Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Foundations Of Wave Phenomena: Complete Version, Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

This is the complete version of Foundations of Wave Phenomena. Version 8.3.1.

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Examining Cultural And Chemical Treatments To Fusarium Bulb Rot In Onions, Tim Miller

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Onions are grown in 1,500 acres in northern Utah and are a large part of growers' income. In the fall of 2021, 30% of a grower's onion yield was affected by Fusarium bulb rot (caused by a fungus known as Fusarium proliferatum) and the onions were unmarketable. The literature surrounding this pathogen is sparse and losses of this magnitude could cause growers to lose between six and seven thousand dollars per acre. Samples of the fungus were plated onto potato dextrose agar at half strength and maintained fresh throughout the winter. In vitro experiments were performed with various fungicides at …

Assessing The Impact Of Storage Time And Shape Of The Block On The Slicability Of Commercial Cheddar Cheese, Nathan Pace

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Cheddar cheese is one of the world's most popular cheeses and is consumed in blocks and slices. The slicability of cheddar cheese can depend on textural and rheological properties. Understanding these characteristics can enhance desirability and reduce material loss occurring during slicing. In this study, we focused on four main parameters: slice thickness, cheese shape, storage period, and cheese type. Four thicknesses (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mm) and two shapes (triangular and square) of mild, medium, sharp, and extra sharp were selected. Cheeses were purchased from Walmart and the Utah State University creamery. At first, cheese blocks were cut …

Why America Should Switch To Nuclear Energy As Its Primary Power Source, William Fike

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

While nuclear waste and public fear hurt the image of nuclear energy, I believe that nuclear energy should be used instead of alternative power sources because it is safe, carbon-free, and more fuel efficient than alternative energy sources. Nuclear power is the process of using uranium 235 to make energy. Nuclear energy is a very clean and safe energy producer. My target audience would be someone who does not know a lot about nuclear power. Or they are possibly scared because of past nuclear disasters. My goal in this poster is to convince you that nuclear power is safe and …

Electron Yield Measurements Of Highly Insulating Granular Samples Related To Charging Of Dusty Plasmas, Heather Allen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Reliable electron yield (EY) measurements of highly insulating granular particles have long been considered too difficult to collect due the many experimental complexities that arise from the nature of the granular materials. This has led to a critical knowledge gap for both engineering strategies and basic science issues essential for myriad important space applications. This talk will emphasize the preliminary EY measurements of highly insulting granular samples we have collected, including a range of samples with typical particle size ranging from ~1 μm to ~100 μm, samples with cubical, spherical and highly angular particle shapes, studies of highly angular Al2O3 …

Effects Of Exposure To Atmospheric Humidity On Breakdown Field Strength Measurements Of Polymers, Megan Loveland Dewaal

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

This study investigates the effects of absorbed water introduced via exposure to atmospheric humidity on electrostatic breakdown field strength measurements of polymers. Conducting breakdown tests under sample conditions appropriate for different applications is essential. If the breakdown field strength is overestimated for an application, an insulator may be used inappropriately in high electric fields where they are more likely to break down. Comparisons are made between: sets of pristine samples, samples that underwent a thorough vacuum bake out to evaporate absorbed water, and samples subject to subsequent incremental prolonged atmospheric exposure. These investigated the effects of absorbed water and determined …

Light Scattering From Periodic Conducting Nanostructures, Wesley Mills

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Carbon nanotube (CNT) forests are roughly vertically aligned carbon tubes with a diameter of a few nanometers, and a height of hundreds of micrometers. CNT forests of proper densities and heights can be excellent absorbers of visible light, so a lot of interest has been generated in their application in optical calibration, energy conversion, antireflection, and radiometry. Unfortunately, reflectance from CNTs rises quickly above the mid-infrared range, limiting their present use. Improving a CNT-based broadband absorber requires understanding why the forests have almost zero visible-light reflectance, as well as a strategy to extend that low reflectance into longer wavelengths. Since …

How Does Perceived Human Instability Affect One's Own Stability?, Madi Braunersrither

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Participants were prompted to evaluate the stability of pictured human postures while standing on a force plate. We measured irregularity by analyzing the presence of patterns in the sequential center of pressure values. To measure the presence of patterns, sample entropy, a time series statistic, was developed and we utilized it on the force plate data. Does one's own stability change when viewing a posture deemed unstable? Is Sample Entropy (SampEn) an effective tool to determine stability? This relationship could have implications for modeling the progression of motor skills, understanding human development, and the design of environments for rehabilitation.

The Stigma Against Elderly Drivers And An Analysis Of The Effects Of Age On Driving Ability, Alexander Lee

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Elderly drivers are not as big of a danger on the road as the general population believes. This was preliminary research into the significance of elderly drivers on the road and the statistical data on whether they are a hazard on the road. They are among the minority of people that are in car accidents and most elderly people still on the road are more experienced and drive safer to compensate for ailments they may experience from their age. Elderly that can not drive safely or can pose a hazard on the road usually remove themselves from driving or are …

Investigating The Color-Changing Properties Of Poly-Phenyl Sulfide, Dallen Dewaal

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

Investigating the Color-Changing Properties of Poly-Phenyl Sulfide Dallen DeWaal, Megan Loveland DeWaal, Heather Allen, JR DennisonMaterials Physics Group, Physics Department, Utah State UniversityAbstractWhile preparing samples of FortronTM PPS (poly-phenyl sulfide) for spacecraft charging testing, it was discovered that the polymeric dielectric material exhibits color-changing properties from mechanical forces while shearing and bending. Given enough time, PPS reverts from blue-green back to its original tan color. PPS samples were characterized by the magnitude of color change and recovery time. PPS samples were subjected to multiple tests to discover which forms of energy input activate the color change, and which (if any) …

The Effect Of The Plant-Based Diet On Athletes And Its Limitations, Dylan Hill

Fall Student Research Symposium 2022

In this study, I was hoping to learn more about the differences between the omnivore diet and plant-based diet in relation to the effects on an athlete. Research was conducted using library and internet resources to locate both primary and secondary research. For this study, personal accounts and experiences of athletes who had experimented with a plant based diet were examined. Research showed that although a very enticing option for a healthy diet for athletes, the plant-based diet is just as effective as a balanced omnivore diet but much more difficult to do properly and is much less accessible to …

Introduction To Classical Field Theory, Charles G. Torre

All Complete Monographs

This is an introduction to classical field theory. Topics treated include: Klein-Gordon field, electromagnetic field, scalar electrodynamics, Dirac field, Yang-Mills field, gravitational field, Noether theorems relating symmetries and conservation laws, spontaneous symmetry breaking, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms.

Determining The Biochemical Mechanisms And Binding Activities Of A Type Iv-A Crispr-Cas Ding Helicase, Matt Armbrust

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

CRISPR-Cas systems are adaptive prokaryotic immune systems that enable host cells to defend against attack from foreign nucleic acids such as phage infections or plasmids. CRISPR-Cas systems are diverse and encompass 2 classes, 6 types, and 33 subtypes. The Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas system from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 83 is composed of five different genes (csf1, csf2, csf3, cas6, and dinG). Type IV-A systems are poorly understood, and currently there is little research detailing their biological and biochemical mechanism of immunity. CasDinG, an ancillary protein within the Type IV-A system, is required for an immune response in vivo. However, the role …

Measuring Irregularity Via Approximate Entropy: How Does Perceived Human Instability Affect One's Own Stability?, Madi Braunersrither

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

In a study performed at Utah State University, participants were prompted to evaluate the stability of pictured human postures while standing on a force plate. The force plate was used to collect the center of pressure of the subjects by recording measurements in the vertical and horizontal directions. The way these factors fluctuate over time and the irregularity in this fluctuation, specifically, can give insight into the subject’s postural stability. Rather than working with summary statistics such as means and variances of fitting parameters of a distribution as commonly done in statistics, we want to measure irregularity through analyzing the …

Climate Change Impacts On Atmospheric Ammonia And Implications For Human Health, Casey Olson, Connor Snow, Bridger Jorgensen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

According to national data Cache Valley has the highest concentrations of atmospheric ammonia in the nation. This study aims to answer the questions of whether climate variables and events such as precipitation, averaged winds, geopotential height, and teleconnections can be used to predict the behavior of pollutants and how human biology is potentially affected. Data from the Utah Climate Center shows that the 3rd yearly quartile has the highest levels of airborne ammonia due to the high levels of fertilizer use and livestock emissions in the farming industry in Cache Valley. After data analysis, there seems to be a connection …

Explicit Synchronized Solitary Waves For Some Models For The Interaction Of Long And Short Waves In Dispersive Media., Bruce Brewer

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Four systems have recently been proposed for the study of the interaction of long and short waves in dispersive media. This poster establishes the synchronized solitary wave solutions for one of these systems.

Creating Transparent And Accessible Methods For Approximating The Composite Strength Of Concrete Sandwich Wall Panels, Ruth Taylor

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Background: The method of designing partially composite sandwich wall panels (SWPs) relies strongly on the use of percent of composite action. Calculating these values proves to be a complex and virtually inaccessible process for practicing engineers, resulting in the reliance on proprietary software or connector-system manufacturers for the necessary values. We simulated percent composite action data, including several relevant variables, to examine the relationship and determine if simple and accessible methods of calculation could be created. Methods: Code from collaborating engineers used to calculate percent composite action with the Iterative Sandwich Beam Theory (ISBT) method was translated into R, a …

Art As An Educator, Kylie Hansen

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

When looking at art, eyes are often drawn to the foreground of the canvas, which can leave out many details and not tell the whole story a painting has to offer. The process of analyzing and looking deeper into works of art would be common in a perfect world; its lessons can be universal. Everyone should study art because it increases skills that can be used for many things. Art can reframe views of the world as well as condition the mind to look past quick judgments. Art teaches one to slow down and analyze situations before acting and may …

Understanding How Changes In Precipitation Intensity Will Affect Vegetation In The Western U.S., Cristina Chirvasa

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Precipitation events are becoming more intense as the atmosphere warms, but it remains unclear how precipitation intensification will affect plant growth in arid and semiarid ecosystems. There is conflicting evidence suggesting that larger precipitation events may either increase or decrease plant growth. Here, we report the growth responses of herbaceous and woody plants to experimental manipulations of precipitation intensity in a cold, semi-arid ecosystem in Utah, USA. In this experiment, precipitation was collected and redeposited as fewer, larger events with total annual precipitation kept constant across treatments. Results from the first two growing seasons revealed that more intense events ‘pushed’ …

Scattering Of Light From Periodic Conducting Nanostructures, Wesley Mills

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

Light scattered from periodic structures generates numerous fascinating phenomena, from diffraction patterns to the black patches on some butterfly wings. The simple scalar wave formulation based on Huygens principle can account for many diffraction and radiation patterns in the far field. However, when the structure dimensions are smaller than the wavelength, light polarization and structure details become important, and the vector formulation based on Maxwell's equations is necessary. I will present an analytic calculation and a numerical simulation on light scattering from two-dimensional conducting grids to model the reflectance from butterfly wings and broadband absorption structures made from carbon nanotube …

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 …