Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: Chemical Engineering Program
Description
This research investigated deionized water contact angle measurement reliability with alumina powder using the Washburn method. This method relates the capillary rise of a liquid through a column of packed powder to the contact angle of the system. A reference liquid that is assumed to be perfectly wetting, such as hexane due to the low surface energy, must be used to compare to the tested liquid. Consistency was hypothesized to be achieved with more powder structure and consistency of packing between reference and test trials. The three types of packing structures explored in this study were unstructured, visually-structured (user tapped), and machine-structured tapping. It was also hypothesized that similar contact angle results would be found for different packing methods of the same powder and liquid. However, the average contact angle for unstructured packing was found to be 32.9°, while the angle for the tapped structure was only 11.7°. This large deviation between types of packing shows that there are more inconsistencies with the use of this method than just the regulation of the packing structure. There were two similar glass chromatography columns used, but the second column experienced an unknown interference that led to a delay in the hexane uptake into the powder, which then led to invalid contact angle calculations. There was no discernible relationship between the packing structure and the standard deviation between trials, so the more structured packing does not seem to affect the consistency of results. It is recommended to perform more experiments on a single packing type with different apparatuses and a narrower particle size range.
ContributorsConvery, Brittany Alexis (Author) / Emady, Heather (Thesis director) / Vajrala, Spandana (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
DescriptionThis project is designed to generate enthusiasm for science among refugee students in hopes of inspiring them to continue learning science as well as to help them with their current understanding of their school science subject matter.
ContributorsSipes, Shannon Paige (Author) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Thesis director) / Gregg, George (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Animation is a medium that is not taken as seriously as live-action television and film. This thesis focuses on the representation of LGBT characters in American animation and attempts to give a rigorous analysis on a medium that should be taken seriously. Analysis is done on the stereotypes and coding from various animated shows, such as South Park, Family Guy, and Steven Universe. The shows are further divided into adult and children's animation, in which the analysis will track how LGBT characters are represented and have progressed in both. The thesis describes how problematic these characters may potentially be and how the images may project certain cultural and social attitudes towards the LGBT community. The thesis also considers the future of queer visibility and representation in other mediums, other than just in broadcast television. It was found that representation begins in the early 90s in adult comedy animation with Big Gay Al in South Park. In adult animation, the focus is usually more on the use of stereotypes and how these stereotypes are used for comedy. These stereotypes are sometimes enforced or subverted, depending on the show. It was also found that in adult animation, there has been a shift towards normalizing queer characters to fit a heteronormative framework. For children's animation, the sexuality of a character is subtler and coded with context clues. Some children and teen shows have decided to reveal the sexuality of certain characters in the last episode of the series. Children's animation also follows a similar trend that adult animation has taken with the normalization of queer characters.
ContributorsVuong, Hansen (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Zoraida Ladrón de Guevarra was born in 1936 in Coyula, Mexico, a small village in the state of Oaxaca. Her father’s passing required Zoraida to find a job at age fourteen to support her family. Her story, a 200-page memoir entitled “After Papa Died,” follows Zoraida’s time as a servant and eventual nanny in Veracruz. Flashing back to memories of her hometown and the people living in it, the story ends before she enters America first as a visitor in 1954, and later on a working Visa in 1957—the first woman in her village to leave to the United States. Hers is a story relevant today, evident with the paradoxes explored between poverty and riches, patriarchy and matriarchy, freedom and captivity. Assimilation impacts the reading of this memoir, as Zoraida began writing the memoir in her 80s (around fifty years after gaining American citizenship). This detailed family history is about the nature of memory, community, and in particular, the experience of being an immigrant. This thesis project centers on this text and includes three components: an edited memoir, informational interviews, and an introduction. Beginning as a diary steeped in the tradition of oral history, the memoir required a “translation” into a written form; chapters and chronological continuity helped with organization. Topics of interest from the story, such as identity, domestic violence, and religion, are further explored in a series of interviews with Zoraida. The inclusion of an introduction to the text contextualizes the stories documented in the memoir with supplemental information. The contents of the project are housed on a website: alongwaybabyproject.net.
ContributorsVan Slyke, Shea Elizabeth (Author) / Meloy, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Microvillus Inclusion disease is a fatal disease found in the Navajo population caused by a single nucleotide polymorphism. It is characterized by intractable diarrhea and is often fatal early in life.1 The current method of diagnosis is sending duodenal biopsies for histopathological examination and confirmatory testing through genomic sequencing. The purpose of this experiment was to create a more simple and cost-effective diagnostic method for detecting Microvillus Inclusion disease. Three methods were explored (RFLP2, ARMS3,4, and Tentacle Probes5,6) and two methods were tested to determine their ability and their efficiency in detecting the SNP that causes the disease.2 Tests using the RFLP2 method and synthetic DNA resulted in 9% false-positive rate and 11% false-negative rate in a blind trial for detecting both target (mutation present) and non-target (mutation absent) DNA when gel analyzing software was used to compare Rf values after gel electrophoresis. Using the ARMS method3, a nine-sample randomized test was run that ended up with 22% false-positive rate and 19% false-negative rate from a blind trial when using a gel analyzing software to determine presence of the SNP by band intensity. Disclaimer: No DNA from human patients was used in this study. Only synthetic DNA used.
ContributorsHelmbrecht, Hawley Elizabeth (Author) / Caplan, Michael (Thesis director) / Carpentieri, David (Committee member) / Dubois, Courtney (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Membrane proteins (MPs) are an important aspect of cell survival that ensure structural integrity, signaling, and transportation of molecules. Since 2015, over 450 MPs have been studied to find their functionalities and structure. Sufficient amounts of correctly folded MPs are needed to accurately study them through crystallography and other structural study methods. Use of recombinant technology is needed to overexpress MPs as natural abundance of MP is often too slow to provide the necessary amounts. However, an increase in toxicity and decrease in generation time deter the overexpression of MPs. The following report discusses two methods of enhancing overexpression in Escherchia coli, the use of T7 RNA polymerase (T7RNAP) and the reprogramming of chaperon pathways, that combats toxicity and promotes cell growth. Overall, both methods are proven to work effectively to overexpress MPs by regulating transcription rate of mRNA (T7RNAP) or folding and transporting of polypeptides to inner membrane (chaperon pathway). To further study the effectiveness of the two methods, they will need to be compared at the same conditions. In addition, a combination of two methods should also be studied to find out if the combination would have a great impact on the overexpression of the MPs.
ContributorsHan, Sue Jisue (Author) / Nannenga, Brent (Thesis director) / Green, Matthew (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
A key component to American weddings is the wedding cake and the number of customs associated with it. The History, Evolution, and Development of Wedding Cakes is a creative project that hopes to answer why the wedding cake is such an iconic item and what it represents. A historical study details the evolution from its origin to present day while a comparison of wedding cakes (or wedding cake analogs) from other cultures explores their role(s) across the globe. It was found that while little regard is given to the symbolism of the wedding cake today, its presence persists in some shape or form as it continues to evolve. Cultural variations were recreated to reflect personal interpretations of contemporary designs in addition to an original design of a contemporary-rustic American wedding cake.
ContributorsYung, Andra (Author) / Levinson, Simin (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Mark (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
One of the primary bottlenecks to chemical production in biological organisms is the toxicity of the chemical. Overexpression of efflux pumps has been shown to increase tolerance to aromatic compounds such as styrene and styrene oxide. Tight control of pump expression is necessary to maximize titers and prevent excessive strain on the cells. This study aimed to identify aromatic-sensitive native promoters and heterologous biosensors for construction of closed-loop control of efflux pump expression in E. coli. Using a promoter library constructed by Zaslaver et al., activation was measured through GFP output. Promoters were evaluated for their sensitivity to the addition of one of four aromatic compounds, their "leaking" of signal, and their induction threshold. Out of 43 targeted promoters, 4 promoters (cmr, mdtG, yahN, yajR) for styrene oxide, 2 promoters (mdtG, yahN) for styrene, 0 promoters for 2-phenylethanol, and 1 promoter for phenol (pheP) were identified as ideal control elements in aromatic bioproduction. In addition, a series of three biosensors (NahR, XylS, DmpR) known to be inducible by other aromatics were screened against styrene oxide, 2-phenylethanol, and phenol. The targeted application of these biosensors is aromatic-induced activation of linked efflux pumps. All three biosensors responded strongly in the presence of styrene oxide and 2-phenylethanol, with minor activation in the presence of phenol. Bioproduction of aromatics continues to gain traction in the biotechnology industry, and the continued discovery of aromatic-inducible elements will be essential to effective pathway control.
ContributorsXu, Jimmy (Author) / Nielsen, David (Thesis director) / Wang, Xuan (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Imaging analysis of local drug delivery is important because in both studies involving chemotherapy targeted toward glioblastoma and antimicrobial addressing infection, the drug concentration and distribution are unknown. There are a variety of studies focused on the local delivery of drug to a targeted location, but we are presenting a way of quantifying the concentration of the drug and the distribution of the drug during a period of time. This study aims to do that by utilizing Materialise Mimics to analyze the MRI images of local drug delivery in glioblastoma in canines and antimicrobial gel in rabbit femurs. The focus of the technique is to register the anatomy in T1-weighted spin echo images to the drug delivery in T2 flow attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images in order to see where the drug went and did not go relative to the anatomical part. Both studies focus on addressing effective volumes of drug to a designated anatomical area, in which the delivery can be difficult as it involves bypassing the blood brain barrier in the first study and achieving effective volumes while preventing toxicity to the kidneys in the second study. The goal of this project lies in determining the drug volumes and location for the specified duration and anatomical part.
ContributorsJehng, Hope (Author) / Caplan, Michael (Thesis director) / Sirianni, Rachael (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In industrial applications, rotary drums are poorly understood and preform suboptimally when used to process particulates. In order to better understand how these drums work, a statistical experiment was designed to measure the effects of the fill level and rotation rate on the final temperature of the particle bed. A steel rotary drum was set up to be headed by three external heat guns, simulating the conditions under which standard rotary drums are operated. By measuring the bed temperature at steady state, and recording the combination of factors in each run, a regression analysis was run to determine the factor's effects. Fill level was seen to have a small positive effect, rotation rate was seen to have a small negative effect, and the interaction of the two was shown to have a large positive effect. This led the team to conclude that the flow profile of the bed may be the most important factor in heat transfer, and that further research should be done to isolate and study the effect of the flow profile.
ContributorsBeairsto, Cole James (Author) / Emady, Heather (Thesis director) / Adepu, Manogna (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05