Upgrade of a Raman Spectrometer with Modern Computer Control and Data Acquisition for Studies of Hydrogen Bonding in Pyrimidine

The restoration of a Cold War era high resolution Raman spectrometer to working order as well as its control and data acquisition upgrade using a Labview program authored for this purpose are discussed. The restored Raman spectrometer was used in an investigation of intermolecular interactions involving pyrimidine. Following in this manuscript are three chapters. The first chapter is a brief description of the history and theory of Raman spectroscopy as well as some details of the instrumentation used in Raman spectroscopy. The second chapter contains technical details of the restoration and upgrade of the high resolution Raman spectrometer. The third chapter contains data and analysis for the investigation of intermolecular interactions involving pyrimidine, including the investigation of weak hydrogen bonds by Raman spectroscopy of liquid and crystalline pyrimidine at varying pressures up to 30000 psi and strong hydrogen bonds in binary mixtures of pyrimidine and seven different molecules. The position of the ν1 peak in the Raman spectrum corresponding to pyrimidine’s ring-breathing mode was used as the marker to monitor the degree of hydrogen bonding and species involved. For mixtures of water, other peaks in the Raman spectrum were found to shift as well when the concentration of water is increased

Congress, Religion, and the Cold War Consensus from 1952-1956

The Congress of the 1950s unanimously passed seven different pieces of legislations related to religious faith from 1952 to 1956. The fact that these congressional actions passed with little or no dissent and the fact that the congressmen supporting the legislation offered similar rationales (e.g. the Cold War) told much about the early fifties. The fifties were a decade stereotyped as conservative and conformist during which citizens held family and religion above all else. I conducted research over about a twelve month span which overlapped with the eight month period in which I was writing the body of the thesis. When I began my research, I focused on the congressional records and the newspaper and magazine clippings covering only the issue of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. During my research on the pledge, I gradually began discovering other congressional actions involving religious faith in the early 1950s. I then did general research on the decade of the fifties and attempted to find any forms of popular dissent. I utilized The University of Mississippi's library, as well as interlibrary loan and the Tulane University library in New Orleans. Finding contemporary criticism of Congress's actions proved difficult, which in part lead to my conclusion. After discovering the seven pieces of congressional legislation (all passing within four years), reading the commentary of numerous historians of the decade, researching examples of recent controversies over similar subjects yet finding relatively no protest/criticism/dissent during the fifties, I decided that the congressional actions of the fifties related to religious faith supported the argument of historians that the American citizens of the 1950s held a conservative and conformist consensus seen in, among other things, the religiosity of the decade

Comparative Population Dynamics of Freshwater Dinoflagellates of the Genera Peridinium and Peridiniopsis

Freshwater dinoflagellates, like their marine relatives, have the potential to reach large population sizes known as blooms. Though they are not toxic like some marine forms, freshwater blooms may have a large impact in their respective ecosystem. This study investigated the temporal and spatial changes in population density of four Peridinium species (P. deflandrei, P. volzii, P. wisconsinense, and P. limbatum) and one Peridiniopsis species (Peridiniopsis polonicium) in Boondoggle Lake, a shallow lake (4.5 m) in northern Mississippi (Lafayette Co.). On each sampling date, measurements of the abiotic environment were made, including dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, and turbidity. Also, water samples were taken from three depths: 0.25 m, 1 m, and 2 m. Estimates of total dinoflagellate density were made by enumeration of concentrated samples on LM slides. Individual species were identified using SEM, and estimates of the relative abundance of each species were made at the SEM, which allowed estimates of the actual densities of each species to be made. One species, P. deflandrei, was by far the most dominant in the summer bloom (90% of the total dinoflagellate population) and reached a maximum population density of 2.75 X 10^5 cells/ L. P. volzii was the most abundant species in the spring and late fall, with its maximum density being 5.7 X 10^4 cells/ L. The other three species had temporal patterns similar to either P. deflandrei or P. volzii but never comprised more than 25% of the total dinoflagellate population. P. limbatum reached maximum densities in the spring and fall, similar to P. volzii. P. wisconsinense and Peridiniopsis polonicium reached maximum densities in the summer, similar to P. deflandrei. The species composition and population density of dinoflagellates in Boondoggle Lake are determined by many environmental factors. Those that are likely to be most important include low nutrient levels, an acidic pH (5.5-6.5), warm temperatures, summer anoxia, wind protection, and interspecific competition

Pharmacists’ Perceptions of Practice Roles: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Pharmacy with Respect to Expanding the Scope of Practice in Mississippi

Title: Pharmacists’ Perceptions of Practice Roles: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Pharmacy with Respect to Expanding the Scope of Practice in Mississippi Objective: To provide objective evidence as to the opportunities and challenges that pharmacists will encounter when implementing an expanded role in the health care system from the perspective of the practicing pharmacist. Methods: Questionnaires were mailed to Mississippi licensed pharmacists. The first section contained questions dealing with the demography of the respondent including a utilization of skills scale and several domains of job satisfaction. The second section contained the health care activities inventory. Respondents were asked to report which health care professional should be providing each of the services using a scale ranging from entirely pharmacist to entirely physician. In the six weeks following delivery of the surveys, 533 were returned. 51 of the surveys returned were incomplete and were not included in any subsequent analyses, a 18.8% usable response rate. Results: Traditional pharmacy roles supported by the findings included: dispensing prescriptions and compounding prescriptions. Other support existed for pharmacist activityincounselingpatientsaboutmedications. Traditionalphysicianroleswerealso supported by Mississippi pharmacists. Many health care activities were believed to be shared responsibilities. In some cases, pharmacists were believed to carry more of the responsibility and in some cases it was the physician. In comparing community and institutional practitioners, community pharmacists held more firmly to the ideas of traditional roles than did the institutional pharmacists. Conclusions: As is evidenced by the data presented, in the opinion of Mississippi pharmacists, there are some traditional roles that remain the exclusive domain of pharmacy or medicine (e.g., dispensing medications, compounding medications, and diagnosing disease). While respondents did support these traditional roles, there is evidence to suggest that the pharmacist has opportunities to expand his/her practice beyond the count, pour, lick and stick moniker that too often has been applied

Performance of Genetic Algorithms for Data Classification

In today's world, the amount of raw data archived across multiple distinct domains is growing at an exponential rate. "Data Mining" is a continuously evolving family of processes by which individuals extract useful information from these data. Classification is one of these processes, and is the construction of varying types of descriptive models from labeled data objects, for the purpose of predicting the label of those objects with unknown labels. The construction of these modules is often adversely affected by the presence of incorrect values or outlier values within the data, a phenomenon known as noise. The original motivation of this research was to test the performance of the binary genetic algorithm, one of a multitude of algorithms used for model construction, in the presence of data with varying percentages of noise. However, in the course of experimentation, several issues arose concerning the effectiveness of the binary genetic algorithm as a classifier. Specifically, the chosen method for encoding classification hypotheses demonstrated limited scalability. Furthermore, the chosen method for encoding continuous and nominally valued data attributes was discovered to be unreasonably strict, leading to poor performance. Further research should be undergone to investigate a more reasonable encoding method. However, the algorithm performed favorably on purely categorical data with a relatively moderate number of small-domained dimensions. Upon injecting varying percentages of noise into these data, the algorithm exhibited a slow, steady descent in classification accuracy. These results lead to the conclusion that the binary genetic algorithm should not be discounted as a possible answer to the question of data classification, especially for data sets with the above characteristics, and further research could reveal hypothesis encoding strategies that will result in improved scalability

Endless Challenges: A History of Student Housing at The University of Mississippi

The history of student housing at the University of Mississippi is one of endless challenges. Ranging from periodic room shortages to declining institutional concern for the needs of student housing, these challenges have shaped the lives of students who live on campus through today. Though these challenges have varied in source and nature over the years, they still confront administrators, faculty, staff, and most of all students, many of whom address these issues on a daily basis. In the earliest years of the University, student housing was an important part of the campus, and it was recognized as such by everyone connected to the University. Over time, though, as the student body grew and the campus could no longer house all of the University’s students, student housing took a lesser role in the life of the University. New buildings were constructed to ease overcrowding on numerous occasions, but institutional concern continued to decline overall. Student life in the residence halls changed considerably with the arrival of women on the campus and with significant changes in the philosophy of student life put forth by administrators. Reflecting national trends, student housing changed its administrative structure and even adapted its philosophies to be more inclusive of the student body and build unique and viable communities among students. However, through all of these achievements, student housing at the University of Mississippi still faced unique challenges because of the peculiar nature of its place and the ongoing circumstances that surrounded the entire culture of the University. Student housing should be no less important to the University today in 2001 than when the doors first opened in 1848. However, with the Phoenix Project’s massive renovations signaling a new revitalization of student housing for a new millennium, the University still faces new challenges for the future that can only work to make student housing better for all the students of the University

Religious Coping and College Adjustment: A Study of an Elite Sample

This study sought to further explore the possible role of religious involvement on college adjustment. Religion was viewed as a multidimensional construct, assessed by means of the Religious Problem Solving Scales (RPSS) developed by Pargament et al. (1988). Nine different areas of adjustment were targeted with the College Adjustment Scales (CAS) developed by Anton and Reed (1991). Freshman honors students were assessed at the beginning and end of their first semester in college. Data analysis was conducted in three parts: the interscorer reliability of both the RPSS and CAS, the temporal stability of the RPSS, and the criterion-related validity of the RPSS correlated with the CAS. It was found that the Deferring coping style was directly related to problems in adjustment and that the Self-Directive coping style was negatively related to problems in adjustment