Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Decision Based Learning Course Design & Implementation For Introductory Statistics, Austin Heath

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Researchers in multiple industries (biomedicine, engineering, etc.) cite the selection of an appropriate statistical test as a common problem. Experts draw on a framework of conceptual and procedural knowledge to navigate when to use statistical methods. Students also struggle determining the correct statistical method to use for a given research question. This is because they lack the opportunity to practice recognizing a host of features in each research question that provide clues for experts as to which method is most appropriate. “Decision Based Learning” (DBL) is a teaching method designed to help teachers and students address this struggle. In this …

A Fret Flow Cytometry-Based Screening Assay For Multiplex Analysis Of Metabolites In T. Brucei, Ronald A. Zegarra

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Kinetoplastid parasites are a significant public health issue in some tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Kinetoplastid parasites all require glycolysis for survival, with host glucose key for ATP production. One such parasite, Trypanosoma brucei, exclusively metabolizes glucose in its bloodstream form. Trypanosomal glycolysis is unique because it displays unconventional structural features. Hence, glucose metabolism has been studied extensively in T. brucei and is a therapeutic target in kinetoplastid parasites.The lack of in vivo analytical techniques for measuring vital glycolytic metabolites in situ has restricted the ability of researchers to test, with high sensitivity and specificity, the essential roles …

Who Uses Multi-Factor Authentication?, Leah Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A sample of 47 BYU students were recruited to participate in this study to determine who was using Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) on their online accounts. This study determined that there were many different factors that separated those who used MFA and those who did not. Some of those factors included: time spent on the internet each day, gender, the website itself, and personal privacy behaviors.

Intermountain West Lichen Dna Reference Library, Brian Colgrove

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Accurate estimates of biodiversity can play crucial roles in monitoring ecological health. BYU’s Lichen Air Quality Biomonitoring program (Wright) represents one of the largest biomonitoring programs in the nation. Recently, DNA metabarcoding approaches have shown promise in streamlining lichen biodiversity inventories. However, to date, lichen diversity of western North America is poorly represented in available DNA reference libraries, preventing biologists and land managers from using DNA barcoding to identify unknown specimens. To solve this problem, I have developed a DNA reference library for over 500 species occurring in the Intermountain West region. Using bioinformatic and statistical tools, I created a …

Exploration Of Fluorinated Α,Β-Dehydroamino Acids And Their Structure, Austin Lesueur

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the synthesis of fluorinated α,β-dehydroamino acids, specifically a fluorinated dehydrovaline derivative. Previous work has been done on the equivalent dehydrovaline derivative without fluorine present and this work builds toward the fluorinated version with the goal of comparing the two structurally. The synthesis presented here pulls from previous synthetic strategies employed for dehydrovaline while also exploring the synthetic impact of the electronegative fluorine atoms.

Light And Truth: Measuring Unseen Harm In Individuals And Communities, Hannah Pfost

Undergraduate Honors Theses

While the fields of physics and international development may seem disparate, the insights gained from studying each one of them can improve understanding of the other. Here, I demonstrate that concept as applied to computational optics and historical memory. Thus, the purpose of this project is threefold: (1) to computationally model light transport through tissue, and use that model to inform choices about a physical system; (2) to determine the types of historical memory recommended in the final reports of truth commissions; and (3) to give evidence for the usefulness of human-centered design in both areas. To model light transport, …

Telsam-Target Protein Fusions Can Form Diffraction-Quality Crystals Without Direct Inter-Polymer Contacts, Moriah Longhurst

Undergraduate Honors Theses

X-ray diffraction is a robust method for determining the detailed 3D structures of specific proteins. However, this requires the formation of well-ordered protein crystals, a process that is time-consuming, expensive, and only has about a 10-30% success rate. New methods are needed to enable the efficient crystallization of challenging proteins. One such technique is explored here, which utilizes a protein polymer (the sterile alpha motif domain of the human protein translocation Ets leukemia, or TELSAM) as a crystallization chaperone to form a more ordered crystal lattice of target proteins and drive crystallization. This method was successfully used to crystallize, collect …

Realium: Building The Future Of Real Estate On The Blockchain, Demitri Haddad

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper discusses the prospective challenges, limitations and opportunities in the real estate sector for blockchain. It outlines the idea of Realium, a financial technology application that aims to assist in the purchase, sale, and legal compliance of real estate assets. For more information see docs.realium.io

Computational Development Of A Miniature Quantum Dot Spectrometer For Use In Space, Joseph Richardson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Miniature spectrometers are of great interest to NASA as necessary instrumentation is scaled down and optimized for specific space application. Semiconductor nanocrystals called quantum dots (QD) are being used to create a miniature high-resolution filter-based spectrometer, with the goal of use in space within 5 years. Computational imaging techniques— such as automated image analysis and mathematical spectrum reconstruction algorithms—are key to making the QD spectrometer a reality. This thesis will discuss the process of developing these computational methods, along with the improvements that have occurred from previous work.

The Communicative Effects Of Anonymity Online: A Natural Language Analysis Of The Faceless, Caleb Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An ever-increasing number of Americans have an active social media

presence online. As of March 2020, an estimated 79% of Americans were active

monthly users of some sort. Many of these online platforms allow users to

operate anonymously which could potentially lead to shifts in communicative

behavior. I first discuss my compilation process of the Twitter Anonymity

Dataset (TAD), a human-classified dataset of 100,000 Twitter accounts that are

categorized by their level of identifiability to their real-world agent. Next, I

investigate some of the structural differences between the classification levels

and employ a variety of Natural Language Processing models and …