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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Ideal Dog, Owen Graham
The Ideal Dog, Owen Graham
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
The goal of this project was to look into all of the different jobs or tasks that we as humans have dogs perform and try to pinpoint what exactly it is that makes a dog ideal for each task. After identifying desirable characteristics, I considered physical traits in order to create an ideal dog that would be able to perform the greatest number of jobs possible.
National Security & Climate Change, Madison Mortensen
National Security & Climate Change, Madison Mortensen
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Certain scientific subjects are often divisive or technical, which makes those topics difficult to discuss with audiences outside the scientific sphere. One way of getting around this obstacle is to cater scientific communication to different target audiences to cut through any audience biases. In order to accomplish that, a communicator needs to understand the relationship between audiences' worldviews, and what they know, feel, and do regarding the subject at hand, and then how that relationship influences the types of media audiences trust and to which they respond positively. The following study investigates the worldviews of a military audience with respect …
(2,3)-Cordial Digraphs, Jonathan Mousley, Manuel Santana
(2,3)-Cordial Digraphs, Jonathan Mousley, Manuel Santana
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
This presentation is about graphs (the vertex-edge kind, not the y = f(x) kind). A graph is a mathematical object that represents objects and some relationship among them; the objects are represented by vertices and the relationships are represented by the edges. Graphs have applications in just about every field imaginable, including artificial intelligence, social network theory, and parallel computing theory. A directed graph is a type of graph used to represent relationships that are one-sided or not symmetric. We discuss a graph labeling scheme on directed graphs introduced by LeRoy Beasley called a (2,3)-cordial labeling. In …
Galactic Sources In Gamma-Ray Diffuse Emission, Melissa Rasmussen
Galactic Sources In Gamma-Ray Diffuse Emission, Melissa Rasmussen
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has detected hundreds of Galactic gamma-ray sources, most of them pulsars. But the Galaxy contains tens of thousands of such sources which are still undetected due to their low flux, or because of conflation of the foreground with sources. Characterizing the general properties of detected sources would allow us to estimate the contribution to the diffuse Galactic emission from these undetected sources and in turn it would help the detection of new sources and even searches for dark matter. We present updates on our long-term effort to characterize the general properties of Galactic gamma-ray …
Synthesizing Octahedral Polyomavirus Capsids For Cryogenic Electron Microscopy, Miles Robertson
Synthesizing Octahedral Polyomavirus Capsids For Cryogenic Electron Microscopy, Miles Robertson
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Polyomavirus capsids are polymorphic under different chemical conditions. These capsids have been synthesized artificially using purified VP1, the primary building block of the capsid. Five VP1 proteins come together and form a highly stable structure called a pentamer, and these pentamers can form capsids (Figure 1). Depending on chemical conditions, the capsids can form three distinct sizes: T=7, octahedral and icosahedral (Figure 2). Only one form is found in infectious virions, and its structure has been well studied. However, no high-resolution structure of the octahedral capsid currently exists. The goal of this research is to solve the structure of the …
Enabling Mars Farms Through Microbial Remediation Of Wastewater, Tyler Wallentine
Enabling Mars Farms Through Microbial Remediation Of Wastewater, Tyler Wallentine
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
This research evaluates the capacity of photoheterotrophic purple non-sulfur bacteria to utilize wastewater organics to grow and produce nitrogen-rich biomass. Inhibitory components of wastewater are determined. A scaled up production system is designed and utilized to culture bacteria in wastewater. The application of this technology in the production of agriculturally viable amounts of nitrogen-rich biomass is evaluated in the context of a Mars mission and enabling agriculture in a barren environment.
Autocart: Spatially-Aware Regression Trees For Ecological And Spatial Modeling, Ethan Ancell
Autocart: Spatially-Aware Regression Trees For Ecological And Spatial Modeling, Ethan Ancell
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Many ecological and spatial processes are complex in nature and are not accurately modeled by linear models. Regression trees promise to handle the high-order interactions that are present in ecological and spatial datasets, but fail to produce physically realistic characterizations of the underlying landscape. The "autocart'' (autocorrelative regression trees) R package extends the functionality of previously proposed spatial regression tree methods through a spatially aware splitting function and novel adaptive inverse distance weighting method in each terminal node. The efficacy of these autocart models, including an autocart extension of random forest, is demonstrated on multiple datasets. This highlights the ability …
Pure Breeding At Its Finest, Justin Hunter
Pure Breeding At Its Finest, Justin Hunter
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
This is a poster of my research on the affects pure breeding has on dogs and their health. There is a focus as well on the focus on neoteny and its affects on dogs.
Dogs In The Home Improve The Quality Of Life Of The People Living Inside, Tanner Stevenson
Dogs In The Home Improve The Quality Of Life Of The People Living Inside, Tanner Stevenson
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
This poster explores how dogs improve the quality of life of the people they interact with. Regardless of underlying issues that the human faces, every dog helps to improve the situation of that human. From service animals helping to improve the quality of life of their owners in other ways than what meets the eye, to dogs improving the chance of allergy immunity for children, dogs impact the lives of humans for good. This project explores the way that studies have proven the worth of the dog in the home.
The Age And Origin Of Precambrian Orthogneiss Of The Grouse Creek Block, Northern Utah And Southern Idaho, Skadi Kobe
The Age And Origin Of Precambrian Orthogneiss Of The Grouse Creek Block, Northern Utah And Southern Idaho, Skadi Kobe
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
New geochronologic and isotopic analyses from the Grouse Creek block (GC) provide insight into the assembly of western Laurentia during the late Archean to Paleoproterozoic and establish the influence of the GC in the evolution of Yellowstone-Snake River Plain hotspot magmatism in the central Snake River Plain. The GC is primarily exposed in the Albion-Raft River-Grouse Creek metamorphic core complex of northern Utah and southern Idaho and includes a complex assemblage of orthogneiss, schist, amphibolite, and metasediments intruded by Oligocene plutons and overlain by Cenozoic sedimentary units. Many investigations of the GC have focused on the structural evolution of the …
Isolation Of Halotolerant Bacteria From The Rhizosphere Of Ceanothus Velutinus May Lead To Contributions In Plant Health In Saline Conditions, Jacob Davis
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
The recent rise in the average global temperature has been a driving force over the past few years for rising soil salinity. This presents an especially hostile environment to many plant species that may not have previously been exposed to these conditions. The rhizosphere, which is a layer of soil attached to the roots of a plant, contains microorganisms that contribute to the plants' abiotic and biotic stress resistance. These microorganisms are known as Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR). These can play a key role in contributing to plant stress resistance. Some native plants have shown a strong ability to …
Why Dogs Are Feared, Hannah Ericson
Why Dogs Are Feared, Hannah Ericson
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
From German Shepherds to Pit bulls, a specific breed of dog is often singled out as being more dangerous than the others. There are stories and myths behind the behavior of such breeds, as well as simply looking scary. In this presentation, I will discuss why certain traits in dogs promote fear (such as dark coloring) and why certain breeds promote fear - such as a modern day prejudice that is quite similar to racism in the human society.
Cloning Type Iv-B Crispr System Into A Plasmid, Olivia Gornichec, Kailey Welch
Cloning Type Iv-B Crispr System Into A Plasmid, Olivia Gornichec, Kailey Welch
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Bacterial CRISPR-Cas systems have recently been repurposed as RNA-guided genome editors in research labs across the world. Yet CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems are very diverse and many systems remain uncharacterized. Discovering the structure and function of newly discovered and uncharacterized systems may further advance existing genome editing technologies, or lead to new ones. To better understand the function of the little-researched Type IV-B system we cloned the genes of a Type IV-B system from Mycobacterium J623 into a plasmid containing a target sequence of a Type IV-A and Type V system. The Type IV-B system was placed on the target …
Isolation And Purification Of Bacterial Species From Rhizosphere Of Native Plant Ceanothus Velutinus (Snowbrush), Katherine Webb, Hayden Johns
Isolation And Purification Of Bacterial Species From Rhizosphere Of Native Plant Ceanothus Velutinus (Snowbrush), Katherine Webb, Hayden Johns
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Due to the ever-changing climate, plants face stressors that limit their growth. Therefore it is vital to find new ways to protect plants from biotic and abiotic stressors such as pathogen infection, drought, heavy metal poisoning, and salinity. With an increasing population, limiting the effects of stress on plant growth and development for agriculture is vital. One approach to this is focusing on beneficial plant-microbe interaction, such as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). These bacteria are found in the rhizosphere- the soil that is attached to the roots of a plant. Various PGPRs share a symbiotic relationship with plants and help …
The Impact Of Biological Components On A Dog's Personality, Kinsley Batson
The Impact Of Biological Components On A Dog's Personality, Kinsley Batson
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
We interact with dogs every day, and they are often referred to as "man's best friend." But what makes a dog the happy-go-lucky, cuddly fur ball of happiness that so many love? Similar to humans, there is a nature vs. nurture debate on what shapes a dog's personality. While it is likely a mixture of both, I've researched a variety of biological components that help to make a dog a dog. Some of these include face shape, how their brain responds to audio stimuli, and a specific gene, also found in children with Williams syndrome, that is thought to make …
Dog-Headed: Outcast To All, Wesley Mills
Dog-Headed: Outcast To All, Wesley Mills
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
Cynocephali are a group of mythological, dog-headed, humans that appear throughout various cultures. Despite the wide range of region and time period in which they are used, they consistently represent a quality of "otherness".
Modeling Reflectance Spectra Of Nanorod Arrays With Arrays Of Light Sources, Christian Lange
Modeling Reflectance Spectra Of Nanorod Arrays With Arrays Of Light Sources, Christian Lange
Fall Student Research Symposium 2020
It is known that carbon-nanotube forests, nanopillar arrays, and other formations of quasi-periodic nanostructures of various materials (semiconductors, semimetals, and metals) can display a very low light reflectance over a wide range of wavelengths, and that the reflectance eventually starts to rise beyond an onset wavelength. As these materials can be quite reflective in planar form, this phenomenon indicates that morphology rather than material plays a dominant role. However, a quantitative analysis of the reflectance spectra of periodic structures has yet to be established. As a first step, we use an array of light sources to model the reflection from …