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Drip Water Chemistry Response To Human Activities At Diamond Caverns In Park City, Kentucky, Madison R. High

Honors Theses

This research aims to give insight into factors contributing to seasonal variation of karst cave drip water hydrochemistry relative to surface condition. The study area is a small show cave, Diamond Caverns, located just outside the boundary of Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Various water chemistry parameters, such as chloride, pH, and temperature were monitored. A YSI EXO2 was deployed to measure the aforementioned parameters at one-hour intervals in a drip water pool starting in November 2023. To discern significant changes in solute concentrations, daily averages were calculated based on the hourly data. Daily averages were then compared to …

Deposited Cigarette Smoke As A Driver Of Oxidation And Partitioning Processes On Indoor Surfaces, April Hurlock

Honors Theses

Despite the large amount of time that individuals spend indoors during their lives, very little attention was paid to the chemistry that occurs on indoor surfaces until recently. Although not visible to the naked eye, physical and chemical processes, such as partitioning and oxidation, are occurring on virtually every indoor surface in a typical household. Indoor pollutants, ranging from skin oils to environmental cigarette smoke, drive a lot of these processes. The transformation of indoor surfaces by indoor pollutants can increase chemical exposure risks as new irritants or carcinogens can be introduced to the surfaces. In this thesis, I describe …

Theoretical Studies Of Benzoquinone Reactivity In Acidic And Basic Environments, Natali Majoras

Honors Theses

Quinones are a class of organic compounds containing a six-membered unsaturated ring with two carbonyl groups. They are biologically relevant mostly due to their ability to participate in redox reactions. Prior experiments in our lab showed that quinones can induce protein modifications that are pH dependent. In an acidic environment the modifications were less significant than in a basic environment. Previous computational studies have also been carried out to model, in neutral solutions, the reaction between various quinones and various amines. Various amine groups are used as a model for the amino group of lysine to represent protein modification. The …

Silver-Catalyzed Synthesis Of Disubstituted Fluorinated Isoxazoles, Micah Stewart

Honors Theses

The presence of fluorine can provide organic compounds with useful biological properties, such as increased metabolic stability and drug uptake. Because of these advantages, fluorinated compounds make up about 30% of the drug industry. However, fluorination of complex molecules is difficult due to fluorine’s high electronegativity.

Fluorinated isoxazoles are of particular interest in the pharmaceutical industry. Isoxazoles are five-membered heterocycles with oxygen and nitrogen in the 1, 2 positions that are able to engage in interactions unavailable to other ring structures, conferring advantageous biological properties upon compounds containing them. However, there are limited synthetic routes for fluorinated isoxazoles, and those …

Expansion Of An Ultracold Neutral Plasma, Yin Li

Honors Theses

Ultracold neutral plasmas (UNP) exhibit interesting behavior and are more feasible to control than hot plasmas. Physicists would like to lower the temperature of a UNP to achieve a higher Coulomb coupling parameter, Γ for both electrons and ions. However, the three body recombination (TBR) between ions and electrons produces Rydberg atoms and heats up the plasma electrons, thereby ionizing them to Γe < 0.2. Adding Rydberg atoms to the plasma will reduce the temperature of a UNP in certain situations. In this honors project, we tried to achieve a Γe value greater than 0.5 by embedding Rydberg atoms multiple times in the plasma. We did extensive numerical simulations, but we were unable to replicate previous results from another group which obtained Γe = 0.5 in the first 1 µ s of plasma evolution. However, we were able to use the simulation results to test various different experiment scenarios. For experiments, we created a UNP of Rubidium atoms in the magneto-optical trap by laser cooling and photoionization. We figured out a nice way to zero the electric field within the field meshes by looking at the plasma expansion very late in its evolution through the micro-channel plate. We set the voltage and delay on the field mesh bias to find expansion velocity of the plasma for time t > 50 µs, and we used different methods to deduce the expansion velocity from the ion time of flight signals. However, we found that there was no relation of Γe at 1 µ s and the expansion velocity …

Anion Recognition Of Porphyrin Calixarene Hybrids, Lance Mwangi

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Connect The Dots: Coupling Quantum Dots With Water-Soluble Porphyrins, Kenley C. Singleton

Honors Theses

Currently, advances in the area of photodynamic therapy (PDT) using porphyrin molecules are being made and not only in this arena, but in science and society overall, nanoparticles are of high interest. For perspective on the size of nanoscale products (such as porphyrins or quantum dots) present in society today, consider that 2 g of 100 nm-diameter nanoparticles contains enough material to provide every human worldwide with 300,000 particles each (Hardman 2006). Porphyrins are better suited for PDT than their organic dye predecessors due to their fluorescence intensity and longevity. Currently, Photofrin® and Visudyne®, both porphyrin-type derivatives are used in …

Warning Compliance : Behavioral Effects Of Cost And Consensus, Nancy A. Mckenna

Honors Theses

The behavioral effects of cost and consensus on warning compliance were examined. Cost was defined as the amount of effort expended to perform the instructed behavior, while consensus was defined as whether the presence of another person who complies or fails to comply affects the rate of compliance of another. Subjects performed a chemistry laboratory task during which, they read a warning directing them to wear a safety mask and gloves. The frequency of the subjects' compliance was recorded. The results show reduced compliance when the cost was high. The results also show that the behavior of just one other …

The Preparation And Kinetics Of A Sterically Hindered Gold (Iii) Complex, Michael R. Golden

Honors Theses

The alkyl substituted gold (III) complex [Au(1, 4, 7-Me3dien)Cl] (PF6)2 [where 1, 4, 7-Me3dien respresents (CH3) HNCH2CH2N(CH3)CH2CH2NH(CH3)] has been synthesized. The cation of this compound differs from previously synthesized gold (III) complexes of similar structure since it can form a conjugate base only by loss of hydrogen from a terminal nitrogen. Aqueous solution chemistry studies of this ion reveals that the Cl- is hydrolyzed before loss of a proton from the ligand which is the reverse of the sequence observed with previously studied ions. Monobromo substitution rates are found to be slower than for the complex with no alkyl substitution …