Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dna Sequence Variation In The Wingless Gene Product In Buckeye Butterflies (Genus Junonia), Bonnie Mccullagh

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Wingless is a highly conserved gene important to cell determination in development. In Drosophila, the wingless gene product has been identified as responsible for wing patterning. In Bicyclus anynana and Junonia coenia, wingless gene product is expressed in a fashion that suggests that it is involved in butterfly wing color pattern development. The wingless gene product has been implicated as a potential focal signal for patterning the eyespot of Junonia butterflies. I have shown that extensive DNA sequence variation (26.04% of the sequenced region) exists in 402 bp of wingless coding sequence among 338 specimens of Junonia from …

Assessment Of Prenatal Care And Perinatal Outcomes In Kasigau, Kenya, Allison Smith

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The World Health Organization (WHO) implemented the Millennium Declaration in 2000 to establish global health goals to be achieved by 2015. Two of these Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) are directly related to maternal, neonatal and child health. Healthcare during the prenatal period can help achieve the WHO MDG’s for maternal health and child mortality. Evidence has shown that women in Kenya have limited access to prenatal care. This study focused on the prenatal care and postnatal outcome trends of the women in Kasigau, Kenya. Participants were surveyed in three villages (Rukanga, Makwasinyi, and Bhuguta) to determine if prenatal care was …

Human-Wildlife Conflict On Small, Subsistence Farms In Kenya, Christopher B. Colonna

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

As human populations expand, wildlife suddenly competes with humans for resources and confrontation arises as a result. Rural Africa is typical of this problem. We surveyed local owners of small farms within the five villages surrounding Mount Kasigau in Southeast Kenya to quantify losses due to wildlife depredation on both subsistence and cash crops as well as to discover the patterns and variables influencing farmer-wildlife confrontations in the region. We found no statistically significant correlations among the value of damage per acre, the distance from the bush, or the distance to the nearest water source. We did find statistical significance …

Effective And Affordable Novel Arsenic Removal Technology, Benadin Varajic

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Arsenic contaminated drinking water is a serious worldwide issue faced by millions of people every day. Long term exposure to arsenic levels above the World Health Organization’s (WHO) standard of 10 ppb has been associated with severe detrimental health effects including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Although current water purification technologies exist, their implementation is an unrealistic goal by many third world nations for a variety of reasons, the most common being the cost associated with what are typically complicated procedures. This study strives to discover an effective and affordable novel arsenic removal technology.

The first step of this study was …

Development And Recycling Of Novel Arsenic Removal Technology, Morgan Jones

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

As of 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for arsenic from 50 parts per billion (ppb), to 10ppb because of links to cancer. Current remediation technologies are expensive; therefore, this change will result in increased economic pressure on rural communities with high levels of arsenic in their drinking water. Lowering of the standard has spurred the development of a novel remediation technology that has shown the ability to reduce arsenic in drinking water at the source, with the added benefit of low-cost disposal of a stable and benign waste product in ordinary landfills. …