Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

De Novo Molecular Design Using 3d Molecular Structure Information, Gillian Hughes

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Predicting small molecule potency against a target receptor is critically important in the drug discovery process. By evaluating literature and associated GitHub repositories, we developed a deep learning model based on 3-D molecule and protein structure information to generate new small molecules and predict their binding affinity with protein receptors.

Supervisor: Hongzhou Zhang, PhD

Mapping Disparities In Covid-19: Determining The Demographic, Economic, Educational, Housing, Quality Of Life, And Health Factors That Relate To Disparities In Covid-19 Infections And Deaths, Kate Stanley, Naima Shifa

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Background: Throughout the pandemic, minority groups, particularly African Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans have experienced disproportionately high infection and death rates as compared to their white and Asian counterparts. Though this phenomenon could be attributed to high rates of pre-existing conditions in black and Hispanic communities, there are other underlying factors that cause such disparity. We set out to determine whether or not various demographic, economic, educational, health, housing, and quality of life indicators were correlated with higher rates of COVID-19 infection.

Methods: We used USAFacts COVID-19 data to select the 150 United States counties with the highest infection rates. We …

Pattern Of Health Behavior And Its Association With Self-Rated Health: Evidence From The 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System In The United States, Linh Nguyen, Mamunur Rashid, M Mazharul Islam

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Physical inactivity, tobacco use, and alcohol consumption are linked with increased morbidity and mortality. To improve public health services, we need to keep policymakers updated with health-related issues. Yet, there are limited numbers of recent research on the combination of those lifestyle behaviors as the determinants of self-rated health (SRH) in the US. Therefore, this study (1) examines the pattern of physical activities, smoking, alcohol consumption, and SRH, and (2) investigates the association between the behaviors and SRH status among US citizens. We extracted data from the latest state-based survey of the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which …

Ultra-High Vibrational And Rotational Motion Of The Hf Molecule Via Infrared (Ir) Laser Excitation, Toria Tucker, Jingwei (Mike) Ling, Bridget Gourley

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Our goals this summer were to build on previous work in our group modeling ultra-high vibrational and rotational excitation in small molecules via unique pulse sequencing of an infrared (IR) laser. The system was modeled both using Fortran and Mathematica as programming languages. We were able to demonstrate that different numerical techniques for propagating coupled differential equations forward in time led to equivalent levels of vibrational excitation and allowed for identical visualization of molecular state probabilities as a function of time. Work including the rotational motion progressed to the point of being able to see both significant excitation when rotations …

A Brief Overview Of Analyzing Testing Procedures In The Quality Control Lab At Elanco Animal Health, Gina Fedrighi

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The study of testing procedures within the quality control lab was conducted at Elanco Animal Health through the summer internship program. The internship program focuses on the development of young professionals as research and manufacturing leaders in the pharmaceutical industry. The purpose of this project was to determine ways in which to save both time and money in the quality control lab through the study of various quality testing procedures. Quality Control plays a vital role in the manufacturing process in order to ensure quality of products and consistency between batches. It is important to improve upon the current testing …

Conceptualizing And Analyzing Metal-Organic Frameworks And The Role Of The Ionic Liquid, Sydney Forbes, Aaron Wills, Hilary Eppley

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The synthesis of Metal-Organic Frameworks, or MOFs, can be easily changed or manipulated simply by changing the solvent medium. The research focused primarily on the role ionic liquids (ILs) had in MOF synthesis. ILs can be defined as salts that are liquid at room temperature. IL ligands were found one of three ways in the final structure; either acting as the anion, cation, or neither and just acting as a medium for a reaction. This research primarily revolved around Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). The purpose of CSD was a way to look more closely at these crystalline structures from previous …

Analysis Of Dynamical Systems For Synthesis Of Phenobarbital, Mishal Ali

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The use of mathematical methods for the analysis of chemical reaction systems is one of the useful tools. Phenobarbital (a barbiturate type medication also called phenobarb) is a prescription drug used to control seizures, relieve anxiety, treat epilepsy (in some countries), and prevent withdrawal symptoms in people dependent on other barbiture drugs. We approaches it with matrix analysis and ODE system. It helps us understand the chemical stoichiometry of these synthesis reactions.

Supervisor: Prof. Seonguk Kim, PhD

Very High Energy Studies Of The Crab Nebula, Madeline Claus, Ashna Coondiah, Omer Sajid

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a powerful stellar explosion first observed in 1054 AD and is the most studied object outside of our solar system. Our three-pronged research is focused on understanding the emission mechanisms responsible for energy range 100 MeV – 10 TeV. Our project consisted of 1) making light curves of Crab Nebula from Fermi-LAT’s data, 2) extending and investigating the pre-existing VERITAS light curve, and 3) phaseograms of the Crab Pulsar using VERITAS’s data.

Supervisor: Prof. Avery Archer, PhD

This research is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the …

A Highly-Parameterized Ensemble To Play Gin Rummy, Masayuki Nagai, Kavya Shrivastava, Kien Ta, Chad Byers, Steven Bogaerts

Annual Student Research Poster Session

In this work we describe the development and tuning of a computer Gin Rummy player. The system includes three main components to make decisions about drawing cards, discarding, and ending the game, with numerous hyperparameters controlling behavior. After the components are described, three sets of hyperparameter tuning and performance experiments are analyzed.

Visualizing And Analyzing Structures Of Coordination Polymers Synthesized In Ionic Liquids, Natalie Husby, Akane Inoue, Hilary Eppley

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Synthesis of metal organic frameworks can result in different products based on the solvent that is used. One option is to use ionic liquids (ILs, or room temperature molten salts) to create novel metal organic coordination polymers. Our group analyzed metal organic polymers synthesized in ILs with the goal of cataloging the topology of the structures, the connectivity of the organic ligands, and the roles of the ILs in the syntheses. We used Sci-Finder Scholar to find papers where compounds were synthesized using ILs, and determined whether the IL played the role as the cation, anion, or neither in the …