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Articles 1 - 15 of 15
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Seaweed As A Carrier For Microplastics, Stephanie M. Rodriguez
Seaweed As A Carrier For Microplastics, Stephanie M. Rodriguez
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Analysis of seaweed as a vector for microplastics is an integral part of understanding the formation and deposition of micro-sized plastic waste in seawater. The project itself originated due to the influx of seaweed (and mismanaged plastic waste) residing on the shores of St. Kitts and Nevis and the constant deposition of plastic pollution intertwined within the seaweed. The natural occurrence of the two together lead to the consideration of fragmented plastics remaining on the seaweed. The objective of this research is to stain, identify, and quantify the concentration of microplastics sourced from both store-bought and environmental seaweed samples. A …
In Situ Cultivation Of Potential Pah Degrading Bacteria From Coastal Sediment, Kyle Benkel
In Situ Cultivation Of Potential Pah Degrading Bacteria From Coastal Sediment, Kyle Benkel
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Oil spills can introduce potentially carcinogenic pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), into coastal environments. Bioremediation uses the natural microorganisms in the environment to remove these pollutants. Traditional studies of these organisms are limited in the types of bacteria isolated due to the limitations of traditional culturing methods. In this study, diffusion chambers were used to culture and isolate potential PAH degrading bacteria from the coastal sediment obtained from the Chandeleur Islands. The diffusion chambers trapped bacteria in agar that contained 1 ppm benzo[a]pyrene. The bacteria were isolated from the diffusion chambers, and the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced …
Algebraic And Combinatorial Approaches For Counting Cycles Arising In Population Biology, Brian Chau
Algebraic And Combinatorial Approaches For Counting Cycles Arising In Population Biology, Brian Chau
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Within population biology, models are often analyzed for the net reproduction number or other generalized target reproduction numbers, which describe the growth or decline of the population based on specific mechanisms. This is useful in determining the strength and efficiency of control measures for inhibiting or enhancing population growth. The literature contains many algebraic and combinatorial approaches for deriving the net reproduction number and generalized target reproduction numbers from digraphs and associated matrices. Finding, categorizing, and counting the permutations of disjoint cycles, or cycles unions is a requirement of the Cycle Union approach by Lewis et al. (2019). These cycles …
Development Of An Environmental Disposition Scale: A Guide For Fostering Sustainable Behavior, Jady Chen
Development Of An Environmental Disposition Scale: A Guide For Fostering Sustainable Behavior, Jady Chen
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Promoting sustainable behavior or environmentally responsible behavior poses challenges because there is no overarching solution for behavior changes. Both surveys and interventions are context specific, meaning behaviors do not necessarily influence other behaviors and the same values, norms, and beliefs do not necessarily translate to the same level of sustainable behavior. Because there are regional differences in ideologies in the United States, a country level approach to encourage sustainable behavior would not be as effective as having interventions that directly correlate with the motivations that encourage environmentally responsible behavior. A survey will be conducted with University of Central Florida undergraduate …
Representations Of Cuntz Algebras Associated To Random Walks, Nicholas Christoffersen
Representations Of Cuntz Algebras Associated To Random Walks, Nicholas Christoffersen
Honors Undergraduate Theses
In the present thesis, we investigate representations of Cuntz algebras coming from dilations of row co-isometries. First, we give some general results about such representations. Next, we show that by labeling a random walk, a row co-isometry appears naturally. We give an explicit form for representations that come from such random walks. Then, we give some conditions relating to the reducibility of these representations, exploring how properties of a random walk relate to the Cuntz algebra representation that comes from it
Detection Of A Peptide Hormone - Somatostatin - Label-Free Split-Aptameric Probes, Charles A. Dowis
Detection Of A Peptide Hormone - Somatostatin - Label-Free Split-Aptameric Probes, Charles A. Dowis
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Peptide hormones are important biomolecules that transduce downstream effects such as cell proliferation, regulation, and gene expression. Their levels have been upregulated in various disorders such as cancer, yet detection methods are lacking. We designed two split aptamer-based assays for the detection of a peptide hormone – Somatostatin (SST) – with different signal readouts: fluorescent readout based on light-up aptamers and the colorimetric readout of ABTS peroxidation from a G-quadruplex. We used an already selected split-aptamer –SSTA5–for SST for our designs and we had expected the developed detection systems to exhibit detection and quantification capabilities that would hopefully allow their …
A Model Experiment To Investigate The Possibility Of Glyphosate Contamination In St. Kitts And Nevis, Winston Fu
A Model Experiment To Investigate The Possibility Of Glyphosate Contamination In St. Kitts And Nevis, Winston Fu
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide that is used globally to combat the spread of weeds among crops. Not all countries around the world have been using the herbicide. For example, island countries such as Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis do not use the herbicide on their crops. However, St. Kitts and Nevis imports food and other agricultural products from around the world, leading to the hypothesis that glyphosate is contaminating the soil through those imported products. The aim of this research project was to determine if glyphosate is present in the island country of St. Kitts and Nevis. A …
Musical Cryptography Using Long Short-Term Memory Networks, Curtis Helsel
Musical Cryptography Using Long Short-Term Memory Networks, Curtis Helsel
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Musical cryptography is a technique in which plain text messages are enciphered into a musical composition. Recently, a surge of music composition by means of machine learning have produced natural-sounding music that can be deemed as composed by humans. The combination of machine-generated music and enciphering a message into the composition is a logical step in musical cryptography. Outlined in this thesis is a method that incorporates the use of a specific type of recurrent neural network, Long Short-Term Memory, and a variant of the substitution cipher to form of symmetric-key cryptography system. Exploration was also completed to determine how …
Predicting Structures Of 2d Materials Enabled By Machine Learning, Sonali Joshi
Predicting Structures Of 2d Materials Enabled By Machine Learning, Sonali Joshi
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Prediction of stable structures of two-dimensional (2D) materials that have not been experimentally realized is an important pre-requisite step for the development of these materials for various technological uses without the extensive trial-error experiments. Traditional methods such as density functional theory (DFT) can be used to find the energies of structures computationally, however, calculating the energies of the total number of structures possible would be daunting timewise as well. We propose using machine learning methods to reduce the search time for 2D materials’ geometric structures. Our case study for this process consists of hexagonal graphene-like boron–carbon–nitrogen (h-BCN). Our …
Development Of A Computer Algorithm For Generation Of Primers For Nucleic Acid Sequence Based Amplification (Nasba), Rohit Karnati
Development Of A Computer Algorithm For Generation Of Primers For Nucleic Acid Sequence Based Amplification (Nasba), Rohit Karnati
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) is a primer based isothermal method of RNA/DNA amplification. Currently, primer design for NASBA has been restricted to hand creating sequences of oligonucleotides that must follow a set of rules to be compatible for the amplification process. This process of hand-creating primers is prone to error and time intensive. The detection of mutants, post amplification, also offers a benefit in point of care scenarios and the design of hybridization probes for sequences in the region of amplification is also an erroneous and time intensive process. By creating a program to design primers and hybridization …
Characterization Of The Physical And Chemical Effect Of Membrane Disruption And Protein Inhibiting Treatments On E. Coli, Khadijah Wright
Characterization Of The Physical And Chemical Effect Of Membrane Disruption And Protein Inhibiting Treatments On E. Coli, Khadijah Wright
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The increase in antibacterial resistance has placed the issue of microbial multi-drug resistance on a global stage (Gurunathan, 2019). This issue poses a threat to human and animal health as well as to the environment (Aslam et al., 2018). It affects not only the efficacy of treatment but also how those treatments are conducted (Friedman, Temkin, & Carmeli, 2016). As a result of this ongoing threat, new treatments that have potent effects on bacteria are necessary. One scientific response to this issue has been the development of multifunctional nanoparticles (NPs)(H. Wang et al., 2018). NPs have the ability to be …
Synthesis Of Polyacrylic Acid - Dopamine Nanoparticles As Radical Scavengers For Antioxidant Applications, Russell D. Cox
Synthesis Of Polyacrylic Acid - Dopamine Nanoparticles As Radical Scavengers For Antioxidant Applications, Russell D. Cox
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The antioxidant activity of novel drugs has been of increasing interest in recent years. Free radicals are linked as a cause to many diseases such as atherosclerosis and cancer,1 so development of drugs that can scavenge and break down free radicals is needed. One such potential solution is using dopamine, which is water-soluble and an antioxidant. However, the tendency of antioxidant drugs reacting undesirably with proteins and other biochemical compounds is a big issue for the drugs' antioxidant potential. One solution is by encapsulating the antioxidant compound in biocompatible polymer nanoparticles. In this project, dopamine is bound to the polymer …
Polarization Dependence Of High Order Harmonic Generation From Solids In Reflection And Transmission Geometries, Erin L. Crites
Polarization Dependence Of High Order Harmonic Generation From Solids In Reflection And Transmission Geometries, Erin L. Crites
Honors Undergraduate Theses
High harmonic generation (HHG) is a process that occurs when an intense laser interacts with a material and generates new frequencies of light. HHG has many practical applications, namely as a spectroscopy technique and source for high frequency light and attosecond pulses. While HHG has been done extensively in gases, HHG in solids is a relatively new field. Solids are appealing as an HHG medium as they require much simpler equipment and are subsequently much more compact, and thus may have a variety of applications previously inaccessible to gas-phase HHG. However, the generation mechanism of HHG in solids has not …
Understanding The Challenges Child Welfare Workers Encounter Related To Promoting The Online Safety Of Foster Youth, Denielle Kirk L. Abaquita
Understanding The Challenges Child Welfare Workers Encounter Related To Promoting The Online Safety Of Foster Youth, Denielle Kirk L. Abaquita
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Foster care case managers are responsible for the wellbeing of foster youth in the foster care system. Teens (ages 13-17) in foster care are most vulnerable to serious risks, such as sex trafficking. Such risks have been heightened by the advent of internet-based technologies that connect foster youth with unsafe others at unprecedented frequency and speed. This thesis examines how case managers tackle the challenge of online safety as it relates to adolescents in the foster care system in the United States. I conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with case managers who worked with foster teens (ages 13-17) within the past …
Co-Designing "Teenovate": An Intergenerational Online Safety Design Team, Arianna J. Davis
Co-Designing "Teenovate": An Intergenerational Online Safety Design Team, Arianna J. Davis
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The Socio-Technical Interaction Research (STIR) Lab at UCF intends to create a new participatory design program, called "Teenovate," where teenagers and adults work together to design technologies that keep teens safe online. Previous participatory design projects, however, commonly focus on younger children under the age of 13. Teens differ significantly from young children in how they develop, socialize, and perceive the world. To inform the design of Teenovate, so that their unique needs are appropriately met, we conducted a participatory design study with 21 teens using polls, open-ended response questions, and subsequent group discussions. The teens were intrigued by the …