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Union College

Theses/Dissertations

2013

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Design And Construction Of An Optical Tweezers, Pavel Aprelev Jun 2013

Design And Construction Of An Optical Tweezers, Pavel Aprelev

Honors Theses

We constructed an optical tweezers apparatus, used it to trap transparent micron-sized particles, and moved those particles within a sample by moving the sample relative to the focal point of the trapping beam. The optical trap was based on the fact that focused coherent light creates forces on dielectric objects that point towards the focal point. The magnitude and the span of the force are dependent on the size of the focal point of the beam - generally around 1µm - and the intensity of light. We used an 808 nm 200 mW laser and a piezoelectric stage to trap …

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Market Mechanisms And Price Volatility In New York Electricity Markets, Kimberly Blecich Jun 2013

Market Mechanisms And Price Volatility In New York Electricity Markets, Kimberly Blecich

Honors Theses

The past two decades have born witness to a cascade of new legislation and market design measures to restructure the United States’ electric power industry from price-setting regulatory agencies to competitive markets. Deregulation was intended to increase competition and improve market efficiency while preserving the reliability of the transmission system. Results have varied in success, and deregulation has invariably led to an increase in both the overall price level of electricity and volatility of those prices. Investigating these deregulation consequences is crucial for market operations and retrospective analyses of deployed mechanism outcomes. The objective of this study is to extend …

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A Cross-Country Analysis Of Energy Efficient Development, Nicholas Fleagle Jun 2013

A Cross-Country Analysis Of Energy Efficient Development, Nicholas Fleagle

Honors Theses

Maximizing energy efficiency, producing as much as possible with as little energy as possible, is something every country should be working toward. This study measures the efficiency of specific countries by examining the interrelationships that exist among each country’s energy consumption and such measures of development as health, education, income, access to essentials and CO2 emissions. It then analyses why certain countries are more efficient than others and how these inefficient countries can improve. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to generate a cross country comparison of energy efficiency scores over multiple dimensions of development. Pairs of inefficient countries and …

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Cellular Automata And Music: A New Representation, Richard French Jun 2013

Cellular Automata And Music: A New Representation, Richard French

Honors Theses

For millenia, we’ve thought of musical composition as a purely human activity. However, we once also thought of an activity like chess to be purely human, but Deep Blue was able to defeat Kasparov in 1995 all the same. Could there perhaps be some tool or algorithm for musical composition that can replicate to some extent what human beings can do with music? This project explores this idea through the use of a tool called a cellular automaton. A cellular automaton is a grid space with a finite number of states for each of the ”cells” or ”squares” where a …

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Proton Induced X-Ray Emission Spectrometry Of Atmospheric Aerosols At Piseco Lake, Adam Margulies Jun 2013

Proton Induced X-Ray Emission Spectrometry Of Atmospheric Aerosols At Piseco Lake, Adam Margulies

Honors Theses

Chemical studies of lakes and aerosols in the Adirondack region of New York State have found evidence of environmental pollution resulting in acid rain. We obtained air samples for July and September 2012 from Piseco Lake and analyzed particulate depositions with Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) spectrometry. We detected an array of light elements, including sulfur particulates in the 0.25 - 8 μm range, possibly stemming from coal combustion in the Appalachians and Mid-West of the United States. We also found systematic errors with the accelerator charge integration system due to beam spreading after the beam passes through the target. …

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Unconscious Automatons On Facebook, Adam Pere Jun 2013

Unconscious Automatons On Facebook, Adam Pere

Honors Theses

The Internet is a relatively new phenomenon that has completely morphed the modern world. Living on a college campus, I almost never find myself in a room without access to the Internet and social media. I, along with many others in my generation, spend hours per month mindlessly surfing the Internet and Facebook. With my project, I want to start a conversation on the topic of how the Internet has shaped our society and whether these changes are positive or negative. To do so, I have built an installation of three robots and a monitor. Each robot (see Figure 1) …

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Bird Mortality In The Human Built Environment, Stacie Schwartz Jun 2013

Bird Mortality In The Human Built Environment, Stacie Schwartz

Honors Theses

Human development is having a detrimental effect on bird populations around the world. One hundred million to one billion birds are killed every year from colliding with human-built structures. I explored factors influencing the inability of birds to avoid man-made structures. If we can better understand these reasons, we can find solutions to this problem. After a known bird avoidance method, fritted glass, was installed in the Wold building, I investigated whether this glass actually deters birds from striking windows. Strikes on windows were noted daily through observation of specific windows on campus. Results show that vegetation outside of windows …

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An Algebraic Approach To Number Theory Using Unique Factorization, Mark Sullivan Jun 2013

An Algebraic Approach To Number Theory Using Unique Factorization, Mark Sullivan

Honors Theses

Though it may seem non-intuitive, abstract algebra is often useful in the study of number theory. In this thesis, we explore some uses of abstract algebra to prove number theoretic statements. We begin by examining the structure of unique factorization domains in general. Then we introduce number fields and their rings of algebraic integers, whose structures have characteristics that are analogous to some of those of the rational numbers and the rational integers. Next we discuss quadratic fields, a special case of number fields that have important applications to number theoretic problems. We will use the structures that we introduce …

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Elections With Three Candidates Four Candidates And Beyond: Counting Ties In The Borda Count With Permutahedra And Ehrhart Quasi-Polynomials, Adam Margulies Jun 2013

Elections With Three Candidates Four Candidates And Beyond: Counting Ties In The Borda Count With Permutahedra And Ehrhart Quasi-Polynomials, Adam Margulies

Honors Theses

In voting theory, the Borda count’s tendency to produce a tie in an election varies as a function of n, the number of voters, and m, the number of candidates. To better understand this tendency, we embed all possible rankings of candidates in a hyperplane sitting in m-dimensional space, to form an (m - 1)-dimensional polytope: the m-permutahedron. The number of possible ties may then be determined computationally using a special class of polynomials with modular coefficients. However, due to the growing complexity of the system, this method has not yet been extended past the case of m = 3. …

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The Effect Of Canopy Organization On The Photosynthesis Of Sphagnum, Brian Solinsky Jun 2013

The Effect Of Canopy Organization On The Photosynthesis Of Sphagnum, Brian Solinsky

Honors Theses

With climate change becoming a greater problem the ability of plants to photosynthesize and sequester carbon becomes more important for us to understand. Sphagnum moss stores more than a third of the world’s soil carbon. Much is understood about the physiology of Sphagnum, but what is generally not understood is the effect of variation in canopy organization in Sphagnum: why are they both rough and smooth? This study examined whether different canopy structures influenced how the canopy uses different angles of light for photosynthesis. The first step was modeling photosynthesis in two simulated structures (rough and smooth) as the angle …

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An Analysis Of Polynomials That Commute Under Composition, Samuel J. Williams Jun 2013

An Analysis Of Polynomials That Commute Under Composition, Samuel J. Williams

Honors Theses

It is well known that polynomials commute under addition and multiplication. It turns out that certain polynomials also commute under composition. In this paper, we examine polynomials with coefficients in the field of complex numbers that commute under composition (also referred to as “commuting polynomials”). We begin this examination by defining what it means for polynomials to commute under composition. We then introduce sequences of commuting polynomials and observe how the polynomials in these sequences (later defined as chains) along with other commuting polynomials relate to a concept called similarity. These observations allow us to better understand the qualities and …

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Hydraulic Fracturing Wastewater: Treatment Methods For Flowback And Produced And Water, Claire Cummins Jun 2013

Hydraulic Fracturing Wastewater: Treatment Methods For Flowback And Produced And Water, Claire Cummins

Honors Theses

In order to prevent groundwater contamination that could potentially put millions of human’s health at risk, as well as billions of the federal government’s money on solving the problem, hydraulic fracturing needs to be heavily regulated. This will ensure that hydrofracking is being done in an environmentally responsible way by every natural gas drilling company and not just those who are willing to pay extra for systems and treatment methods that are more expensive but also more effective. The technology for treating hydrofracking wastewater has not been fully developed and would be used a lot more widely throughout the industry …

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An Analysis Of Horizontal Gas Drilling And Its Impact On Spot Market Pricing: A Focus On The Marcellus Shale Production Potential, Samuel O'Connell Jun 2013

An Analysis Of Horizontal Gas Drilling And Its Impact On Spot Market Pricing: A Focus On The Marcellus Shale Production Potential, Samuel O'Connell

Honors Theses

This paper attempts to quantify how the rapid increase in shale gas production in the past fifteen years has impacted regional natural gas spot prices. This method of natural gas extraction-pumping water mixed with sand and clay first vertically and then horizontally, with clay and sand particulates holding fractures open to allow the flow of natural gas-has a shorter well lifespan and faster decline rate than conventional wells. Through analyzing the degree of market integration between shale gas production and spot prices, we can quantify what impact different shale plays have had on the regional pricing of natural gas. With …

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Impact Of The Keystone Xl Pipeline On North American Crude Oil Prices, Shawn Ian Stuart Jun 2013

Impact Of The Keystone Xl Pipeline On North American Crude Oil Prices, Shawn Ian Stuart

Honors Theses

This paper determines the economic impact of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline project. As the Keystone XL pipeline is extremely controversial it is beneficial to determine the impact on North American crude oil prices. Determining the economic impact the Keystone XL pipeline will have on crude oil prices will be a large detriment of whether the pipeline is economically beneficial. By using spot crude prices from different regions around North America and adding capacity of crude oil transmission from western Canada to southeast United States this paper determines the changes in regional spot crude oil prices. As the economic conditions …

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