Brief Description of Some Research Projects Conducted by URF Students
Student's major is listed in parentheses.
- Study of the economic behavior of children and the development of their bargaining skills (Economics)
- Exploring an application of evolutionary psychology models that predicts sex differences in human mating and courtship behavior based upon
the differential costs of parenthood in males and females (Psychology).
- Examining the intellectual relationship of French philosophers Michael Foucault and Karl Marx--i.e. the ways in which Foucault has been influenced and has deviated from Marxism
and its exponents (English; History).
- Compiling articles and other materials related to tree planting and the human/nature relationship; Documenting trends in the overall literature as well
as finding specific references to the history of reforestation and tree-planting. (Geography)
- Studying the sex effects of deception and deception detection, specifically when lying about attraction. The hypothesis is that females would
be better than males at successfully deceiving others about their level of attraction to given stimuli, and that females would be especially successful in deceiving
members of the opposite sex. (Psychology)
- Study of the changes in Jewish identity and self-definition as a result of the emancipation of Jews in Europe. (Comparative Literature)
- Completing research for an honors thesis, entitled "Visualization as a Way of Examining a Complex Theory: Testing the Theory of Earth Crust-Displacement."
This included examining paloeclimate data from a pollen website and creating maps of the locations of ice sheets using mapping software. (Geography)
- Study of the allelopathic interactions between two environmentally distinct populations of the mustard plant, in the presence and absence of a resource competitor. (Environmental Science)
- Determination of the most efficient method to synthesize molecules in which nonlinear optical properties are maximized. (Chemistry)
- Measurement and classification of projectile points to assign approximate ages to the collection sites and thereby infer how human occupation of those sites changed over time. (Anthropology/Archaeology)
- Study of Reptin52, a molecule that inhibits the transcription of genes. Perform assays
to determine whether Reptin52 interacts with a specific receptor that binds to DNA. (Biochemistry)
- Using X-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of a newly discovered protein in maize, CAF2. (Biochemistry)
- Study of the relationship between the amount of inhibitory control people are able to exhibit (expressed by the person's ability to suppress thoughts) and
depression. (Psychology)
- A reverse-genetics study of the position effect (whether or not a gene is expressed depending on the location of the gene on the chromosome)
in Neuorospora crassa to elucidate
the mechanisms of silencing in that organism and apply that information to other organisms. (Biology)
- Elucidate
a set of precursors to heterocyclic compounds while minimizing by-product formation and maximizing yields for the reactions. (Chemistry)
- Development of a general synthetic route
that can be followed to produce gold nanoparticles with long carbon ligand shells. (Chemistry)
- Study of the economic and physical effects of the 1996 Applegate River flood and how changes
in stream response due to human modifications on the riverbed are perceived. (Environmental Studies; Geography)
- Elucidate
the mechanism by which a DNA polymerase complex is loaded onto a strand of DNA during
replication. (Biochemistry)
- Exploring how infants use segmentation
cues in the motion stream to aid their processing of events. (Psychology)
