College Announces Upcoming Seminars

CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY SEMINARS:
Tuesday, November 18th, 4:00 PM, W140 BNSN
JACK BEAUCHAMP, Charles and Mark Ferkel Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, will present "Picking the Right Tool for the Job: Probing Biomolecule Structure with Electrons, Protons, Metal Ions and Free Radicals."

Ionization of biological molecules by MALDI or ESI leads to the formation of singly and multiply protonated or deprotonated even-electron molecular ions. When present in the matrix or in solution, metal cations can replace protons. Fragmentation of these ions resulting from activation with infrared photons or by collisions with gas molecules or surfaces can provide structural information. A more recent approach to biomolecule structure determination involves examining fragments resulting from electron capture by or transfer to a multiply protonated ion (ECD and ETD). This leads to the formation of radical cations which exhibit low energy fragmentation pathways directed by the radical site. A related approach involves peptide derivatization to introduce a free radical precursor at a specific site in the ionized biomolecule. Structural information obtained from these methods is often complementary. Recent studies in our laboratory have provided insights into the mechanisms and energetics of these processes, leading in several instances to new applications for biomolecule structure determination. Several of these studies will be discussed, including the use of “electron predators” to probe the mechanism of ECD and ETD, the application of free radical chemistry to distinguish leucine and isoleucine, and the application of metal ions as reagents to locate inter- and intramolecular disulfide linkages in proteins using the “Route 66 Method”.

Friday, November 21st, 4:00 PM, W140 BNSN
ELIZABETH LEIBOLD, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine and Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah, will present "Molecular Control of Iron Metablolism by Iron Regulatory Proteins."

Eukaryotic cells require iron for growth and proliferation. In excess, iron has toxic effects due to its ability to generate free radicals that damage DNA, proteins and lipids. The accumulation of excess cellular iron can cause neurodegeneration, and is associated with an increased risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes. Vertebrate iron metabolism is controlled by the iron-regulatory proteins IRP1 and IRP2. IRPs bind to stem-loop structures, known as iron-responsive elements (IREs), in mRNAs encoding proteins involved in iron uptake, sequestration and utilization to regulate their translation or degradation. The focus of my laboratory is to uncover how IRPs sense changes in iron concentration to alter gene expression. I will discuss our recent findings on the molecular mechanisms regulating IRPs in mammalian cells during proliferation and the consequences of dysregulation of iron metabolism using genetically modified mice.

COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR:
Thursday, November 20th, 11:00 AM, 1170 TMCB
KENTARO TOYAMA, Assisting Managing Director of Microsoft Research India in Bangalore, will present "Computing for Socio-Economic Development."

On the same planet where there are 1.4 billion Internet users, a far less fortunate 1.4 billion people survive below the World Bank's extreme poverty line. Computing technology has transformed the lives of the wealthiest people on the planet, but it remains out of reach and irrelevant for the poorest. How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker? Can you keep five rural schoolchildren from fighting over one PC? What value is technology to a farmer earning a dollar a day?
Questions like this will be raised in a sample of research work from the Technology for Emerging Markets group (http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem) at Microsoft Research India, in Bangalore. We are a multidisciplinary research group consisting of anthropologists, economists, designers, and computer scientists who together seek new applications of computing technology for the world's least privileged communities in domains such as agriculture, education, healthcare, and microfinance. The constraints are severe, with poor education, terrible infrastructure, and a shortage of funds making even the best-designed systems challenging to implement. Nevertheless, we believe this is a challenge worth undertaking, and one that can make a difference as long as we retain equal measures of skepticism about the brash claims of technology and optimism about its true potential.

Kentaro Toyama (http://research.microsoft.com/~toyama) is assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, in Bangalore, where he supports the daily operation and overall management of the research lab. He also leads a group that conducts research to identify applications of computing technology in emerging markets and for international development, and is co-founder of the IEEE/ACM Int'l Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. From 1997 to 2004, he was at Microsoft Research in Redmond, where he did research in multimedia and computer vision and worked to transfer new technology to Microsoft product groups. In 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University, a private liberal arts college in Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Harvard with a Bachelors degree in physics and from Yale with a PhD in computer science.

GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES SEMINAR:
Thursday, November 20th, 11:00 AM, C295 ESC
GLENN SHAW, from University of California, Merced, will present "Groundwater and Surface Water Interactions in Yosemite National Park, California."

Population growth and potential climate change are contributing to an impending mismatch between available water resources and demand. The quantity of groundwater in mountain catchments, where water supply originates for urban centers of the Western United States, is not well understood, and neither is the response of mountain groundwater systems to climate change. As water becomes scarcer, policy decisions should be based on more accurate information than is currently available about natural water reserves (e.g. groundwater reservoirs) and water fluxes. Water fluxes typically consist of surface, near-surface and groundwater flow paths, which are complicated by faulted, folded, and fractured terrain. In this study 36Cl and Cl- were successfully used to characterize groundwater and near-surface water contributions to the upper Merced River in Yosemite National Park, California. Groundwater, springs, surface water, and snow were sampled seasonally from July 2004 to October 2007. Plotting 1/Cl- verses 36Cl/Cl shows mixing between three separate water bodies. These water bodies include near-surface water, low-chloride groundwater (<1 mg/L), and high-chloride groundwater (>10 mg/L). There is a systematic temporal change in the fractions of these water bodies mixing in the Merced River, with the near-surface water dominating during spring runoff and both groundwater bodies dominating during autumn baseflow. Measurements of 36Cl combined with Cl- also indicate that groundwater has undergone more evapotranspiration relative to near-surface water, and the high-chloride groundwater has incorporated more rock chloride relative to the low-chloride groundwater. The near-surface water has similar Cl- concentrations as snow (~0.1 mg/L), but 36Cl/Cl in near-surface water is ~30 times higher than snow. The jump in 36Cl/Cl from snow to near-surface water and groundwater is most likely from retention and release of the 1950s 36Cl bomb-pulse released from above ground thermonuclear weapons testing, indicating the strong role of chlorine biogeochemistry in this system. Characterizing water bodies, determining how they mix spatially and temporally, and identifying the processes acting on these water bodies helps establish a baseline for future studies of groundwater and surface water interactions, which is essential in understanding how to manage water resources and determine future impacts on these resources due to climate change.

Glenn Shaw is a Ph.D. candidate in the Environmental Systems Program at the University of California, Merced. His research focuses on the use of stable and radioactive isotopes and dissolved gases to track groundwater movement and residence times in alpine catchments as well as biogeochemistry in near surface environments. He received a B.S. in Engineering Geology from Brigham Young University in 1997 and an M.S. in Geological Engineering from the University of Utah in 2000. Glenn worked for four years as a geological engineer/hydrogeologist at the consulting firms AMEC Earth & Environmental and CH2M HILL, then for one year as a Research Associate at UC Merced prior to entering graduate school in the fall of 2004.

MATHEMATICS SEMINAR:
Thursday, November 20th, 4:00 PM, 1170 TMCB
APARNA HIGGINS, University of Dayton, will present "Pebbling--Pure and Applied."

Many mathematicians enjoy thinking about mathematics without concerning themselves about what, if any, applications those ideas may have. As more people work with these ideas, they define and study variations of the original ideas, and occasionally, those variations lead to “real-world applications.” So it was with pebbling and me. I enjoyed thinking about pebbling and directing undergraduate students’ research in pebbling for its own sake. As pebbling became better known, a variation was suggested that described troop deployment. This talk will discuss some of the results by undergraduates on pebbling, and will consider a variation of pebbling that has been used by some authors to attempt to explain the fall of the Roman Empire.

Dr. Aparna Higgins received a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Bombay in 1978 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 1983. Her dissertation was in universal algebra, and her current research interests are in graph theory. She has taught at the University of Dayton, Ohio, since 1984. Although Dr. Higgins enjoys teaching the usual collection of undergraduate courses and an occasional graduate course, her most fulfilling experiences as a teacher have come from directing undergraduates in mathematical research. She has advised eleven undergraduate Honors theses; she has co-directed an NSF-sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates program; and she continues to help students prepare talks for regional and national mathematics meetings. She has presented workshops at mathematics meetings on undergraduate research. She enjoys giving talks on mathematics to audiences of various levels and backgrounds. Dr. Higgins has been the recipient of four teaching awards -- from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Dayton, the Alumni Award (a University-wide award), the Ohio Section of the Mathematical Association of America, and in 2005, the Deborah and Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching, which is the Mathematical Association of America\\\'s most prestigious award for teaching. Dr. Higgins is very involved with the Mathematical Association of America, the largest professional society that focuses on undergraduate mathematics education. She serves on many of its committees. One of the more enjoyable MAA committee experiences was that of being a founding member of, and then chairing, the Committee on Student Chapters, which helped create and maintain Student Chapters, provided support to Sections for student activities and provided appropriate programming for undergraduates at national meetings. Dr. Higgins is co-director of Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching), a professional development program of the MAA for new or recent Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences. Project NExT addresses all aspects of an academic career: improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, engaging in research and scholarship, and participating in professional activities. It also provides the participants with a network of peers and mentors as they assume these responsibilities. Aparna Higgins is married to Bill Higgins, a mathematician who teaches at Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio. They like to take year-long sabbaticals and spend part of that time teaching at other institutions. They feel privileged to have taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and they are currently on sabbatical at California State University Channel Islands. Aparna and Bill Higgins have two sons.

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY SEMINAR:
Wednesday, November 19th, 4:00 PM, C215 ESC
JOE SHAW, from the Optical Technology Center at Montana State University, will present "Color and Polarization in the Atmosphere: A Birthday Tribute to Lord Rayleigh."

Lord Rayleigh’s 166th birthday occurs on November 12, 2008, just one week before this talk. In tribute to the myriad contributions he made to optics (not to mention acoustics and other fields), this talk will review the science and visual manifestations of Rayleigh scattering in our atmosphere. In the process I will introduce the person, John William Strutt (3rd Baron Rayleigh), known to us as Lord Rayleigh, who explained how a clear daytime sky appears blue. I will also introduce his son, Robert Strutt (4th Baron Rayleigh), who made extraordinary contributions to the understanding of optics in the night sky, essentially explaining how the night sky can appear green. I will share photographs of blue, green, and even red night skies and use them to explain how both the father and son were correct. Into this historical and photographic narrative will be woven threads of my own research involving imaging of all-sky polarization patterns.
This presentation will include many photographs of the night sky, along with discussion that is understandable by a general audience.

STATISTICS SEMINAR:
Thursday, November 20th, 4:00 PM, 3104 JKB
C. SHANE REESE, Department of Statistics at Brigham Young University, will present.