Sewanee: Scholarship Sewanee 2009
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Item Evaluation of two organic laboratory experiments according to the principles of green chemistry(2009-04-16) Carpenter, Molly; Gray, Margaret Anne; Dauer, HelenA new trend in chemical education incorporates green chemistry practices into laboratory courses as evidenced by the Green Organic Chemistry course taught by Kenneth Doxee and James Hutchison at the University of Oregon. We sought to compare an experiment from the Doxee and Hutchison’s Green Organic Chemistry lab manual to an experiment currently done in Sewanee’s Organic Chemistry course. We performed the aldol reactions from each organic laboratory manual and evaluated these reactions based on the principles of green chemistry accepted by the US EPA and the American Chemical Society.Item Mathematically Generated Fife Tunes(2009-04-16) Tracy, Anna; Drinen, DougTrying completely to reduce musical composition to a simple mathematical algorithm may be impossible, but mathematics undeniably plays a major role in writing music. To investigate the role of mathematics in musical composition, we created a model that randomly generates music predominantly using a Markov chain. A Markov chain is a set of possible states and the probabilities that a given state will lead to any of the others. For this model, the states were a particular note (or sequence of notes) extracted from a data set of about 200 fife tunes. Using the probabilities as weights, the model then randomly generates a new, fife-tune-like song.Item Optimization of Oxidative Desulfurization: Using a film-shear to achieve ultra-low sulfur levels in diesel fuel(2009-04-16) Dauer, Helen; Fox, Brandy R.; Tyler, David R.A major focus of clean-fuels research involves the removal of sulfur contaminants from diesel jet fuel. Oxidative desulfurization with aqueous hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizing agent is one possible method of sulfur removal. Although this method is successful in removing recalcitrant sulfur compounds, it requires elevated temperatures, extended reaction times and mixing of the aqueous oxidizing agent and organic fuel. A film-shear spinning disc reactor can be used to improve these reaction conditions. In this research the reactor was shown to successfully oxidize two sulfur-containing compounds found in diesel fuel:2-methylbenzothiophene and 4,60dimethylbenzothiophene. Tow thiophenes know to be major contaminants of jet fuel:2,3-dimethylthiopehene and 2,3,7-trimethylbenzothiophene, were also oxidized by the reactor.Item Comfort Seeking: Validation of a new measure and its association with GPA(2009-04-16) Bardi, C. Albert; Brady, Michael F.; Kravitz, Rachel A.; Magrath, Elizabeth R.; Thomasson, Ann L.B.Comfort seeking is defined as the pursuit of physical, mental and social ease. A measure of comfort seeking would theoretically correlate positively with measures of dependent personality traits (Dependent Personal Questionnaire, DPQ), anxiety symptoms (Beck Anxiety Inventory, BAI) and somatization (Somatization Scale of the Brief Symptom Check List 90, SOM). It was also hypothesized that comfort seeking would be negatively correlated with openness to experience (Big Five Inventory—Openness to Experience scale, BFI-OE), conscientiousness and emotional stability (Ten Item Personality Inventory, TPI-C and TPI-ES, respectively). Our research group generated a pool of twenty-two items based on four theoretical comfort domains: general, physical, mental and interpersonal comfort. The items were administered along with the proposed personality correlates to 178 undergraduates. Only items that correlated in the hypothesized direction with at least two of the other administered measures were included in a factor analysis. A principle axis factors analysis yielded a one-factor solution accounting for 21.3% of the variance. The final seven-item Comfort Seeking Scale (CSS) correlated positively with SOM, DPQ and BAI. The scale also correlated negatively with BFI-OE, TPI-C, TPI-ES, and contrary to prediction, a measure of extraversion (TPI-EX). Higher scores on the CSS were found to be negatively associated with cumulative grade point average. Further development of the CSS is discussed.Item Measuring the galvanotaxic response of Amoeba proteus to a changing DC electrical field(2009-04-16) Palisano, John; Sealander, Bryce; Merriman, Joseph; Brown, Jim; Hart, Francis X.Galvanotaxis is the change in cellular movement created by an electrical field. Different types of motile cells have been shown to exhibit galvanotaxis on a time frame of an hour in previous investigations. Amoeba typically migrate towards the negative pole. In contrast, we have video recorded the directional movement of Amoeba proteus on a time frame of minutes in response to a DC electrical field (dcEF) for which the polarity is occasionally reversed. In addition to observing directional changes, the video recording makes it possible to continuously measure the velocity and acceleration of Amoeba proteus and the cytoplasmic streaming as the polarity and strength of the field change. We have confirmed that even on a time scale of a few minutes the amoeba migrates toward the negative pole in a field of about 300 V/m. We have also observed that the amoeba can respond to changes in the direction of the field within a minute.