The 6th
Annual
NC
Undergraduate
Summer Research Symposium
Graduate Student (NSF
AGEP Bridging)
Abstracts are listed in
alphabetical order by the last name of the corresponding author.
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Blue, Aaron W. Qian, Hong |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Chemistry |
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Research |
Lin He/Chemistry |
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Title of Presentation: |
Ativators Regenerated by Electron Transfer(ARGET) for
Atom-Transfer Radical Polymerization(ATRP) in DNA hybrid Copolymer Formation |
The aim of this work is to
optimize DNA detection on surface initiated Atom Transfer Radical
Polymerization (ATRP) using a newly discovered catalytic system based on
activators regenerated by electron transfer (ARGET). ATRP is a controlled
polymerization technique in which a Cu-based catalyst reacts reversibly with an
initiator. As a result, radicals form to allow polymer chain growth but are
rapidly deactivated in a redox reaction. The reaction
requires the removal of oxygen to eliminate oxidation of the catalyst and
quenching of formed radicals. In ARGET-ATRP, small amounts of Cu-based catalyst
(ppm) are used with an environmentally friendly
reducing agents, such as ascorbic acid and glucose, that constantly regenerate
Cu(I) from Cu(II) without deoxygenating; thus enabling a continuous controlled
polymerization.1 In this research, the ARGET-ATRP reaction is carried out in
the presence of DNA molecules and the conditions are optimized by tuning the
amount and selection of reducing agent and ligand, as
well as the concentration of the catalyst to achieve maximum growth of poly
(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) PHEMA on a surface.
Expected benefits of ARGET-ATRP in DNA detection also include reduced
background nonspecific adsorption from the use of smaller amounts of Cu-based
catalysts and shortened assay readout time from faster polymer growth. Our
results show that the use of ascorbic acid as the reducing agent yields a
linear polymer growth as a function of reaction time, where as a much weaker
reducing agent, glucose, did not. PHEMA growth using the Cu/Me4clam/dnNbpy
system yields a faster but more controlled reaction in comparison to the
Cu/PMDETA system. An optimal concentration of Cu2+ at 450ppm is identified,
although reaction retardation is observed as Cu2+ decreased. Our preliminary
research shows that ARGET ATRP could potentially lead to improved DNA
detection.
(1) Min, K.; Gao H.; Matyjaszewski KMacromolecules 2007, 40, 1789-1791
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Caldwell, Ticola S. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
CHASS |
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Department(s): |
Psychology
in the Public Interest |
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Research |
Pamela
Martin/Psychology in the Public Interest |
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Title of Presentation: |
The
Relationship between African American Parents’ Psychological Well-Being and their
Children’s Self-Esteem |
This qualitative study
seeks to examine the relationship between African American parents'
psychological well-being (i.e. depression) and their adolescents' self-esteem. A
study was conducted using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression
Scale also called the CES-D (Radloff, 1977) to
investigate whether parents who endorse high levels of depression is associated
with their children’s level of self-esteem. Twenty-five churches in two
mid-western cities participated in the study. A regression was employed using
the variables of the parents’ age, martial status, socioeconomic status, and
psychological well-being (i.e. depression) to predict their children’s self-esteem.
This research highlights the influences of parental age, martial status,
socioeconomic status and psychological well-being (i.e. depression) as
predictors of their child’s self-esteem. Implications for future research are
also discussed.
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Cepero-Perez, Keren J. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Natural
Resources |
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Department(s): |
Marine
Earth and Atmospheric Science |
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Research |
Stacy
Nelson/Forestry Paul
Liu/Marine Earth and Atmospheric Science |
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Title of Presentation: |
Fluvial
Nitrogen Export in Four Watersheds at |
Anthropogenic actions are altering
fluxes of nitrogen (N) in the biosphere at unprecedented rates. Efforts to
study these impacts have concentrated in northern hemisphere, where
experimental data are available. In tropical developing countries, however,
experimental studies are lacking. This research was developed in Puerto Rico a
densely populated
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Dixon, Anthony R. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Mathematics |
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Research |
Hien T. Tran/Mathematics Mette S. Olufsen/Mathematics |
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Title of Presentation: |
Mathematical
Modeling of Cerebral Blood Flow Dynamics |
Postural change is a common
noninvasive procedure used to study short-term regulation of the
cardio-respiratory systems including cerebral autoregulation,
autonomic and respiratory regulation. In subjects who suffer from orthostatic
intolerance, postural change is not well understood, and this work aims to
validate a mathematical model that can help describe this regulatory mechanism
in more detail. Using a three-element windkessel
model, our primary goal is to model the cerebral blood flow during a postural
change. Finally, simulation results will be presented depicting how well the
mathematical model fit experimental data.
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Franklin, Anthony M. |
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Home Institution: |
Coastal
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Statistics |
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Research |
Thomas
Reiland/Sports Statistics |
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Title of Presentation: |
Poisson
Regression Analysis of High School Football Prospects |
Successful teams have elite
players. In the expanding business of collegiate sports, non-winning football
programs result in more than merely low school spirit. For major institutions,
financial frustrations often arise from the lack of victories. Therefore, the
issue of recruiting has become a desideratum. Furthermore, pertinent questions
arise such as who and where do major division I college football programs want
to recruit? Top football prospects are rated annually by high school recruiting
agencies such as the one referenced in this project, Rivals.com. Major
institutions desire to sign the most elite high school prospects to aid in
maximizing their football program’s success. The focus of this project is to
analyze the best geographic location, by state, from which to recruit
athletically elite students in the sport of football. Although a seemingly
broad generalization, statistics can be used to measure the variability of
football prospects by state. Data was collected from six consecutive recruiting
classes through the years 2002 – 2007, which consisted of over 14,000 high
school student-athletes and represented nearly each state in the
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Frazier, Evelyn R. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Marine,
Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences |
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Research |
Yang
Zhang/Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences |
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Title of Presentation: |
Assessing
Meteorological and Chemical Predictions for July 2002 in |
Air quality affects many
areas of our life and environment such as human health, visibility, climate
change, and vegetation growth. The three-dimensional (3-D) numerical models provide
a major tool to simulate air quality at regional and global scales. Various
factors can affect the model’s performance such as meteorological inputs,
emissions, and physical and chemical treatments of air pollutants in the model.
Thus, a better understanding of these factors is essential to the improvement
of the reliability of the 3-D models for various applications such as air
quality simulation and forecasting. In this work, a preliminary evaluation of a
regulatory 3-D model, the U.S. EPA Models-3 Community Multiscale
Air Quality (CMAQ) model, has been conducted for July 2002 with a 4-km
horizontal resolution in
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Harmon, Jendayi A. Jones, Dana C. |
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Home Institution: |
Southern
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Education |
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Department(s): |
Mathematics,
Science and Technology |
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Research |
Karen Hollebrands/Mathematics
Education Hollylynne Lee/Mathematics
Education |
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Title of Presentation: |
Pedagogical
Tasks and their Relationships to Prospective Teachers' Uses of a Videocase to Examine Students’ Work when Solving
Mathematical Tasks using Technology |
Research that focus on teacher
development and student thinking in mathematics is significant in preparing
teachers to teach mathematics effectively. Findings in both teacher and
student-based research suggest multimedia technology can be used to improve
mathematics teaching and learning. When considering ways to mathematics
teaching, student learning and thinking needs to be considered because it is
important for teachers to build on students’ current understandings. The
purpose of this study is to identify the ways in which prospective teachers
analyze students’ mathematical thinking and determine if there is a
relationship between their analyses of student thinking and the types of
pedagogical tasks on which they are working. That is, are there specific
questions teacher educators could pose to teachers that may encourage them to
focus more deeply on the thinking of students? This study took place in a
course offered in both the Fall and Spring semesters. From each of these
classes, one group of students served as the focus for this study. Each group
of prospective teachers was presented with the same three-hour lesson in which
they were asked to view a videocase of two middle
school students’ mathematical work with technology. Their work on the videocase was videotaped and transcribed. The responses
from each group were then evaluated and categorized into four classifications
of teachers’ examination of students’ thinking: Description, Comparison,
Analysis and Restructuring. After the responses were grouped into the four
classifications, the pedagogical task that elicited each response was then
evaluated to look for commonalities across the tasks. These commonalities may
assist teacher educators in creating pedagogical tasks for prospective teachers
to generate a response within the four classifications of teachers’ examination
of students’ thinking.
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Harris, Nyeema C. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Natural Resources |
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Department(s): |
Forestry |
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Research |
Michael K. Stoskopf/Clinical Sciences |
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Title of Presentation: |
Understanding Coyote
Demography for Endangered Species Management |
Coyotes are one of the most widely distributed and
adaptive canid carnivore species in
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Keene, Brandi N.
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Textiles |
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Department(s): |
Textile Engineering,
Chemistry, and Science |
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Research |
David Hinks/Textile
Engineering, Chemistry, and Science Russell Gorga/Textile Engineering, Chemistry, and Science |
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Title of Presentation: |
Microscopical Analysis of Domestic Canines' Hair |
The identification and comparison of animal and human
hair are often essential trace evidence in the successful prosecution of
crimes. While human hair can be classified by racial origin such as Mongoloid
(Asian origin), Negroid (African origin), or Caucasian (European origin),
animal hairs are commonly categorized by function such as guard hair (outer
coat), wool or fur (inner coating), and tactile hair (sensory functions e.g.
whiskers). However, no systematic study to categorized domestic canine hair has
been completed. In the present research, 30 breeds of domestic dogs’ hairs were
collected from different regions of the body to examine variations among
samples. Each sample was photographed under a (polarized and non-polarized)
light microscope in the latitude, longitude, and cross-sectional views at 10X and
40X magnifications. The data suggest that canines can be distinguished
microscopically by breed. Future studies will focus on the addition of more
breeds.
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Khan, George
F. Tong, Jin |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Natural Resources |
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Department(s): |
Forestry |
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Research |
Ross Whetten/Forestry
& Environmental Resources |
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Title of Presentation: |
Investigating a Low Cost
SNP Genotype Method in Pinus taeda |
Understanding the genetic
basis of population divergence and adaptation is an important aspect of forest
genetic studies. Studying genetic markers have contributed greatly to the
understanding of gene flow, hybridization, population structure, and genetic
movement within species. In the forest tree production industry, genetic
markers may be very useful for selective breeding to improve productivity and
quality of trees planted for the purposes of wood production. A
Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) is a DNA sequence variation occurring when
a single nucleotide differs between members of a species. These SNPs are potentially the best type of genetic marker
because of their abundance in the genome and their association with genes that
affect adaptive traits and susceptibility to disease. In this study we explore
a low cost open source SNP genotyping protocol that use array based technology
for assessing SNPs in 384 individuals. We are
currently testing for the presence of the cad-n1 mutant allele in these 384
individuals in Pinus taeda, the
most important tree species for production forestry in the southeastern US. We
already have data on these individuals to use as a positive control to make sure
the new method works and gives accurate results.
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Munilla, Samuel Jhala, Arnay Macik, Amanda Rawls, Curtis |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Engineering and Technology |
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Department(s): |
Computer Science |
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Research |
R. Michael Young/Computer
Science |
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Title of Presentation: |
Longboard, Toward an Intelligent Storyboarding Tool |
Longboard is a collection of tools used for generating movies
on game engines. Users can author scripts and visualize them on the Unreal
Tournament game engine. Longboard provides an
intuitive Tablet PC interface for authoring scenarios and sketching storyboard
frames that are communicated to a game engine controller for execution. Longboard communicates with an external planner – Darshak – for planning intermediate unspecified actions
from the user generated scenario. In the Longboard
system, users specify movie directives through a storyboarding interface. The
Tablet PC provides a natural interface for drawing storyboard frames. Users
have the freedom to sketch characters and objects through the pen using the
built-in drawing functionality. This avoids having the user learn manipulation
of 3D models in the interface. Pen input provides a shallow learning curve for
users, interpreting both stick-figures and professionally drawn characters. The
stroke recognition system also allows users to annotate the storyboard frames
with text and stage directions in addition to characters and objects in the 3D
world. The story and camera planners allow a user to create a partial
specification for an action sequence of the movie and then add remaining
actions to automatically complete full scenes. Users create a script and a set
of storyboards in the Longboard user interface. The
advantage of having a planner in the system is that users may not want to
specify every action or camera placement in their film. Users can either accept
or reject the suggested shots by the planner by specifically adding constraints
on certain frames or by adding new frames to the storyboard. The user can then
send the completed plan to the Renderer. The Renderer takes advantage of game engine technology to create
a video of a rich 3D environment. The Longboard Renderer uses the Unreal Tournament engine to create a
virtual world that has a library of sets for setting up the film environment.
The Renderer's Execution Manager manipulates the
actors and camera to follow the action sequence specified by the Longboard interface.
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Parker,
Erica D. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student
(NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
Engineering and Technology |
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Department(s): |
Operations Research |
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Research |
Negash Medhin/Operations
Research |
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Title of Presentation: |
An Application of Multi-Objective Optimization to
Portfolio Optimization |
Every investor is faced with the reality that there
is a risk-return tradeoff when allocating their funds in stocks and securities.
Because maximizing return while minimizing risk are essentially conflicting
goals, we consider a multi-objective optimization problem whose solutions
provide a tradeoff between these conflicting objectives. We, in addition,
evaluate a special case wherein the investor prefers that a particular pair of
assets not fall below a given parameter. To solve our multi-objective
optimization problem, we use a differential evolution algorithm, which uses
probabilistic rules to search through candidate solutions. The key features in
the algorithm are recombination, mutation, and selection of candidate
solutions. Using this algorithm, we obtain efficient portfolios for different
rates of return.
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Ramirez, Magaly A. Lee, John P. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Chemistry |
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Research |
T. Brent Gunnoe/Chemistry |
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Title of Presentation: |
Ruthenium Mediated
Catalytic Hydrogenation of C=X (X= C or O) Bonds |
Catalytic hydrogenation is one of the most efficient,
clean, inexpensive means of chemical synthesis. The hydrogenation of
unsaturated substrates is practiced on a large scale by the chemical industry. Organometallic catalysts have been used to facilitate
control over chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity
in catalytic hydrogenation reactions. We have recently synthesized the complex
(IMes)2RuCl2(H)2(CO) and the cationic complex [(IMes)2RuCl(H)2(CO)][BAr4'] {IMes
= 1,3-bis-(2,4,6-trimethylphenylimidazol-2-ylidene; Ar'=
tetrakis-(3,5-bis-trifluoromethylphenylborate}. These
systems catalyze the hydrogenation of C=X (X = O or C) bonds. It has been shown
that the cationic [(IMes)2RuCl(H)2(CO)][BAr4']
complex is more active than the neutral (IMes)2RuCl2(H)2(CO)
for hydrogenation of both C=C and C=O bonds. Hydrogenation occurs under
relatively mild conditions and has been extended to a variety of olefins as
well as ketones/aldehydes including cyclohexene, 1-hexene, styrene, acetone, and benzaldehyde. Details of these transformations as well as
others will be presented.
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Sepulveda, Jennifer Overton, Matt Loo, LiNa |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
PAMS |
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Department(s): |
Chemistry |
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Research |
Stefan Franzen/Chemistry Richard Guenther/Plant
Pathology |
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Title of Presentation: |
Determining the Small
Molecule Diffusion Rate from the Capsid of Red
Clover Necrotic Mosaic Virus that had been Infused of Rhodamine
Chloride |
It has been demonstrated that the plant virus Red clover necrotic mosaic virus, RCNMV
can be modified to be an efficient platform for delivering drugs to mammalian
cells. While it has been found that significant quantities of small therapeutic
molecules can be infused into the virus, it remains unclear as to how long a
drug can remain infused within a virus. The surface of RCNMV can be opened and
closed via a concentration gradient of divalent calcium and magnesium cations. Once opened, the rhodamine
chloride will infuse into the virus which can then be closed in order to cage
the material inside. In this research, we infuse RCNMV with the chemical rhodamine chloride and monitor the rate at which it
diffuses back out. The concentration of rhodamine
infused into the virus was determined using fluorescence spectroscopy. The rate
of diffusion from the virus was determined as the virus was dialyzed against
that which induces the virus to its open form. The purpose of our research has
been to determine the rate of this diffusion of RCNMV infused with rhodamine chloride in vitro and compare it to that to the
rate of release observed in cells that have been treated with rhodamine infused virus. Comparisons of these to rates will
aid in understanding the mechanism of therapeutic release.
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Shoge, Richard O. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
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Department(s): |
Biomedical Engineering |
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Research |
Peter Mente/Biomedical
Engineering |
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Title of Presentation: |
Development of a Hyperelastic Model for the Material Properties of Porcine
Patellar Cartilage |
Understanding the mechanical causes of the
degradation of cartilage can lead to the investigation of preventative measures
to stop debilitating diseases such as osteoarthritis. We have developed a novel
in vitro impact injury model which incorporates shear and axial loading.
Stress-strain data from each zonal layer will be fit to an
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Smith,
Krystal L. |
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Home Institution: |
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Program: |
Graduate Student (NSF AGEP Bridging) |
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College: |
CHASS |
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Department(s): |
Psychology |
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Research |
Monica Leach/CHASS Pamela Martin/Psychology |
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Title of Presentation: |
The Role of Race, Media Language,
and Well Being Among Hurricane Katrina Survivors |
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating event for many
people living in the US Gulf Coast Region. This storm had a negative impact on
the surrounding states, cities, and the citizens living in these areas. More
specifically, Bourque, Siegel,
[ 2007 Undergraduate Summer
Research Symposium Main Page ]
Last modified
June 2007 by Sharon E. Hunt