Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Synthesis And Optimization Of Novel Poly-(Β-Amino Ester) Polymer For Gene-Delivery, Maria Montes

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Gene delivery is one of the most promising methods to treat multiple diseases through the alteration of a genetic code to enhance or inhibit gene expression (NIH). The potential for gene delivery to be used as a treatment for cancerous cells is the beginning for advanced personalized healthcare. Current methods for cancer are costly, nonspecific, and come with major side effects that lowers quality of life in cancer patients. Previous studies have demonstrated Poly-(β-amino ester) (PBAE) to be biodegradable, non-toxic, and capable to deliver payloads in a targeted manner. For this study, PBAE was synthesized and characterized by Nuclear Magnetic …

Using X-Ray Fluorescence To Analyze Fire Impacted Soil And Vegetation Composition, Dylan Darter

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

In our lab, I am using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to measure the concentrations of metals in sediments from subalpine lakes. Our goal is to measure the biogeochemical consequences of wildfires over the last 2000 years. This study looks at the elemental composition of different lake cores, and vegetation samples from areas of the “Big Burn” fire of 1910. This fire burned across several states in the Rocky Mountain region. With our XRF data we are able to see how the fire impacted the soils and how long after the fire proper soil composition can occur. This study can be …

Safety And Security With Aadl: Using Lattices To Model Data Flow, Erick Martinez

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Architecture and Design Language is a model based engineering language that is used to create safety-critical systems. The issue with the creation of these systems is the lack of importance in security when these systems are created. To improve and promote the increase if importance and reliability for the creation of these systems we are looking into creating a method in which we can create lattice formations to identify and restrict certain information to its own category/classification. Lattices form sets of nodes that can be restricted so that certain information can only be distributed between two nodes that have the …

Dark Halos: The Windowed Power Spectrum, David Coria

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Today, it is believed that approximately 80 percent of the matter that comprises the universe takes the form of dark matter--a theorized substance that interacts with “normal” baryonic matter mostly through gravitational force. Through gravitation, dark matter creates potential wells that determine the motion of stars inside galaxies and galaxies inside galaxy clusters. Dark matter accumulates and forms roughly spherical structures called “dark halos”. Most galaxies and groups of galaxies are located inside such halos. Visible matter tends to cluster inside these halos because of the higher accumulation of dark matter and deeper gravitational wells. The power spectrum is obtained …

Copper Binding Of Heterocyclic Compounds Is Vital For Novel Drugs Against Gram-Positive Bacteria, Azriel Minjarez-Almeida

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Azzy Minjarez1, Man Zhang1, Anjana Delpe-Acharige1, Kayla Eschliman1, Olaf Kutsch2, Stefan H. Bossmann1

1: Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University

2: Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Copper Binding of Heterocyclic Compounds Is Vital For Novel Drugs Against Resistant Gram-positive Bacteria

Multidrug resistant bacteria are capable of developing resistance to a majority of available antibiotics making them an imminent threat. Thus, synthesizing novel drug candidates is vital. The average adult contains 50-80 mg of copper within the body, which assist the immune system. Efflux pumps of bacterial cells are the primary defense mechanism, which recognize and remove copper. …

Wearing The Inside Out: Using Long Short-Term Memory Networks And Wearable Data To Identify Human Emotions, Carlos Aguirre, Maria Fernanda De La Torre

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Studying emotions may sound unusual in computer science, a field based on quantifiable data and rationality. Contrary to belief, studies have shown any decision is highly dependent on emotional input. To improve human-computer interaction, it is crucial to improve our understanding of human emotions and teach machines to identify them. With large amounts of information streaming available from our environment, identifying our current emotional state becomes challenging, even at the individual self-level. This project aims to identify indicative emotional temporal data from wearable devices. Using brain activity data from an EEG and smart watches that record data, such as heart-beat, …

Synthesis Of A Hydrophobic/Hydrophilic Nano-Patterned Metal-Organic Framework Material, Daniel Pivaral

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) materials are supramolecular structures that are formed from the assembly of organic molecules that[AL1] have multiple binding sites with compatible metal cations. The resulting structure is a uniform and porous 3D grid-like with metal vertices that are connected by organic linkers. MOFs have several potential uses such as catalysis, detection, and gas storage, and new strategies to synthesize functional MOFs continue to be developed. One strategy is post synthetic modification (PSM), a process where different chemical groups are grafted onto the organic linkers via chemical reaction. The main objective of this research is to demonstrate that …