STRATA
STRATA, the STudent Research, Academic, and Talent Archive, is a collection of selected Fort Lewis College student work, including undergraduate research, senior seminar papers, published works, conference presentations, and other creative and artistic projects. Search by name, subject, title, or academic department.
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- Mining for Tourism: Connections Between Moab, Utah's Uranium Industry and the Creation of Canyonlands National Park: 1948-1964
- In the 1950s, many towns across the Colorado Plateau were affected by the Cold War and subsequent uranium boom. Moab, Utah is a particularly interesting case study on the effects of mining on small communities in that it managed to survive past its boomtown phase and continue on as a tourist destination through the second half of the 20th Century. What ultimately saved the town's economy and to some extent, its "soul," was tourism stimulated by the establishment of Canyonlands National Park. This transition from a mining-based to tourism-based economy can be seen in cultural changes in the town itself. The ways in which the local population and the nation at large viewed the landscape also changed; the most sought after resources in Canyon Country changed from minerals that could be extracted to tourism that could generate revenue. These cultural and economic changes can be seen in local newspapers, personal stories, and cultural artifacts. Uranium prospectors and government-sponsored mining companies established many of the roads that are now used as access points to Canyonlands National Park. Political documents and correspondences relating to the establishment of Canyonlands also show the importance of economics in matters of wilderness preservation. This provides another link between the two industries as politicians convinced mining advocates that tourism, through preservation, could be an equally productive industry. All of this information comes together to show that the uranium boom and the establishment of Canyonlands National Park are closely connected historical events. Mineral prospecting and exploration revealed the landscape that would eventually become Canyonlands, while the park's creation and associated tourist industry replaced the uranium industry as the foundation for Moab's cultural identity.
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- Mobile Hazmat Emergency Facility
- S2 Engineering is a senior design team in the Department of Physics and Engineering designing an emergency facility for hazardous material exposure. The objective of this project is to design and build an ANSI Z358.1 certified onsite safety shower to handle emergency personnel exposure of toxic propellants. This project has been specifically sponsored by Advanced Mobile Propulsion Test (AMPT), a local aerospace company. This project grants the team the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the wide range of skills attained while completing the undergraduate program at FLC. These skills include but are not limited to fluid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, pumping technology, hazardous chemicals, general construction, electrical and flow meter analysis. Developments from this project can be used by future students as a platform from which they can gain experience in fluid analysis, thermal processes, Hazmat safety requirements, and networking with industry personnel. The end result of the project is to demonstrate ANSI certification of both shower and eyewash with flow rates of 20 GPM and 0.4 GPM, respectively. The purpose of the project was to design and build an emergency shower that will be used by AMPT when traveling to testing sites. The shower must be able to be portable, cost effective, ANSI certified, and be quickly operatable once onsite. Also, the unit must not be considered an oversized load.
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- Modeling and Characterization of Porous Silicon Reflectance
- Porous silicon offers remarkable optical properties which have a wide range of applications. A method to predict the reflectance of arbitrarily etched porous silicon structures using a numerical thin film model is posed. Porous silicon samples were created using an anodization cell of our design and reflectance measurements were compared to the model. The theoretical reflectance curves show a promising correlation to the actual data. More samples including AC etched ones need to be created and characterized using more precise methods in order to further validate the modeling method.
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- Modeling and Prototyping of a Macro Scale-Cantilever Biosensor
- Development of potable water systems throughout the less developed world necessitates a rapid and accurate method of water quality analysis. Poor water quality is commonly determined by the presence of E. coli. This bacterium leads to multiple health problems and in the cases of the elderly or very young ingestion of E. coli may lead to death. Currently a device known as a biosensor is under development. This device utilizes change in the natural frequency to detect small masses such as E. coli and requires much less time in comparison to current methodology. Although there are multiple types of biosensors, the most sensitive to small changes in mass is the dynamic piezo-electric millimeter size cantilever, or PEMC. This project investigates the mass sensitivity and construction of a dynamic PEMC. Due to the difficulties associated with construction, prototype cantilevers are scaled to the centimeter scale. To reduce the number of prototypes constructed, computer models are developed and validated to within 12% of published values. This model is then utilized to predict response of prototype cantilevers. To analyze sensitivity to mass change a series of experiments are performed measuring the change in frequency with the addition of 10 µg, 20 µg, and 30 µg respectively. The prototype cantilevers performed as expected showing significant shifts in frequency due to mass with the best equipment resolution being in the range of 2 to 3 kHz with a mass sensitivity of 130 Hz/1 µg.
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- Morgan - Consent Form
- Consent form for "Mapping Surface Geochemical Data with GIS in Lower Lisbon Valley, Utah" by Tanner Morgan
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- Morning
- Poem by Tim Glotstein from Fall 2012 - Winter 2013 issue of Images.
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- Mortal Self-Portraits: How Terror Management Affects Judgments of Self and Other
- This study investigated how individuals rate men, women, and self on common personality characteristics when death is made salient. Results indicated a significant effect of death on women's ratings but not men's. Under the death prompt, women considered themselves significantly more judgmental, moody, materialistic, and easily embarrassed, and rated their own personalities as adhering significantly more to negative female trait stereotypes.
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- Mortality Salience Amplifies Moral Appraisal
- Powerpoint presentation on a study to test the central claims of two emerging social psychology theories, Terror Management Theory and Moral Foundations theory.
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- Music Tonality and Mindfulness
- " The integration of instruments designed to measure aspects of ones physical well-being have nuzzled their way into the daily lives of many individuals. Devics, such as Fitbits and smart watches effectively monitor the amount of physical activity one endures throughout the day, allowing one to measure productivity against the fitness goals, facilitating an awareness of physical well-being and promoting healthier lifestyles. When the concern is shifted from purely physical aspects of daily life to aspects of cognitive and emotional well-being, there are currently no available metrics that congeal with the demands and common routines affiliated with modernity. The language surrounding cognitive and emotional well-being is often colloquial and conveys abstract concepts, engendering arbitrary measurements. When one speaks of a feeling, he or she is speaking of an experience that has been processed through the limbic region of the brain. People often find it difficult to express feelings because the limbic region of the brain does not have the capacity to form language. Because of this disconnect between how people process their emotions and how they manifest into thought, individuals often fail to resolve such issues as they misattribute the cause of their emotional discomforts to entities that conveniently invite blame: the weather, traffic, relationships, etc. The purpose of the current study is to explore the efficacy of an alternative method of mindfulness practice, which incorporates a specific faculty of daily life that has transcended the barriers of modernity. The proposed method analyzes music to which people, on an individual basis, have a strong, positive emotional reaction. By investigating the relationship between the keynote and tempo of the individual's (N=61) song choice to data collected from a 25 item, self-report, emotional well-being inventory, I intend to highlight specific song traits as they relate to specific emotional needs. Under the assumption that an individual's song choice facilitates an emotional longing, I hypothesize that the keynote of each music sample will correlate to a specific set of emotional needs not met. The tempo, I hypothesize, will indicate the participants' needs for increased stimulation (higher tempo) or decreased stimulation (slower tempo). Using a convenience sample of Fort Lewis College students, the results indicate a moderately positive relationship between keynote choice and their affiliated emotions according to previous literature—though more participants will be needed in order to increase the external validity of these findings. There was no clear relationship identified between tempo and a need for stimuli modification. However, this may be due to an instrumental error, which confounded the internal validity of the tempo analysis. Alterations will be necessary as this research continues. "
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- Mutational Analysis of the H2B:H4 Interface of the Nucleosome
- The goal for this project was to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow for successful transcription of DNA when it is wrapped into nucleosomes. Previous work indicated that an interface between histones H2B and H4 can alter gene expression in yeast. We began our work by creating point mutations in H4 to alter the way it interacts with H2B at this interface. The effect of the mutations were measured using a red-white assay that causes yeast cells to produce a red pigmentation when the ADE2 gene is not expressed (i.e. silent), or a white coloration when the ADE2 gene is expressed. The four mutations we investigated behaved as expected: Bulkier changes like the H75F mutation increased ADE2 silencing while the smaller changes of T71S, Y72A, and E74D all decreased ADE2 silencing. To further confirm the results obtained during this experiment, a similar mutational analysis will be conducted for H2B, where mutants E90D, T93S, L97A, and L97F will be created and tested for their effect on ADE2 gene expression.
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- Mutations at the H2B:H4 Interface of the Yeast Nucleosome Alter Expression of Telomeric ADE2 Gene
- Two independent yeast genetic screens—one that addressed H4 mutations that increase telomeric ADE2 silencing and one that addressed H2B mutations that decrease telomeric ADE2 silencing—revealed that the interface within the nucleosome between H2B and H4 plays a role in telomeric gene expression. To further characterize this interface, we conducted a mutational analysis that altered H4 and H2B residues protruding into the interface. The mutations we analyzed are surprisingly subtle—substitutions of Arg with Lys, His with Tyr and Glu with Asp or Tyr with Ser. In some cases, introducing a bulkier side chain appeared to decrease ADE2-TEL expression, whereas introducing smaller side chains appeared to increase ADE2-TEL expression. These results show that the H2B:H4 interface plays a role in telomeric gene expression and may provide insight into nucleosome dynamics during transcription.
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- My Beautiful Black Rainbow
- Poem by Janine Fitzgerald from Fall 2008 - Winter 2009 issue of Images.