluating their effect on membrane permeability, biofilm formation, and response to stresses. METHODS: The Bligh and Dyer method was used to extract bacterial lipids, which were subsequently analyzed via thin-layer chromatography (TLC). The effect of fatty acids on bacterial fitness was assessed using stress, biofilm, …

Determining Methods Of Propagation For The Investigation Of Intraspecific Variability Of Climate Change Responses Of Appalachian Plant Species, Gayle L. Tyree

Honors Theses

Species range migrations are a well-documented response to climate change (Loarie et al. 2009), with range shifts mainly occurring poleward or to higher elevations (Walther et al. 2002). As range shifts occur, variation in phenotypic traits within plant species across climate gradients could affect their abilities to acclimate or adapt to a changing climate (Hooper et al. 2005, Souza et al. 2011). In 2014 Dr. Jennifer Boyd (BGES) initiated a research project to examine potential intraspecific phenotypic variation within wide-ranging Appalachian plant species of responses to projected future atmospheric CO2 and temperature regimes. As an undergraduate research assistant, I focused …

Measuring Phytophthora Resistance Phenotypes In Segregating Testcross Families Of Hybrid American Chestnut Trees, Anna C. Robinson

Honors Theses

Phytophthora root rot (PRR), caused by the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi Rands, is a formidable obstacle to the restoration of Castanea dentata Marsh. commonly known as the American chestnut. Genetic resistance to PRR has been observed in Asian species of chestnut including C. mollissima Blume, and in interspecific hybrids between C. mollissima and C. dentata. We hypothesized that root rot resistance alleles would segregate in a 1:1 ratio within progeny of crosses between PRR resistant F1 hybrids and PRR-susceptible American chestnut trees (first-backcrosses), and that PRR resistance could be successfully passed down to all families of first-backcross hybrids. To test these …