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University of Mississippi

2018

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Community-Based Research Methods To Inform Public Health Practice And Policy: The Case Of Lead In The Mississippi Delta, Mary Alexandra Fratesi Dec 2018

Community-Based Research Methods To Inform Public Health Practice And Policy: The Case Of Lead In The Mississippi Delta, Mary Alexandra Fratesi

Honors Theses

Environmental health issues are complex and require interdisciplinary and community engagement approaches to better understand them and inform policy. As one example, lead exposure has a number of dangerous neurological effects, including developmental delays and learning deficits. Potential lead exposure through drinking water and paint are areas of concern. In a 2018 document, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that up to 20% of lead exposure comes from drinking water alone. By using a type of engagement research called community-based research (CBR), this project began to address this major public health issue. CBR can be used to connect residents, their …

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Scheduling Problems, Aamir Kudai Dec 2018

Scheduling Problems, Aamir Kudai

Honors Theses

Manufacturing industry is growing exponentially. The need of using algorithms and computational techniques to enhance processes is increasing every day. Algorithms help us solve almost all kind of computational problems. Not only choosing the right algorithm for a problem is important but also optimizing its time and space efficiency is crucial. BorgWarner Transmission Systems located in Water Valley, Mississippi is one among the leading manufacturing companies. This paper will demonstrate a real-world audit scheduling problem happened at BorgWarner and the techniques used to solve it. A gentle introduction to some of the heuristic algorithms such as Genetic algorithm, Randomized algorithm, …

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Electro- And Photocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction With Mononuclear And Dinuclear Rhenium Polypyridyl Complexes, Eva Amatya Oct 2018

Electro- And Photocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction With Mononuclear And Dinuclear Rhenium Polypyridyl Complexes, Eva Amatya

Honors Theses

The main challenge of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) to value-added products lies in designing more efficient catalysts that are long-lived, selective, and operate near the thermodynamic potential for the reaction. In this work, mononuclear and dinuclear Re complexes containing diamine ligands linked to a pendant anthracene moiety have been synthesized and studied for both electrocatalytic and photocatalytic CO2 reduction. Electrocatalytically, the performances of both catalysts were studied in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and acetonitrile (MeCN) solutions to determine their turnover frequencies (TOFs) for CO2 reduction. Catalyst performance was compared to previously reported rhenium systems, and both systems studied here were shown to …

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Frequency And Temperature Dependence Of Shear Wave Speed With Rheological Properties In A Micellar Fluid, E. G. Sunethra K. Dayavansha Aug 2018

Frequency And Temperature Dependence Of Shear Wave Speed With Rheological Properties In A Micellar Fluid, E. G. Sunethra K. Dayavansha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wormlike micellar fluids, which flow when subjected to long-term stresses, are mechanically viscoelastic over shorter durations and can support shear waves. These fluids are birefringent under shear, allowing the study of shear wave propagation using both optical and acoustic modalities. Microstructural phase transitions of the micelles are temperature dependent and can manifest as sharp changes in the shear wave speed as a function of temperature. In this work, the behavior of shear waves in a fluid consisting of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium salicylate (NaSal) combined in a 5:3 ratio in a 200 mM concentration is studied. The temperature-dependent microstructural …

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Mathemagics, Arthur Benjamin Mar 2018

Mathemagics, Arthur Benjamin

Dalrymple Lecture Series

Dr. Arthur Benjamin is the Smallwood Family Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. He is also a professional magician, and in his entertaining and fast-paced performance, Dr. Benjamin will demonstrate how to mentally add and multiply numbers faster than a calculator, how to figure out the day of the week of any date in history, and other amazing feats of mind.

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The View From Ventress - 2018, University Of Mississippi. College Of Liberal Arts Jan 2018

The View From Ventress - 2018, University Of Mississippi. College Of Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts Newsletters

Cover Story: Home of the Brave. As military veterans arrive on campus, the University of Mississippi—one of only four SEC institutions designated a Purple Heart Campus by the National Order of the Purple Heart—welcomes them with resources and assistance.

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Synthesis And Evaluation Of Dual-Acting Ligands For Mu Opioid And Neuropeptide Ff Receptors, Kelsey Gabrielle Mcpherson Jan 2018

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Dual-Acting Ligands For Mu Opioid And Neuropeptide Ff Receptors, Kelsey Gabrielle Mcpherson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pain, although subjective, is an unpleasant sensation caused by a noxious stimulus, that effects millions of people every year. Currently, the most frequently prescribed class of analgesics for moderate to severe acute and sometime chronic pain are opioid analgesics, most commonly ?-opioid receptor (MOP) agonists, such as oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl. Although these drugs provide significant pain relief, they are also associated with unwelcome side effects such as constipation, addiction, physical dependence, respiratory depression, and physiological tolerance that leads to hyperalgesia. Receptor desensitization due to excessive receptor activation by an agonist is but one source of physiological tolerance; it can …

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Modernized Approach For Generating Micro-Layering And Macro-Heterogeneous Structures In Porous Media For Use In Transmitted-Light Method Flow Visualization Experiments, Aaron A. Jones Jan 2018

Modernized Approach For Generating Micro-Layering And Macro-Heterogeneous Structures In Porous Media For Use In Transmitted-Light Method Flow Visualization Experiments, Aaron A. Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Image capturing in flow experiments has been used for fluid mechanics research since the early 1970s. Interactions of fluid flow between the vadose zone and permanent water table are of great interest to researchers because this zone is responsible for all recharge waters, pollutant transport and even irrigation efficiency for agriculture. Griffith, et al. (2011) developed an approach where constructed reproducible “geologically realistic” sand configurations are deposited in sand-filled experimental chambers or cells for light-transmitted flow visualization experiments. This method creates reproducible, reverse graded, layered (stratified) thin-slab sand chambers for visualizing multiphase flow through porous media. Reverse-graded stratification of sand …

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Bases In Spaces Of Regular Multilinear Operators And Homogeneous Polynomials On Banach Lattices, Khazhak Varazdat Navoyan Jan 2018

Bases In Spaces Of Regular Multilinear Operators And Homogeneous Polynomials On Banach Lattices, Khazhak Varazdat Navoyan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For Banach lattices E1,…, Em and F with 1-unconditional bases, we show that the monomial sequence forms a 1-unconditional basis of Lr(E1,…, Em;F), the Banach lattice of all regular m-linear operators from E1×···× Em to F, if and only if each basis of E1,…,Em is shrinking and every positive m-linear operator from E 1×···×Em to F is weakly sequentially continuous. As a consequence, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for which the m-fold Fremlin projective tensor product E1⊗ |π|··· ⊗|π|E m (resp. the m-fold positive injective tensor product E1⊗|ϵ|··· ⊗ |ϵ|Em) has a shrinking basis or a boundedly complete basis. …

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A Study Of Computational Problems In Computational Biology And Social Networks: Cancer Informatics And Cascade Modelling, Christopher Ma Jan 2018

A Study Of Computational Problems In Computational Biology And Social Networks: Cancer Informatics And Cascade Modelling, Christopher Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is undoubtedly that everything in this world is related and nothing independently exists. Entities interact together to form groups, resulting in many complex networks. Examples involve functional regulation models of proteins in biology, communities of people within social network. Since complex networks are ubiquitous in daily life, network learning had been gaining momentum in a variety of discipline like computer science, economics and biology. This call for new technique in exploring the structure as well as the interactions of network since it provides insight in understanding how the network works and deepening our knowledge of the subject in hand. …

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Experimental Investigation Of Impurities And Their Effect On Acousto-Electric Properties Of Lithium Niobate, Chandrima Chatterjee Jan 2018

Experimental Investigation Of Impurities And Their Effect On Acousto-Electric Properties Of Lithium Niobate, Chandrima Chatterjee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Building An Autonomous Indoor Drone System, Hunter Gossett Jan 2018

Building An Autonomous Indoor Drone System, Hunter Gossett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an indoor autonomous drone system using a self assembled drone which uses a companion computer as well as external sensors for autonomous flight. While autonomous drone systems have been around for some time, originating with the military, the vast majority of them are designed for outdoor use, because of their heavy reliance on GPS for their positioning systems. In order to achieve autonomous flight indoors we choose to use simultaneous localization and mapping (slam) as our positioning system. The contributions of this thesis is an in depth guide to the hardware and assembly of a drone system, …

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Characterizing Variable Flow Pathways And Geochemical History Of Seepage Under The Mississippi River Levee: 2011, 2015, And 2016 Floods, Kaitlin Marie Voll Jan 2018

Characterizing Variable Flow Pathways And Geochemical History Of Seepage Under The Mississippi River Levee: 2011, 2015, And 2016 Floods, Kaitlin Marie Voll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Seepage beneath levees during flood stage becomes a concern when piping occurs, creating channels beneath the levee and forming sand boils where transported sediments discharge. Along the lower Mississippi River, pathways beneath the levee vary with surface geology, following deeper paths where the levee overlies channel fill deposits, and shallower paths where it overlies sand bar deposits. A preliminary investigation north of Vicksburg, MS, during the 2011 flood, demonstrated the potential for using aqueous geochemistry to differentiate sand boils forming at the end of deep and shallow flow pathways, though the study was limited to cation and trace metal analyses. …

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Generalized Characteristics Of A Generic Polytope, Tommy Naugle Jan 2018

Generalized Characteristics Of A Generic Polytope, Tommy Naugle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For a smooth hypersurface S ⊂ R 2n given by the level set of a Hamiltonian function H, a symplectic form ω on R2n induces a vector field XH which flows tangent to S. By the nondegeneracy of ω, there exists a distinguished line bundle LS whose characteristics are the integral curves of XH. When S is the boundary of a smooth convex domain K˜ ⊂ R 2n, then the least action among closed characteristics of LS is equal to the Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity, a symplectic invariant. From a result due to Artstein-Avidan and Ostrover, there exists a continuous extension of …

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The Beam Dynamics And Beam Related Uncertainties In Fermilab Muon G-2 Experiment, Wanwei Wu Jan 2018

The Beam Dynamics And Beam Related Uncertainties In Fermilab Muon G-2 Experiment, Wanwei Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The anomaly of the muon magnetic moment, aμ ≡ (g-2)/2, has played an important role in constraining physics beyond the Standard Model for many years. Currently, the Standard Model prediction for aμ is accurate to 0.42 parts per million (ppm). The most recent muon g-2 experiment was done at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and determined aμ to 0.54 ppm, with a central value that differs from the Standard Model prediction by 3.3-3.6 standard deviations and provides a strong hint of new physics. The Fermilab Muon g-2 Experiment has a goal to measure aμ to unprecedented precision: 0.14 ppm, which could …

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Correlation Of Sand Reservoirs Of The Lower Tuscaloosa Formation In The Smithdale And East Fork Fields In Amite County, Mississippi, Alexandra Warren Jan 2018

Correlation Of Sand Reservoirs Of The Lower Tuscaloosa Formation In The Smithdale And East Fork Fields In Amite County, Mississippi, Alexandra Warren

Honors Theses

The Upper Cretaceous Lower Tuscaloosa Formation has been a major hydrocarbon producer in southwest Mississippi since the 1940s, with discovered oil reserves in the billions of barrels. The mid-Cenomanian unconformity underlying the Lower Tuscaloosa created an extensive network of incised valleys. The transgressive sequences that occurred during the deposition of the Massive and Stringer Sand Members filled the incised valleys with sediments, due to the low accommodation space, and this created a series of stacked channel sand deposits. The Smithdale and East Fork oil fields located in Amite County, Mississippi produce from the Stringer Sand Member of the Lower Tuscaloosa. …

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An Analysis Of Commercial Oxidative Hair Dyes Using Raman Spectroscopy, Allyson Henke Jan 2018

An Analysis Of Commercial Oxidative Hair Dyes Using Raman Spectroscopy, Allyson Henke

Honors Theses

Here, we aim to further the potential use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in analyzing hair dyes for use in forensic investigations. Current methods include light microscopy and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). However, these techniques can be destructive to the hair samples, do not have high discriminatory power, and have had problems with giving inconclusive results. Raman spectroscopy, on the other hand, is a fast, simple technique with a high discriminatory power. Previous work has shown that SERS can be used for in-situ analyses that is not destructive to the sample. This previous work also demonstrated that SERS could definitively differentiate …

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Raman Spectroscopic And Computational Study Of Hydrogen Bond Interactions Between Guanidine Hydrochloride, Trimethylamine N-Oxide (Tmao), Urea, And Water, Andrew Kamischke Jan 2018

Raman Spectroscopic And Computational Study Of Hydrogen Bond Interactions Between Guanidine Hydrochloride, Trimethylamine N-Oxide (Tmao), Urea, And Water, Andrew Kamischke

Honors Theses

Proteins are broken down in the body and produce water, CO2, and ammonia as by-products. Ammonia is toxic to cells, making it a priority to be excreted. Urea is the key route for the transportation of ammonia out of the body and is the main component of urine. Guanidine is another important nitrogen-containing molecule that is structural like urea and plays important biological roles in the stabilization of proteins. Guanidine hydrochloride and Urea are known to denature proteins and this functionality continues to be a topic of great interest. Urea and guanidine contain many hydrogen bonding sites and interactions with …

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Assembly Of A Protein-Based Hydrogel As A Vehicle For In Situ Drug Delivery, Austin Carroll Jan 2018

Assembly Of A Protein-Based Hydrogel As A Vehicle For In Situ Drug Delivery, Austin Carroll

Honors Theses

The goal of this work is to develop a self-assembling, protein-based gel to deliver drugs at the site of chronic inflammation. There are two engineered protomers that comprise the gel; calmodulin- and M13- are their critical components. Numerous enzymes have been shown to undergo calcium-dependent regulation by calmodulin, an intracellular protein highly resilient to its chemical environment. One of these enzymes, myosin light chain kinase, contains a remarkable 26 residue portion known as the M13 peptide that has been demonstrated to bind to calmodulin in the presence of calcium through hydrophobic interactions. Because the extracellular space in vivo constitutes an …

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Studies Of Carbonaceous Materials Using Raman Spectroscopy, Cameron L. Smith Jan 2018

Studies Of Carbonaceous Materials Using Raman Spectroscopy, Cameron L. Smith

Honors Theses

Various carbonaceous materials including graphene, treated biochar, and C60 were studied using Raman spectroscopy with particular attention given to the treatment process and the Raman enhancement methods. Such studies that focus on the treatment process are useful in determining the extent to which the species was affected via shifts in the Raman peaks. Previous collaborations have proven successful when multiple samples were studied and analyzed. The attempt to create a novel Raman enhancement technique via combination of two previously recorded techniques was ultimately unsuccessful but further work is necessary.

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Sentiment Of The Union: Analyzing Tone In Presidential State Of The Union Addresses, Chase Rydeen Jan 2018

Sentiment Of The Union: Analyzing Tone In Presidential State Of The Union Addresses, Chase Rydeen

Honors Theses

As the machine learning and data science craze sweeps the nation, the implications and implementations are vast. This paper takes a look at both of them through the lens of a topic of national importance, at the very least for the United States. This topic is the words used by past Presidents of the United States, which are being pulled from their State of the Union Addresses. The focus of this research is on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and it's applied processes. Natural Language Processing allows for effective analysis of text-based data. Using NLP, a sentiment analysis was conducted on …

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Classifying #Metoo Hash-Tagged Tweets By Semantics To Understand The Extent Of Sexual Harassment, Claire Hubacek Jan 2018

Classifying #Metoo Hash-Tagged Tweets By Semantics To Understand The Extent Of Sexual Harassment, Claire Hubacek

Honors Theses

This thesis contains a program that will process tweets from Twitter that use the hashtag "#MeToo" and categorize them by their relevance to the movement, their stance on the movement, and the type of sexual harassment expressed (if applicable). Being able to work with a narrowed set of tweets belonging to a specific category creates the capacity to do more in-depth research and analysis, exploring Twitter as a special platform for discussing these sensitive topics and showing that this online space for expressing personal experiences has delivered unprecedented potential avenues of study. This thesis also contains research into additional solutions …

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Targeting Metastatic Breast Cancer With Statin Drugs And Coq10, Jacob Thrasher Jan 2018

Targeting Metastatic Breast Cancer With Statin Drugs And Coq10, Jacob Thrasher

Honors Theses

Statin drugs are commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol levels in patients, but recently statins have been under investigation as a potential anti-cancer drug. Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors and subsequently inhibit the mevalonate pathway and cholesterol synthesis. Since cholesterol trafficking is vital in the growth and metastasis of cancer, statin drugs are being studied to explore their effects on cancer cells. CoQ10, one of the products from the mevalonate pathway, also has shown some potential anti-cancer properties, but its use to combat cancer is controversial. While some studies have shown that CoQ10 supplements can be synergistic with other cancer treatment …

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Cell-Free Telomere Dna As A Biomarker For Treatment Response And Tumor Burden In Glioblastoma, John P. North Jan 2018

Cell-Free Telomere Dna As A Biomarker For Treatment Response And Tumor Burden In Glioblastoma, John P. North

Honors Theses

Telomeres are repeated nucleotide sequences that cap the ends of each chromosome in eukaryotes. Telomeres are among the earliest genomic sequences to be degraded during apoptosis, potentially providing a biomarker of cell death. To study this, we quantified telomeres in serum from Glioblastoma and non-cancer patients. Cell-free DNA was isolated by centrifugation to remove intact cells, and purified using a QIAamp DNA Blood Midi Kit (Qiagen). Cell-free telomeric (cf-tel) and cell-free actin (cf-actin) DNA were analyzed with quantitative PCR. Total cell-free DNA was measured with PicoGreen assays. We hypothesize that patients with Glioblastoma tumors have higher cf-tel DNA levels than …

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Computational Investigation On Electronic Structures And Properties Of 4,6-Bis(Nitroimino)-1,3,5-Triazinan-2-One: An Insensitive Munitions Compound, Katarina M. Pittman Jan 2018

Computational Investigation On Electronic Structures And Properties Of 4,6-Bis(Nitroimino)-1,3,5-Triazinan-2-One: An Insensitive Munitions Compound, Katarina M. Pittman

Honors Theses

In order to minimize unintentional detonation, current munitions research has focused on the development of chemical compounds that are insensitive to external stimuli whilst maintaining their effectiveness. While these compounds, known as high performance in- sensitive munitions compounds, are promising in terms of potency and stability, their envi- ronmental impacts have either not been fully understood or are yet to be investigated. In the present research, we have performed a computational chemistry investigation on electronic structures and properties of an insensitive munition compound 4,6-bis(nitroimino)-1,3,5- triazinan-2-one (DNAM). The Density Functional Theory using the B3LYP and M06- 2X functionals and MP2 methodology …

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Studying The Effects Of Hydrogen Bonding In 1h-1,2,3-Triazole And Its Derivatives, Leah Alexandra Wallace Jan 2018

Studying The Effects Of Hydrogen Bonding In 1h-1,2,3-Triazole And Its Derivatives, Leah Alexandra Wallace

Honors Theses

1,2,3-triazole is used as a building block in many pharmaceutical drugs. The molecule has several derivatives that are useful in other areas including treating fungal infections and in dealing with some environmental issues. One of its derivatives, benzotriazole, is commonly used as an inhibitor of corrosion through the formation of a copper-benzotriazole complex. One area of particular interest in studying triazoles is the ability of these molecules to tautomerize. The hydrogen atom can move from the 1H position to the 2H position and this transfer is thought to be affected by solvent interactions. Here, we study the effects of hydrogen …

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Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Studies On Gold Nanoparticles, Leigh Sumner Jan 2018

Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Studies On Gold Nanoparticles, Leigh Sumner

Honors Theses

After determining that the size of nanoclusters can be tuned such that they have a precise formula much like a chemical compound, much is still not known about nanoclusters, their properties, and how they interact if core size, ligand, and even environment is changed. One such mystery is how does the size of the nanoparticle tune its ability as a catalyst. As it is known that nanoparticles possess unique properties, studies have begun to look towards nanoclusters as catalysts for alternative forms of energy. Therefore, determining how size affects the ability of a nanoparticle catalyst becomes a very important question. …

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Development Of A Gel Assay For Analysis Of Bovine Milk Casein, Masa Miscevic Jan 2018

Development Of A Gel Assay For Analysis Of Bovine Milk Casein, Masa Miscevic

Honors Theses

The main purpose of this research was to develop a gel assay for analysis of casein samples for ultimate application for studies of in vitro models for stomach and intestinal processing of dairy products in adults and infants. It is proposed that casein completely dissolves and is digestible in simulated gastric, and is somewhat soluble and digestible in simulated intestinal environments of adults and infants. The following experimental methods were devised to thoroughly examine behavior and properties of casein originating from different sources in range of solvents and varying pH values. First, casein was enriched in comparison to soluble materials …

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Purification Protocol Development And Analysis Of Binding Properties Of Calmodulin Collagen-Like Protein, Patrick P. Boddie Jan 2018

Purification Protocol Development And Analysis Of Binding Properties Of Calmodulin Collagen-Like Protein, Patrick P. Boddie

Honors Theses

Calmodulin is an intensely studied, intracellular, calcium-binding protein that is involved in diverse physiological processes. When bound to calcium, calmodulin undergoes a conformational change that allows it to bind specific target peptides with high affinity, one being the calmodulin binding region of myosin light chain kinase, herein called M13. This high affinity, calcium dependent association has made it a desirable choice for use in a biomaterial for drug delivery for non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Two artificial genes have been designed by our lab for use in the proposed biomaterial: calmodulin collagen-like protein (CCLP), a construct composed of two calmodulin …

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Autonomous Vehicle Communication Using Blockchain, Reid Barber Jan 2018

Autonomous Vehicle Communication Using Blockchain, Reid Barber

Honors Theses

With recent advancements in machine learning and interest in expanding the smart city, various technology companies and car manufacturers have begun pour- ing billions of dollars into research and development of autonomous vehicles. While many companies are hard at work developing their own driverless cars, it is important to begin planning how these cars will communicate with one another and other in- frastructure. Because the safety of passengers and pedestrians are heavily dependent on these communications, the careful design and implementation of these networks is crucial. Blockchain is another technology that has amassed a great deal of attention in recent …

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