Cellulose Acetate/Butyrate as a Support Polymer in Polymer Inclusion Membranes

by

Arlo McGinn and Dr. John D. Lamb, Chemistry and Biochemistry Developing efficient means of making chemical separations of solutions is a problem that has long concerned chemists. This ability to separate a solution into its individual components or selectively remove elements of the solution is helpful in the treatment and refinement of nuclear waste and […]

The Flavodoxin Reduced All-Ferrous Fe Protein in Nitrogenase

by

Tom Lowery Jr. and Dr. Gerald D. Watt, Chemistry and Biochemistry Nitrogenase, an enzyme system found in a small, diverse group of diazotrophic microorganisms, is responsible for the natural reduction of atmospheric N2 to NH3. Nitrogenase plays a critical role in the earth’s nitrogen cycle and has therefore been a subject of intense study for […]

A Proposed Thin Film Process for Shortening Carbon Nanotube AFM Probes

by

Dale S. Kitchen and Dr. Robert C. Davis, Physics and Astronomy This report describes the growth of carbon nanotubes on sharp silicon cantilevers through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and the implementation of thin film and acid etch techniques to shorten the grown nanotubes. Silicon and silicon-nitride probes serve as the principle imaging tools for Atomic […]

Work Towards Building an Extreme Ultraviolet Ellipsometer

by

Cort N. Johnson and Dr. David D. Allred, Physics and Astronomy The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) optics group at Brigham Young University uses thin film technology to develop multiplayer mirrors and designed to reflect well at certain EUV wavelengths. We need methods of measuring layer thickness on the order of a few angstroms. One method often […]

Use of Gold Nanoparticles to Identify Targets of Membrane-Active Steroid Antibiotics

by

Katie L. Jensen and Dr. Paul B. Savage, Chemistry and Biochemistry Pathogenic bacterial resistance to antibiotics has risen sharply over the past two decades.1 This problem is compounded with Gram-negative bacteria, which, in addition to developing specific resistant mechanisms, also display membrane structures that are impermeable to many hydrophobic antibiotics. Thus, new antibiotics are needed […]

Building Software Radios using FPGAs

by

Preston A. Jackson and Dr. Brad L. Hutchings, Electrical and Computer Engineering Introduction The ability to implement a commercial AM and FM radio receiver on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) has only recently become possible. FPGAs, the bottleneck technology, have made recent gains is speed and size that allow a signal demodulator to be […]

Direct CVD Growth of Carbon Nanotubes on Silicon Nitride Atomic Force Microscope Probes

by

Matthew Housley and Dr. Robert Davis, Physics and Astronomy Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is currently one of the most important analytical techniques in nanoscale science and technology. Because it can image surface topography with a resolution better than 10 nm, AFM has allowed the visualization of many nanoscale structures which other microscopic techniques cannot see. […]

ThoughtWeaver: Intelligent Agents Boosting Thought and Memory

by

Michael P. Holmes and Dr. Bryan Morse, Computer Science Imagine going through your late father’s belongings and finding that he had recorded many of his thoughts, ideas, and experiences in a special computer program. As you begin to use the program, recording the thoughts of your mind, the program brings to your attention various insights […]

Automatic Image Correspondence for Video Clips

by

Adam Helps and Dr. Thomas Sederberg, Computer Science Image correspondence is a powerful method for matching features in two images. It has a wide variety of applications, and can be used to automatically perform complex image manipulation tasks that have previously been done by hand. In this research, image correspondence has been used to manipulate […]

Interaction of Phosducin-like Protein with Eukaryotic Cytosolic Chaperonin

by

Sarah Hart and Dr. Barry Willardson, Chemistry and Biochemistry Background Eukaryotic cells employ G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) to detect various extracellular signaling molecules, including many that control cell proliferation. As a result, a knowledge of G protein pathway components and their mechanisms of interaction and regulation is essential in understanding cell transformation. Phosducin-like protein […]