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- All Subjects: Sustainability
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
star formation (Dahlem et al. 2006) by comparing maps of 120-240 MHz synchrotron emission and hydrogen alpha (Hα) emission of the tidally-interacting, edge-on, barred spiral galaxy UGC 9665. Synchrotron emission traces magnetic field strength to a rough first order, while Hα emission traces recent massive star formation. UGC 9665 was selected because it was included in the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) TwoMetre Sky Survey (LoTSS; Shimwell et al. (2017)) as well as the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA; Sanchez et al. (2012)). I generated vertical intensity profiles at several distances along the disk from the galactic center for synchrotron emission and Hα in order to measure how the intensity of each falls off with distance from the midplane. In addition to correlating the vertical profiles to see if there is a relationship between star formation and magnetic field strength, I fit the LOFAR vertical profiles to characteristic Gaussian and exponential functions given by Dumke et al. (1995). Fitting these equations have been shown to be good indicators of the main mode of cosmic ray transport, whether it is advection (exponential fit) or diffusion (Gaussian fit) (Heesen et al. 2016). Cosmic rays originate from supernova,
and core collapse supernovae occur in star forming regions, which also produce
advective winds, so I test the correlation between star-forming regions and advective regions as predicted by the Heesen et al. (2016) method. Similar studies should be conducted on different galaxies in the future in order to further test these hypotheses and how well LOFAR and CALIFA complement each other, which will be made possible by the full release of the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) (Shimwell et al. 2017).
Over the last few decades, sustainability has become a great focus for individuals as well as businesses globally. The focus of this study was to understand why businesses purchase certain office supplies and why they may not be choosing to purchase the most sustainable options. The research question asked, “why are certain businesses reluctant to make positive, sustainable changes to their usage of office materials in their workplace environments?” Most companies do not look for alternatives that would benefit the environment when purchasing products for their office space. The reasons behind this hesitancy to change was studied through current literature on the topic as well as interviews conducted with Office Managers of several different businesses. Comparisons were made between each businesses’ decision patterns in order to find the root cause or causes of why companies do not choose more sustainable options when purchasing products for their workspaces. The interviews revealed that cost and quality are the most important factors these businesses take into consideration when purchasing office supplies. While some companies have looked into alternative products for their supplies, they ultimately choose to still purchase the less sustainable option. This is because the less sustainable option is often cheaper, and the company knows what quality to expect for the item. Overall, all of the Office Managers who were interviewed acknowledged some sort of sustainable practice that their company was taking part in, even if it did not directly relate to the types of office supplies that they purchase. This inclusion of general sustainable practices demonstrates how businesses are making efforts one way or another towards a more sustainable future. Therefore, this awareness to sustainability suggests that most, if not all businesses will eventually end up purchasing sustainable alternatives for their office supplies. However, the timeframe for which this occurs for each company will likely vary.
The Star Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) will be a 6U CubeSat devoted to photometric monitoring of M dwarfs in the far-ultraviolet (FUV) and near-ultraviolet (NUV) (160 and 280 nm respectively), measuring the time-dependent spectral slope, intensity and evolution of M dwarf stellar UV radiation. The delta-doped detectors baselined for SPARCS have demonstrated more than five times the in-band quantum efficiency of the detectors of GALEX. Given that red:UV photon emission from cool, low-mass stars can be million:one, UV observation of thes stars are susceptible to red light contamination. In addition to the high efficiency delta-doped detectors, SPARCS will include red-rejection filters to help minimize red leak. Even so, careful red-rejection and photometric calibration is needed. As was done for GALEX, white dwarfs are used for photometric calibration in the UV. We find that the use of white dwarfs to calibrate the observations of red stars leads to significant errors in the reported flux, due to the differences in white dwarf and red dwarf spectra. Here we discuss the planned SPARCS calibration model and the color correction, and demonstrate the importance of this correction when recording UV measurements of M stars taken by SPARCS.