24th National Conference on Undergraduate Research
Herbert Evan Zeiger III (Dr. Garon Smith), Department of Chemistry, The University of Montana, Missoula, Montana
Have you ever really thought about what you're looking at when you view a snow-capped range of mountains? In reality, you're looking at billions of intricate works of art heaped haphazardly at the angle of repose on rock ledges and mountain meadows. It seems such an indulgence of nature to invest so much artistry in objects as ephemeral snowflakes. This project explores ways to appreciate and understand how the physical and chemical properties of water lead to an almost infinite variety of snowflakes and crystalline ice forms. Many aspects of snowflake structure and growth are still unknown. Project elements include computer models that grow virtual snowflakes: 1) via fractal geometry procedures, and 2) using physical parameters implemented through a sequence of local micrometeorological conditions. The project also draws from and builds on classical techniques that capture photographic images of snowflakes to inventory Western Montana snowflake morphologies. We are capturing snowflakes and using X-ray fluorescence and ion chromatography to probe the nucleation particles around which they have grown. We suspect ammonium nitrate, the most prominent inorganic particulate in our airshed, will be at the center of many. Finally, we are designing an experimental chamber in which we can film the dynamic growth of ice crystals in the laboratory. Once the introduction of heavy water (deuterium oxide) influence the ultimate patterns displayed in snowflakes. Ancillary activities relate snowflake morphology to other ice and snow phenomena such as ice volcanoes, columnar ice, surface and depth hoar and snow flowers.
Theresa A. White (Matt Bishop PH.D.), Department of Computer Science, The University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616
Our goal is to determine the whether the C standard I/O library is robust. We test this by creating programs that pass invalid arguments and using functions in incorrect order. If the programs crash or give different results on different systems, the library is not robust. In this case, we need to design a set of wrappers to detect and report problems before allowing the functions to be invoked. Although there are some functions within the standard library that account for these types of problems, there are others that do not. In addition, because the standard I/O library is not readily available and lacks robustness, we must create a library that handles these problems. A set of wrappers were designed to correct the problems detected in the evaluation of the C standard I/O library functions.
