The Honors College

Since my life began it has been inundated with literacy. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of our town's public library. My parents would drive me to the library and on the way detail instructions ofhow I was not to leave the children's section ofthe library without telling them. I do not know why they were so worried; I could spend hours and hours exploring the rows of magical, brightly bound books. You see, in books you can both travel and transform. You can become someone new, try new things, or visit an exotic place.

The purpose of this project is to promote an understanding of the culture, history and people of Afghanistan in seventh grade classrooms. Unique in its presentation and delivery, the project is divided into two main parts: presentations in seventh grade classrooms during fall 2009, and five posters (11X14 inches) explaining the five key aspects of Afghanistan discussed during the presentation.

Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) was started in 1989 with the vision that all students should be able to attend school in a safe, secure, free of fear environment that is conducive to learning. SAVE is a national, nonprofit organization created by students for students that promotes the virtues of civility and respect by helping students of all ages learn how to care for other people (SAVE Website). As of 2009 the organization had over 215,000 members in approximately 1,877 chapters nationwide, representing 47 states.

Biofilms exist as coordinated enchained bacterial communities of self-excreted exopolysaccharide matrices. Biofilm formation is important for the survival of the pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae both in its natural aquatic environments and the human host. Development of biofilms is partly regulated by small organic molecules known as polyamines.

Frazier Mountain is an important paleoseismic site on the Big Bend of the San Andreas Fault ~80 km north of Los Angeles, CA. This site preserves the fault traces of paleoearthquake events and has the added benefit of charcoal (for radiocarbon dating) and carbonate nodules throughout the stratigraphy. It is a widely accepted technique to describe climate variations using the δ18O and δ13C variations recorded in carbonate nodules with a known origin.

The Moncure microvertebrate locality is an Upper Triassic (~225mya) site from the Cumnock Formation of North Carolina that has yielded tens of thousands of fossils. Remains recovered include several indeterminate osteichthyan taxa, Arganodus, Colognathus, Microconodon, Boreogomphodon, Crosbysaurus, Uatchitodon, Revueltosaurus, a putative batrachian, a sphenodontian, several indeterminate lepidosauromorphs, several indeterminate archosauriform taxa, phytosaurs, metoposaurs, and putative rauisuchians.

Organometallic materials with large molecular polarizabilities exhibit nonlinear optical properties and therefore, have potential uses in photonic devices, optical information processing/storage, and telecommunications. Previous research in Prof. Wheeler's lab has isolated para-substituted ferrocenylimine, FcCH=N-C6H4X-p (where X is an electron withdrawing or donating group; ie Cl, CH3, NO2) with C=N as the connecting bridge (Wheeler et al. 2002 and 2010).1,2 This research expands upon the previous findings by replacing the C=N bridge with a planar C=C (vinyl) bridge.

Images from the campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 are compared to images from the rise to power of Caesar Augustus in the Roman Empire. These images are paired and analyzed for the purpose of gaining perspective on image formation. Five criteria are applied to the analysis: philosophical context, formative context, historical context, relational context, and structural context (Detmer, 1980). Political imagery and symbols are analyzed to describe how visual signs are grounded in long embedded visual sign systems.

In recent years, meth has been plaguing North Carolina. Being such an indeterminate drug in both how it is cooked and used, it is difficult for authorities to eliminate use of meth. The drug has taken root mainly in the western part of the state, but in recent years has popped up along the coast as well. The lethal effects of both producing and using meth pose a very dangerous problem to citizens. However, with more education and police involvement, North Carolina can begin to slow the growing rate of meth labs in the state. 

Mortgages and refinancing often play very large roles in people's lives, but many people do not actually understand the basics of their own mortgage loans. The idea of this website is to provide a place to learn about the basics ofmortgages for those who really know nothing about them, while going more into detail for those who already have the background knowledge and want to study them a little more in-depth.