STRATA

: A Comparison of a Mean Field Theoretical Approach to Ferromagnetism with Experimental Results; Often, trying to describe how atomic interactions in a structure come to manifest themselves macroscopically is tedious if not impossible when large numbers of molecules or atoms are being considered. One way to more easily approximate the expected behavior of a large system is to consider how the "mean field" affects a single particle and observing its behavior. In magnetic systems, there is an electromagnetic exchange between individual dipoles that extends only negligibly beyond the other dipoles immediately adjacent to them. By "tagging" an individual dipole in a tetragonal crystal lattice of ferromagnetic dipoles and then "freezing" the dipoles immediately near it, the mean field produced by the frozen dipoles can be calculated, and the net effect of the mean field on the tagged dipole can be seen. In the case of ferromagnetism (and all magnetic systems), the agnetization and orientations of dipoles are dependent on temperature. To see this, several magnets were cooled with liquid nitrogen and allowed to warm back up to room temperature while the strength of their magnetic fields were measured at a constant distance. The observed field strengths are then compared with theoretical results produced from the mean field approximation.

: A Day of Me; Poem by Jessica Lewis from Fall 2012 - Winter 2013 issue of Images.

: A Feminist Critique of the Dairy Industry; In the last century, women's rights have become a widely debated issue and various feminist philosophies have developed to argue for the equal opportunity of woman in relation to men. From "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Wollstonecraft, to radical feminist arguments posed by Firestone, many ways of thinking about feminist issues have been presented and the importance of discussing gender issues has become apparent and prevalent in our society. Almost no researchers on the topic, however, think that gendered issues, more specifically feminist needs, have been fully addressed. Currently, females are still not offered the same employment opportunities, nor do they occupy many political positions. It seems to me that a more pressing female issue has surfaced, which requires our attention now. Consider this case: a dystopian society in which females are not only oppressed, but used and deprived of all experiences which render a life worth living. Imagine females harnessed as breeding machines for the use of men, producers of milk and offspring, having no use past their ability to produce for the personal ends of other beings. Imagine young females and adults alike, kept in confinement with no room to move, forcibly impregnated almost immediately after the resulting pregnancy, never allowed to spend personal time with the babies, which belong only to men. This is the reality of billions of non-human animals involved in the dairy and egg industries. Many feminists have likened the oppression of women to the oppression of non-human nature, claiming that the ways in which we dominate nature help explain and give insight into the ways in which women are oppressed by men and patriarchal structures. In this paper, I intend to argue that the oppression of non-human animals in the dairy and egg industries are essentially feminist and human-rights issues since non-human animals are morally relevant to us, and treatment of a morally valued being is ethically impermissible. Thus, I will attempt to argue for the conclusion that the dairy and egg industries ought to be abolished altogether since they are inherently abusive, oppressive, and require the denial of bodily integrity to the beings involved.

: A Firefighter's Personal Case Study of an Explosion from a Trauma Perspective; On February 22, 2007, an explosion tore through the Le Rendezvous restaurant injuring nine firefighters three of whom spent a night in the hospital. Being one of the three firefighters that spent the night and reflecting on how the event shaped me, my interest in a relatively new field of psychology dealing with trauma was born. Remembering what happened to me from the very second that the explosion occurred, to the moment I realized half of my body was being buried by rubble, then to the chaotic ambulance ride to the hospital, and finally being consoled by friends and family makes for a perfect case study from a personal view point. Every day, people experience traumatic and emotional events. The intensity of an event can affect every person differently and can lead to the development of psychological disorders. Examples of some traumatic events are car accidents, natural and manmade disasters, unexpected death of a loved one and so on. Emotional events can come in a positive manner like child birth or a marriage but it is the negative events like witnessing someone in distress that brands a lasting effect in an individual's brain. The physiology of trauma suggests that certain areas of the brain in the temporal lobe are where a majority of the recording for these events occur. When a stimulus acts on an individual reminding them of the event, anxiety and stress may be caused. Two different methods of memory enable a person to reflect on where and what happened. If not dealt with properly and thought about, traumatic and emotional events can lead individuals to develop anxiety disorders as well as substance abuse to numb the effects that the event has on them. Many different methods have been developed in order to help individuals, in particular first responders, in dealing with traumatic and emotional events. CISD is the most widely used method to get first responders to deal with what they witnessed. Beyond dealing with the event "in house," therapists have developed other methods on the basis of positive psychology to help individuals cope. Through my experience I have analyzed everything mentioned and exactly how it affected me throughout the year since the incident.

: A Fracture Analysis to Assess the Structural History of the Equity Block at Creede, CO; The Creede district in central Colorado has a mining history of nearly 150 years. During this time most of the mining has focused on Ag-Pb-Zn-Cu mineralization associated with main-stage Creede mineralization, which happened around 25 Ma in response to hydrothermal circulation on the margin of the 26 Ma Creede caldera. Exploration and mining in the northern part of the district has focused on the Equity fault. This fault represents a major mineralized structure characterized by gold mineralization. The Equity fault forms the southern margin of a major fault-bounded block known as the Equity "horst" block. A prevailing thought was that the Equity block was uplifted about 1,300 feet prior to mineralization either by emplacement of a shallow pluton or by compressive tectonics that caused reverse displacement. An alternative hypothesis was the block had experienced normal displacement, but then underwent rotation to produce an apparent reverse displacement. In this research project, joints that developed within and adjacent to the Equity block, as well as structural features in the Equity fault, were examined to gain insight into the origin of the block and test previous hypothesis. Stereonet plots of over 440 joint measurements reveal two distinct and dominant joint patterns. One joint set strikes at 195° and dips 80° west, subparallel to the Amethyst fault that bounds the Equity block to the west and is one the main mineralized zones in the district. The other set of joints strikes at 270° and dips ~70° north, subparallel to the Equity fault. Movement on both of the faults appears to have influenced joint development in the area. Considering the joint data, and structural fabrics and features along the Equity fault, we propose that the structure is an extensional feature even though it has apparent reverse displacement. Our analysis suggests the possibility that the entire Equity block was tilted south during the resurgence of the 26.9 Ma San Luis caldera, changing the orientation of the Equity fault.

: A GIS study of Rock Glacier features: Sneffels Range, Colorado; GIS and Google Earth were used to interpret the surface morphology of rock glaciers in the Mount Sneffels Range of Ouray County, Colorado. Measurements were collected for furrows and ridges of each rock glacier studied. The data that was collected was used to detect and present a trend in size, surface morphology, and deposition.

: A Game of Chutes and Ladders as a Markov Chain; A Markov chain is a system consisting of finitely many states and a set of probabilities that dictate the likelihood of moving from any given state to a different state in a fixed time period. The long-term behavior of movement between states in such a system can be modeled using matrices. In the game of Chutes and Ladders, the player moves between positions on the board based on the roll of dice. We use Markov Chains to analyze the game, and then develop other versions of the game that are interesting from that standpoint of probability.

: A Geologic Assessment of the Silver Cloud Mine, Red Mountain Mining District, San Juan County, Colorado; The Silver Cloud Mine is a cordilleran vein-hosted hydrothermal ore deposit that developed within the Red Mountain mining district from 30 to 20 million years ago. Mineralizaton is confined to radial and concentric ring faulting from the collapse of the San Juan and Silverton calderas adjacently east of the mine. Detailed field and analytical studies establish that the mine contains three primary veins that are dominated by mesothermal lead-zinc-copper mineralization with minor silver and gold. Mineralization exhibits textures of open-space filling along fractures that are mantled by proximal phyllic and regionally pervasive propyllitic alteration assemblages. The association of ore minerals, exsolution products and alteration assemblages in these deposits indicate that mineralization formed under early conditions of 300°C- 600°C and moderate pressures consistent with formative conditions of the mesothermal category. Vein types in this deposit vary from massive quartz-calcite hosted veins with abundant base-metal sulfides (vein 1), to finely disseminated silver-rich sulfides (vein 2) and zones of anastomosing bull quartz dominated veins with minor pyrite (vein 3). Grade and tonnage estimates on these veins indicate that vein-type 1 has the highest potential for development with 19,419 tons assaying about 0.19% copper, 12.80% zinc, 6.90% lead, 1.11 ounces of silver, and 0.43 grams of gold per ton of ore. A comparison of selected geochemical signatures indicates a poor overall correlation of trace elements (As, Sb, etc) with mineralization. This implies that mineralization does not have a strong association with any given mineral or combination of minerals in the system to serve as exploration tools. Results of laboratory analysis and field work indicate a significant orebody at the Silver Cloud with base metals comprising most of the value. Vein 1 is the only mineralized structure of considerable value with a gross value of $7.14 million at $367.82/ton. While lateral and vertical expression of vein 1 are limited to a single drift level, exploration drilling at two specified sites will help to identify the extent of mineralization and zoning beyond current exposure. The economic viability of producing metals from the Silver Cloud will ultimately be determined by the profit margin that production costs afford.

: A Geospatial Analysis of the California Drought: Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Trinity Lake, and Shasta Lake; The state of California is currently in a drought and has been since 2011. With less precipitation falling and temperatures rising, farmers have had to use an increasing amount of water to keep their crops sufficiently hydrated which in turn has contributed to a drop in water levels (Richman 2015). This research project looks at three different reservoirs that are all important for supplying water for either agricultural, industrial, or domestic usages throughout the state. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir supplies water for the city and county of San Francisco while Shasta Lake and Lake Trinity both are the major water supplies for the Central Valley Project. The Central Valley Project helps supply water and power for the entire state and is the main irrigation water provider for agriculture in the Central Valley (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 2013). Landsat satellite imagery has been geospatially manipulated to determine how the three reservoirs surface areas have changed throughout a 20 year period, 1995 - 2015. The general results concluded that the water level have been steadily dropping and that since the drought started the water levels have dropped significantly. Hetch Hetchy's result were interesting as its surface area has not dropped nearly as much as the other two reservoirs. Prediction were then calculated and if current drought conditions continue these reservoirs could run dry in only a few years. It is unlikely that the reservoirs will fully dry up but it does put pressure on California to change and adapt to it new future climate. Whether this will be through genetically modifying crops to become drought resistant or having an increase in desalination plants to harvest water from its coast, if something does not change, California is in for a shaky and dry future.

: A Green, Asymmetric Total Synthesis of the Antiviral Natural Product Sattabacin; The sattabacins and sattazolins are fascinating natural products isolated from soil bacteria by Italian researchers. These natural products were shown to exhibit potent antiviral activity against various viruses including herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 and type 2 in the µg/mL range. Sixty million Americans are infected with HSV-2, an incurable viral infection, and numerous studies have shown that HSV-1 infection leads to a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Due to their unknown stereochemistry and the lack of access to significant quantities for further testing of antiviral properties, the total synthesis of these compounds in the laboratory is an important goal. Within this context, a concise total synthesis of the antiviral natural product sattabacin is reported in only three chemical steps from the naturally occurring amino acid L-phenylalanine. Preparation of a Weinreb amide proceeded in two steps according to established literature precedent. Reaction of this amide with an appropriate Grignard reagent furnished the natural product sattabacin in excellent overall yield. The synthesis is extremely short and does not employ protecting groups minimizing the waste generated. By employing other Grignard reagents in the final step, the synthesis of sattabacin is also amenable to the preparation of sattabacin analogues. One analogue has already been prepared and efforts are underway to prepare additional compounds that will be screened for antiviral activity.

: A Heart Longing to Beat; Poem by Meghanne Shipe, published in Fall 2013-Winter 2014 issue of Images

: A Job Well Done; Poem by Jacob Wilson, published in Fall 2013-Winter 2014 issue of Images.

Main menu

Pages

Pages

Main menu

You are here

User login

STRATA

Pages

Pages