Chemistry Department Newsletter 2016

This document contains a summary of news and events from the chemistry department from the 2015-2016 academic year

Pharmaceutical Advertisements for Arthritis: The Portrayal of Disability and Gender

The goal of this qualitative, exploratory study is to examine how ability, health, and gender are represented in advertisements for drugs that treat moderate to severe arthritis. Through a content analysis of 53 pharmaceutical advertisements for 14 different drugs advertised in 21 issues of the Arthritis Today magazine (2010-2013), the idealized expectations created by these drug manufacturers is examined. Advertisements for arthritis drugs were selected because arthritis is the most common physical condition and the most common cause of disability in the United States. It also disproportionately affects women. Even though arthritis affects millions of people in the U.S. alone, little research has been done on how pharmaceutical treatments are advertised. While some prior research has focused on the effects of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising and whether DTC advertisements give enough information for consumers to make informed decisions, it lacks a focus on the societal implications of DTC advertising. The need for research that focuses on messages in pharmaceutical advertisements is further supported by the rapid growth in spending on DTC advertisements from millions of dollars in the 1990s to billions of dollars by the early 2000s, and the role of advertisements in creating and reinforcing social expectations. Like other advertisements, pharmaceutical advertisements portray society’s standards and norms. Thus, this project aims to answer the question: how are disability, health, and gender portrayed in the advertisements? To better understand what ideals are being depicted, advertisements were coded for manifest content (e.g., men, women, able-bodied, disabled, nature, indoors) and latent content (e.g., gender stereotypes among activities such as caregiving, shopping, cooking). The dichotomies of able-bodied/disabled, healthy/unhealthy, and masculine/ feminine empower some while disempowering others. How these dichotomies manifest and embody standards and norms such as hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity is explored. Findings reflect that a majority of depictions are of women rather than men, able-bodied rather than disabled people, and occur in nature rather than indoors. The message that people need to be healthy and pain free is emphasized by portraying more people as able-bodied. This is reinforced by portraying people in nature, which suggests that people need to be healthy, young, and full of life. Within the advertisements individuals are consistently shown representing traditional gender expectations. For instance, in advertisements women are more likely to be shown in supporting roles such as caretakers, homemakers or exercising; men are more likely to be shown participating in sports, showcasing their strength, and being in control. The implication of these advertisements is that the way to live up to these socially constructed expectations is by taking the advertised drug. Thus it is suggested that without the advertised drug a person will be in pain, disabled, and unhappy. Because health is presented as being easily achieved through use of the drug, the realities of arthritis are diminished. Diminishing the realities of arthritis can be problematic because the way society views and treats those affected by arthritis could be impacted by the sometimes unrealistic portrayal of pharmaceutical users as the perfect embodiment of health and ability. *This scholar and faculty mentor have requested that only an abstract be published

Chemistry Department Newsletter 2017

This document contains a summary of news and events from the chemistry department from the 2016-2017 academic year

Chemistry Department Newsletter 2015

This document contains a summary of news and events from the chemistry department from the 2014-2015 academic year

Soil Buffering Mechanisms

The effect acid rain has on soil is dependent on the mineral content. This effect varies based on the mineral systems which can buffer the pH of the soil once exposed to the acid rain. Calcareous minerals (reaction 1), silicate clays (reaction 2), and aluminosilicate clays (reaction 3) are the three mineral systems that provide soil the capacity to withstand acid attack before a major pH drop occurs. One way to differentiate between these systems could be to observe the reaction orders of the underlying mechanisms. CaCO3(s) 2 H+(aq) ⇌ Ca2+(aq) + H2O(l) + CO2(g) (1) M-soil(s) + n H+(aq) ⇌ Hn-soil(s) + M+n(aq) (2) Al-soil(s) + 3H+(aq) ⇌ H3-soil(s) + Al3+(aq) (3) One hypothesis that this project sought to test was that each of these reactions would have a different kinetic mechanism and/or different rate constants. If the mechanisms are different and they can be detected, then it might be possible to extract the mineral % composition in an environmental sample which is likely to be a mixture. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to determine the reaction orders of the kinetic mechanisms of these mineral systems. Specifically fayalite (Fe2SiO4) and forsterite (Mg2SiO4) were used as representatives of reaction (2). Previous experiments showed that the addition of strong acid to these samples results in an initial, rapid decrease in the pH followed by a partial recovery of in the pH as a result of the buffering mechanism. These recovery curves (see Figure 2) decrease in amplitude until the buffering system is exhausted. The recovery curve provides the opportunity to observe the reaction kinetics

Predicting occurrence of and responses to psychological difficulties: the interplay between achievement goals, perceived ability and motivational climates among Korean athletes

The present study investigated the interrelationship of goal orientations, perceived ability, and perceived motivational climate to the experience of stress, perceived controllability, and choice of coping strategies. A total of 404 Korean intercollegiate athletes participated in the study. The results from moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that the experience of psychological difficulties was positively predicted by a perceived ego-involving climate and negatively predicted by perceived ability. The perceived controllability over stress was highest among athletes who had higher levels of task and ego orientation in a more taskinvolving atmosphere. Athletes used more approach coping as they perceived a higher level of task orientation regardless the level of perceived ability, and when they indicated higher task orientation scores in a low ego-involving environment. The avoidance/withdrawal coping strategies were positively related to an ego-involving climate. The findings implied that an examination of cultural variations in motivational factors and coping process among sport participants in a different culture may further extend theoretical applicability across diverse populations

Extraction of Protoporphyrin IX for Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are a possible alternative to traditional solar energy technologies. Metal-free organic dyes such as porphyrins seem to be an especially promising option as a sensitizer due to their characteristic Soret band and smaller Q-bands in the visible spectrum. Protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) is a naturally occurring porphyrin found in sources hemoglobin, chlorophyll, and brown egg shells. PPIX exhibits typical porphyrin absorbance spectrum, and the carboxylic acid substituents make it ideal for direct attachment to the TiO2 of the DSSC. The purpose of this research is to extract PPIX at a high enough concentration from brown eggshells that it could be purified using a liquid chromatography fraction collector and used as a sensitizer in a DSSC

COVID-19 Pandemic Effects on the Environment

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a constant in everyone’s lives for almost the past three years now and has embedded itself into basically every part of global society and norms. The main areas where this is evident are in the major disruptions in the economic, social, and public health sectors of the world. There is one other area that has been affected by this prolonged pandemic in a multitude of ways, the environment. Our environment, both globally and regionally, has seen both positive and negative effects throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in a variety of different areas. These studied effects are direct or indirect results of changes to policy or social norms seen throughout the past few years caused by the global pandemic. The affected areas of research include noticeable changes in air quality, water pollution, and plastic waste along with a number of other important environmental topics. The purpose of this literature review is to summarize and assess the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the environment from many different perspectives as well as briefly discuss future implications of the findings as well as possible research

Acid Rain Kinetics on Calcareous and Silicate Soils

Calcareous, silicate, and aluminosilicate minerals are common constituents of inorganic soil. These minerals act as buffers against acid attack, either through carbonate neutralization or cation exchange. Previous studies focusing on potassium observed that cations occur in four separate phases: the solution phase, exchangeable phase, non–exchangeable phase, and the mineral phase. Each phase represents a different kinetic mechanism that is incrementally slower for cations deposited deeper in the mineral. We have observed that when soil is exposed to acid, the pH of the soil slurry drops drastically, followed by a recovery curve on the order of seconds to minutes. These recovery curves sometimes change curvature as a function of pH, indicating a different kinetic mechanism is dominating. Since real soil samples are a complex heterogeneous mixture, we analyzed soil analogs such as calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, calcium silicate, magnesium silicate, and aluminum silicate in the hope of assigning extracted kinetic parameters to specific physical properties of the compounds. We studied the kinetic mechanisms in these soil analogs with a series of hand titrations, designed to give a representation of the general shape of the reaction curve and the position of the equivalence point, and titration curves using an autotitrator, which was modified with a DAQ board in order to follow the recovery curve on a time scale of seconds between injections of acid. Our purpose was to determine the kinetic model for each type of recovery curve in each soil analog

Solid Phase Extraction of Herbicides from Groundwater and Soils

The purpose for this experiment was to compare relative concentrations of the herbicide atrazine in soil and ground water samples. Atrazine is commonly found in groundwater and is known to be toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. This experiment aims to identify whether or not atrazine is present in the groundwater as well as to examine how long atrazine can persist in soil. Previous studies have shown atrazine and other related herbicides persisting with little to no degradation for up to 16 weeks. Soil and groundwater samples were obtained from a farm where atrazine is used seasonally to treat a field before and after corn has been planted. Weekly groundwater samples were taken and representative samples were taken from his field. To analyze water samples, solid phase extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were used. Soil extracts were first filtered and then analyzed with GC-MS