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Testing Stickiness and Effectiveness of Baseball Rubbing Mud
No full textSlippery baseballs are a necessary problem to address because of the potential for injury. A pitcher with little grip on a baseball is more likely to have more wild throws which could lead to injuries to opposing hitters. Finding a solution to this problem can save athletes from missing time due to injury and can enhance the pitcher\u27s performance without the need to cheat. Lena Blackburne found a unique mud that is the most effective at solving the problem. This study tests the extent to which Blackburne’s mud is stickier than soil from a softball field and construction site. Blackburne’s mud was the most consistent at achieving a positive correlation between spin rate and velocity. It also maintains stickiness better when force is applied during a peel test. The properties that make Blackburne’s mud different are that it is a silty clay loam with quartz grains. This is a unique study that explores a relatively unknown nature of Blackburne’s mud and compares it to other common replacement options. It also lays a foundation for exploring future work to find a mud that could be more effective at reducing the slickness of baseballs
Interrogation of the Dopamine Beta-Hydroxylase Mechanism Through Biomimetic Modeling
Get PDFDopamine Beta-Hydroxylase is the enzyme responsible for hydroxylating dopamine to generate norepinephrine in the brain. This synthetic pathway of norepinephrine describes the synthetic foundation for the noradrenergic cycle. The cycle is essential for the neurological function of humans and other organisms. Inhibition of this process and the participating enzymes has been found to lead to Parkinson’s disease along with numerous other neurological and physiological failures. The structure of the active site of Dopamine-beta Hydroxylase contains a binuclear copper complex responsible for the hydroxylation of dopamine substrate, but the current mechanistic understanding of this hydroxylation reaction involves a poorly understood and supported fast electron transfer step. This project aims to support this fast electron transfer step within the current mechanism. By individually modeling the two copper centers termed CuM and CuH with mononuclear, functionally similar coordination complexes, the proposed functionality of each copper center in relation to the overall proposed mechanism can be supported or opposed. These copper model complexes were synthesized from commercial starting materials and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance and visible light absorption spectroscopy. Visible light absorption spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance were utilized to compare the redox activities of these mononuclear complexes to those expected by the individual copper centers in the dopamine beta- hydroxylase enzyme. Data from visible light absorption supported the individual redox functionality of the CuM site model, put only the partial individual functionality of the CuH site model. Electron paramagnetic resonance data to evaluate the dual functionality of the models is pending
Sorting Rocks: The Nuclear Industrial Complex and Southeastern Ohio
No full textThis thesis examines the larger trends of the nuclear industrial complex and the expansion of the federal government through the case study of Southeastern Ohio and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Facility. The nuclear industrial complex refers to the connection between private companies and the government to facilitate the development of nuclear weaponry post World War Two. This thesis makes the argument that the federal government fundamentally changed the area in a way different than previous industries. In examining this trend through the people who live in the area, rather than scholars or those removed from the situation, this thesis takes a new approach to the scholarship of nuclear development and the industry that surrounds it. In adding to the literature on the impact of nuclear industry this thesis adds complexity to the existing narratives of fear and economic impact that dominate the discussion of nuclear development
Toward a More Efficient and Selective Synthesis of Exclusively 7-Substituted Coumarins
No full textCoumarins are a class of natural products with a wide range of biological activities. Few synthetic routes for these compounds are able to make exclusively 7-substituted coumarins. Existing methods generally require harsh reaction conditions and/or require expensive catalysts. This project adapted a one-pot Pechmann reaction employing meta-phenols and 3,3-dimethoxypropionate—a β-aldehyde ester rather than the typical β-keto ester—to examine its efficacy for synthesizing exclusively 7-substitued coumarins. Despite testing four acid catalysts, only trifluoroacetic acid yielded the desired product, albeit with a low yield of 3%. Additionally, an alternative two-step acylation and cyclization sequence using three base catalysts—NaHMDS, NaOMe, and NaOtBu—was performed. This approach was successful only with NaHMDS and NaOMe, giving yields of 5.7 % and 1.5 % respectively. The NaOtBu-facilitated reaction led to unknown byproducts which will be further analyzed with advanced instruments. Future work will focus on elucidating the reaction products with NaOtBu, developing conditions leading to increased yields when using NaHMDS and NaOMe, and assessing the impact of varying phenolic R groups on the selectivity for 7-substitued coumarins compared to 5-substituted coumarins
The Buddy System: Incorporating AI in mental health – Mobile app development & empirical study of AI perceptions
No full textThere has been a recent push to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mental health care. In the context of mental health applications, people\u27s willingness to use AI depends on their attitudes and familiarity with these new technologies. As such, this study had two primary goals: (1) to develop a mental health companion app, Buddy, with an AI-powered chatbot, Sofia, and (2) to conduct a psychological study investigating how different factors (age, openness, chatbot name, and familiarity) affect users\u27 positive or negative perceptions of AI. Both elements of this project work together to ensure that Buddy was developed effectively for its target audience. Buddy was implemented using Flutter and the integration of the Gemini large language model. The psychological research of this project used mediation analysis to evaluate two explanations for positive perceptions of AI, with both openness and familiarity with AI as the two significant contributors to this study. Participants were randomly assigned to read about a chatbot named either MyAI or Sofia to investigate if the naming moderated the degree to which the framing of technologies affected perceptions of such apps. The results of these analyses supported that personality traits were strong predictors of positive perceptions of AI, however, the hypothesized impact of the framing effect was not supported. Overall this research allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the current acceptance of AI within the context of mental health care, and how to leverage technological tools, like AI, in a field requiring our attention with the rising demand for mental health services
Allostatic Load and Subjective Disease Risk Predicts Perceived Environmental Control
No full textThe development of our cognition, perceptual abilities, and fears are pervasive throughout our lifespan. Embodied chronic stress, known as allostatic load, may be such a factor that adversely impacts aging across our development. Perceived control over our environment is influenced by chronic stressors, as certain psychosocial facets of allostatic load have been found to impact these very environmental affordances. This study examines the relationship between subjective feelings of age, subjective disease risk, chronic condition status, facets of allostatic load, and perceived environmental control and mastery. The present study has utilized the third wave of the MIDUS data collection project and the collected measures of chronological and subjective age, subjective cancer and heart attack risk, and perceived control. The study found that an older subjective age significantly predicted variability in perceived control, above that of subjective disease risk and the number of chronic conditions
The Manuscripts of Timbuktu, A Historical Look at the West African City, Its Manuscripts, and Islam, Turned into an Education Unit for High School Classes
No full textThe city of Timbuktu was often referred to as the “City of Gold”, as it has a kind of mythical status around it. Timbuktu is located in West Africa, modern day Mali, and is on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The city got its nickname for being a booming trade hub in Western Africa, that connected the Trans-Saharan trade, to the rest of West Africa. However, on top of being a trade hub, Timbuktu was also the biggest center of education and religious study in West Africa during its “golden age”. As a result of this, Timbuktu is home to thousands of Manuscripts that tell us this history, long before European intervention occurred in the region. Today there is a massive effort to find and preserve these manuscripts. It is Timbuktu’s legacy as a learning city that I will be looking into in this I.S. I find the topic of Timbuktu and its manuscripts fascinating, and overall, a topic that see very little discussion in classrooms today. I will talk about history of the city during the time of different West African empires, the role of Islam, and go into detail about the city’s manuscripts.
The second part of this I.S is a unit plan for the Manuscripts of Timbuktu, that could be taught in an African history, or world history class at the middle school and high school level. The design of the unit would go as follows. Each chapter about Timbuktu and its manuscripts would be its own lesson in the unit. With each lesson getting its own lesson plan designed by the College of Wooster\u27s education department. At the end of the unit, I will have a final assessment that would be used to assess students understanding. The end goal is to have an interesting and functional unit that could be put applied in the classroom
Growing The Buzz: Promoting Local Bee, Wasp, and Plant Knowledge Through Biodiversity Surveys and Environmental Education
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