Human memory is undeniably variable. It is evident that no two people can have the exact same memory capacity? however, it is also palpable that a single person’s individual memory is extremely inconsistent. It has been shown that there are several factors that could account for such variation? for example, differences in a person’s memory across his or her lifespan could be accounted for by age and neuroplasticity, while differences across years could be accounted for by factors such as maturation and experience (Maylor 1998?

I researched the efficiency of modern algorithms that test whether large integers are prime or not. As it turns out, this question is fundamental to modern cryptography: many modern encryption algorithms used for internet security purposes require a steady supply of large prime numbers. Although many different primality tests are used in cryptography, I focused on the strong Lucas pseudoprime test, which relies on concepts from algebraic number theory. To begin working on my project, I did over a month of background reading on algebraic number theory.

More than half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. While some of these pregnancies are due to birth control method failures, most are due to unanticipated exposure. Emergency contraception is a postcoital contraception that allows women the possibility of preventing pregnancy in such cases. Currently, there are two types of FDA-approved emergency contraception: the coppercontaining intrauterine device (IUD) and oral emergency contraceptive pills. The most effective method for emergency contraception is the IUD at 99.

Over the past fifty years, land temperatures have increased at a decadal rate almost twice that compared to the past 100 years. Warming Earth’s atmosphere creates a rise in ocean heat content, and alters wind patterns and storm systems that impact surface layer mixing and ocean stratification, affecting nutrient availability. Changes in ocean temperatures and nutrient conditions are expected to impact many organisms including phytoplankton, the ocean’s major producer. To evaluate how climate change threatens marine ecosystems, this project studied the impact of rising sea surface temperature and altered nutrient availability on the phytoplankton Thalassiosira.

I came across an article on organic solar cells during the my time in the Garcia Research Program at Stony Brook University this past summer and was instantly fascinated by the versatility and possible uses of these devices. Imagine abundant, cheap solar cells being integrated around the world! Intrigued by the idea of using plastics to capture solar energy, I did more research into this technology. After thorough reading, I found that a significant limitation of these devices was the narrow range over which they could absorb light.

The present study aims to investigate the impact of two types of pressure to conform on decision making in an online setting. Since there has been an increase in social media usage in the political realm, the present study investigates how viewing comments and likes that are present on various social networking sites can cause a significant change in people’s political opinions. Subjects received both an informational conformity condition and a normative conformity condition as participants served as their own control.

3DPrinters have slowly become more commonplace as they become cheaper and smaller. Makerspaces and libraries have made them more accessible for the average consumer to use, normally to print something small and made only of single colored plastic. 3Dprinters have become prominent in many fields, most notably, tissue engineering. My research focused on 3Dinkjet printers, which unlike most 3Dprinters use a liquid ink, not a plastic. This allowed me to use the 3Dprinter to create a specific shape while keeping the final product soft enough to resemble tissues and support cell growth.

The objective of the research project was to create a vision-based system to monitor a robot’s movements in real-time. The system provides a mechanism to monitor the control system’s function and check that there are no errors in the system. Video feed captured by a camera (Microsoft Kinect sensor) is compared to how the robot is supposed to function at a particular instant of time to determine any discrepancies using image comparison.

I specifically studied lysosomal distribution in distal axons, or the parts of the axons that were further away from the cell body. I did so using microfluidic chambers which are devices that allow the physical separation of the cell body and the axons . . . Altogether, my research actually suggests that lysosomes are mobile, and can be recruited to degrade waste in neurons axons, instead of staying within the neuronal cell body.

One of the great remaining mysteries of modern physics is the accelerating expansion of the universe. It has been proposed that dark energy is responsible for this phenomenon. In order to understand dark energy, it is necessary to compute the energy density of the vacuum that arises from the fundamental theories that describe the universe. The vacuum energy density appears in Einstein’s theory of general relativity as the famous cosmological constant, and was first introduced in order to establish a static universe.

Now here is something important. As I learned the hard way, doing research is very different from reading about it. Reading a paper could take, say 45 minutes, but the paper itself could easily contain years of work. What I’m getting at here is that producing good scientific research is rigorous and requires resilience, which is something you�ll have the opportunity to develop. So don’t feel distraught if you are struggling?

During interpersonal interaction, humans utilize complex language (Hari & Kujala, 2007). Humans utilize such language to cooperate, compete, imitate, help, inform, question, negotiate, bargain, lie, and vote. Until about 20 years ago, much of this communication was conducted in-person or through telephones. However, digital communication within the past 20 years has continued to rise, thus replacing these forms of interaction (Williams, 1977). Emerging adults, who report texting as their dominant daily mode of communication, comprise the largest proportion of texting and instant messaging users.

Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi said, Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. It was a tenant of my high school research program, one which resonates with me deeply. This was one of many mantras instilled in me by that all-star teacher, Ms. Zeitlin. I learned the importance of looking beyond the journal, the lab bench, and the next deadline in scientific research .

For visualizing the simulated electron-transfer (ET) dynamics with enhanced depth perception, I further built an immersive visualization system using a commodity virtual-reality platform and a game engine. My immersive simulation results reveal novel nonequilibrium phase transitions with which Shewanella efficiently responds to a change in its electrochemical environment. These results shed useful light on boosting the efficiency of Shewanella-based microbial fuel cells by increasing the ET rate, in order to produce electricity and water from sewage toward solving the global energy and environmental problems.

Ever since I was little, my parents have constantly taken me to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. As soon as I rushed through the old wooden doors of the building, I rushed past the dinosaurs, down the stairs, and ran down the hallway to find myself standing in front of the gigantic blue whale. Marine creatures have always inspired me; they’re always out of sight, yet so fascinating .

A progressively neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s disease presents a serious emotional and physical cost to patients and their families today. In industrialized countries, the increasing overall age of the population creates a large group of people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, so it is imperative that a cure is developed soon. However, new treatments are often too large in size to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and thus do not localize to regions of the brain well.

Researching is worlds apart from any other kind of learning. It is a process of self-discovery and trial and error . . . I learned very quickly that everything is not black in white. There is too much grey in the entirety of it. You may not always know if you are going in the right direction. Therefore, the best thing to do is embrace the grey, think out of the box, and take a chance.

It is actually impossible to explain my experience in math research without beginning with my experience in math contests. As a relatively accomplished contestant over my high school years, including participating the United States of America Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) and twice in United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), I fell in love with the mathematics and the often slick and beautiful solutions in these contests. However math contest can be incredibly deceiving as in most serious mathematics the necessary background knowledge can be quite cumbersome for high school students.

Since my freshman year of high school, when I became increasingly bored with school math, I would look up things on my own which interested me. More than that, I would play around with them. Continued fractions? Sounds interesting - now let’s try and see if I can derive a closed form if I vary the parameters this way. Sums involving the harmonic number? Let’s see if I can generalize them with another parameter.

I began researching how mutations occur within cells. I focused on using computational chemistry techniques to advance the study of cancer prevention by analyzing protein kinases for therapeutics. I chose to study the NF-kappaB protein family because dysregulation of the NF-kappaB pathway has been linked to various cancers and autoimmune diseases. After reading literature about the protein family, I discovered that the NF-kappaB pathway is composed of two paths. I learned that, while the classical pathway is well-known, the alternative pathway is not.