Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Combatting Biases: Illusory Imagery In Us News Coverage On Central American Immigration, Katharine Poor

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper comprises of original research and analysis of contemporary news media discourse surrounding Central American immigration in the United States. Subjects of study included more than 50 news articles, images, and videos from a variety of major politically-unaffiliated news outlets for English-speaking audiences. Rhetoric was analyzed in representations of the Central American immigration “crisis” that sparked a trend of media coverage in 2014, as well as several articles that covered events leading up to the “crisis.” Common rhetorical analogies ascertained through media analyses include the representation of immigrants as aliens, diseases, parasites, floods, criminals, natural disasters, terrorists, and drug …

Moderate Ethanol Consumption Results In Cognitive Protection From Alzheimer’S Disease, Dementia, And Related Cognitive Decline: A Critical Review, Sean P. Coffinger

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Moderate ethanol preconditioning, a result of prolonged moderate alcohol intake, serves as a protective process by staving off cognitive decline while providing neuronal protection through several mechanisms. These individual mechanisms are relatively well known, however a comprehensive and integrated conversation of ethanol’s protective tendencies is lacking from literature and the field of neuroscience. First, a review of the leading theories behind moderate ethanol preconditioning’s biological and cognitive benefits is presented, including overviews of neuroprotective, antioxidant, and neurotropic mechanisms responsible for neurological benefit. Secondly, an integrative model is presented, incorporating all research into a novel collaborative model. An additional discussion regarding …

Table Of Contents

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Front cover, a list of the article contents in this issue, and editorial information.

The Jin And Jang Of Quantum Physics Truth Tables, Shannon Lieb, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract provided.

Kate Jones – A Tribute, Karen Farrell, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Kate is also an accomplished recreational mathematician and poet. To try to match in a small way her creative ability, we offer three puzzle-games in her honor: O'BEIRNE's TRI-HEX, PAPPUS and "KATe JONES". These three are specific examples of (9,3) symmetric configurations. More generally an (n,r) configuration is a collection of n "points"and n "lines" subject to the following requirements:

Rl: Any two points belong to at most one line.

R2: Each line has r points, and each point belongs to r lines.

A New 12-Puzzle, Todd Estroff, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This puzzle is a continuation of the tribute to the magician Paul Swinford. The following 18 two-letter words use each of the 12 letters of PAUL SWINFORD exactly three times each. The words are to be placed on the nodes of the grid so that each hexagon and each of the three diagonals contain the 12 letters of our honoree's name.

Paul Swinford – A Tribute, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract provided.

The White Rabbit 12-Puzzle, Chris Morgan, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Martin Gardner's fondness for the characters and themes of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" is well-known and to honor Gardner we offer two word puzzles to be played on the 12-node diagram of the WHITE RABBIT.

Spanning Eulerian Subgraphs And Catlin’S Reduced Graphs, Wei-Guo Chen, Zhi-Hong Chen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A graph G is collapsible if for every even subset R ⊆ V (G), there is a spanning connected subgraph H_R of G whose set of odd degree vertices is R. A graph is reduced if it has no nontrivial collapsible subgraphs. Catlin [4] showed that the existence of spanning Eulerian subgraphs in a graph G can be determined by the reduced graph obtained from G by contracting all the collapsible subgraphs of G. In this paper, we present a result on 3-edge-connected reduced graphs of small orders. Then, we prove that a 3-edge-connected graph G of order n …

The Unusual Substrate Specificity Of A Virulence Associated Serine Hydrolase From The Highly Toxic Bacterium, Francisella Tularensis, Alexander M. Farberg, Whitney K. Hart, R. Jeremy Johnson

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Francisella tularensis is the causative agent of the highly, infectious disease, tularemia. Amongst the genes identified as essential to the virulence of F. tularensis was the proposed serine hydrolase FTT0941c. Herein, we purified FTT0941c to homogeneity and then characterized the folded stability, enzymatic activity, and substrate specificity of FTT0941c. Based on phylogenetic analysis, FTT0941c was classified within a divergent Francisella subbranch of the bacterial hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) superfamily, but with the conserved sequence motifs of a bacterial serine hydrolase. FTT0941c showed broad hydrolase activity against diverse libraries of ester substrates, including significant hydrolytic activity across alkyl ester substrates from …

You Like Japan, Jeremiah Farrell, Kate Jones

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Jeremiah's puzzle "You Like Japan", which was exchanged at the 2016 International Puzzle Party in Kyoto, Japan, alongside Kate Jone's "You Like Japan" 12x12 Challenge. 100 puzzle designers create 100 copies of their puzzle and pass it out at the party and exchange them. This puzzle is manufacured by Kadon Enterprises, Inc. as "You Like Japan".

Photo Of Euler Semimagic Square With Exercises., Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A submission to the Gardner Birthday Celebration on the occasion of his 102nd birthday in October 2016.

Solvent Free Vanadium Mediated Organic Transformations, Garrett Oberst

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

A mixture of vanadium(V) oxide and copper sulfate was used to catalyze oxidative transformations in a variety of organic compounds. Multiple functionalities were tested, including thiols, amines and alcohols. Various transformations were observed resulting in various oxidized products, including coupling reactions. Reactions were performed in a solvent-free environment due to the insoluble nature of vanadium(V) oxide in common organic solvents. Results were analyzed using HNMR and GCMS.

Chiroptical Ionic Liquids, Benjamin Zercher

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The synthesis and fluorescent analysis of chiral light emitting ionic liquids made from lanthanide-doped chiral amino acid ionic liquids is described in this thesis. The ionic liquids were composed of tetrabutylammonium (TBA) cation with enantiomers of the amino acids valine, proline, and aspartate as anionic counterions. These ionic liquids of varying amino acid composition were doped with europium trifluoromethanesulfonate (triflate) and analyzed by circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). The sign of the CPL signal corresponded to the handedness of the amino acids in the ionic liquids. Europium triflate concentration dependent CPL in both [TBA][Val] and [TBA][L-Pro] ionic liquids was measured from …

A Computational And Theoretical Exploration Of The St. Petersburg Paradox, Alexander Olivero

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This thesis displays a sample distribution, generated from both a simulation (for large n) by computer program and explicitly calculated (for smaller n), that is not governed by the Central Limit Theorem and, in fact seems to display chaotic behavior. To our knowledge, the explicit calculation of the sample distribution function is new. This project outlines the results that have found a relation to number theory in a probabilistic game that has perplexed mathematicians for hundreds of years.

Tango: A Spanish-Based Programming Language, Ashley Zegiestowsky

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The purpose of this thesis is a two-part project. The first part of the project deals with the creation of my own Spanish-based programming language, Tango, using Spanish key words (instead of English key words). The second part of the project relates to the design and implementation of a compiler that follows the grammar rules outlined in the Tango language in order to successfully lexically analyze, parse, semantically analyze, and generate code for Tango. The structure of this thesis begins with a description of the specific goals achieved in the Tango language, an explanation and brief examples of the Tango …

Substrate Specificity Of The Lipn Hydrolase From Mycobacterium Ulcerans, Stephanie Raynor

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Mycobacterium ulcerans is the causative agent of Buruli ulcer, a tropical skin disease that affects thousands of individuals annually. Recent studies have revealed that lipolytic enzymes are involved in the pathogenicity processes of mycobacterium and could be potential targets for novel antibiotics. LipN is one proposed serine hydrolase in Mycobacterium ulcerans that contains the conserved α/β hydrolase protein fold and utilizes the conserved catalytic traid of serine, histidine, and aspartate/glutamate. The physiological substrate and biological role of LipN from M. ulcerans have not yet been determined. In this study, LipN was cloned into a pET28a plasmid and overexpressed in an …

Determination Of Additives In Cigarettes Utilizing Evolved Gas Analysis (Ega), Karissa Ferguson, Michael J. Samide, Cierra Schmicker, Tyler Schenk, Anne Wilson

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

While additives to consumer products must be listed in order by amount, it is not required to report the actual amounts of these additives. Given that impacts on human health are dose dependent, knowledge of additive amounts would aid discussions of the safety of these compounds for inhalation. Additives for cigarettes include flavors, such as menthol, and propylene glycol, a humectant. Rapid determination of the amounts of menthol and propylene glycol additives in cigarettes was accomplished utilizing evolved gas analysis (EGA) – gas chromatography (GC) – flame ionization detection (FID). Careful preparation of samples and appropriate sample storage are critical …

A Special Tribute To Martin Gardner, Jeremiah Farrell

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

There are exactly 12 different letters in the phrase GATHERING FOR MARTIN GARDNER. We use each of the 12 letters three times each in 18 different two-letter words that are to be placed on the nodes of the graph so adjoining nodes have a letter in common.