csi undergraduate conference on research, scholarship ... - CSI Today

Research Poster PresentationsP O S T E R 3 3Prejudices and StereotypesAmong Four Major Divisions ofCollege MajorsBenjamin SilfenFaculty Mentor: Dr. Florette CohenDepartment of PsychologyThe purpose of this study was to investigate thevarying prejudices that exist among students whoare enrolled in different academic majors. Previousresearch has indicated that a variety of factorsinfluence prejudices between academic disciplines;including physical and psychological gender,ethnicity, personality, and academics. This studytouched basis on all of these factors, but the mainquestion was whether or not prejudices that existoccur specifically because of which academicmajor an individual is associated with. This studyfocused only on the academic majors at the Collegeof Staten Island, which were divided up into fourspecific groups (social sciences, natural sciences,arts, and businesses). Participants in the study wereasked a variety of questions concerning personalitytraits such as (kind, intelligent, lazy, extraverted, andunderstanding) when it came to analyzing each ofthe four groups of majors. Participants were alsoasked questions such as which group of majorsthey felt were most difficult, which group they feltwas most important, and the ethnic and genderdisparity amongst the varying groups. Thehypothesis for this study was that there would beempirically significant differences in opinions ofindividuals based on which academic major theywere enrolled in. Results about specific prejudiceswill be discussed in further detail.P O S T E R 3 4Effect of Pressure on theStability of Water on aSuperhydrophobic MembraneMeagan DerbyshireFaculty Mentor: Dr. Alan LyonsDepartment of ChemistrySuperhydrophobic surfaces, both naturallyoccurring and fabricated in the laboratory, arecomposed of small posts. The roughness of thesurface and the hydrophobic material propertiescombine to support water droplets on top of theposts (Cassie state), instead of falling between theposts and wetting the entire surface (Wenzel state).When the superhydrophobic surface is placed atthe base of a column, water can be supported ontop of the posts up to a critical height (orpressure). However, only a limited height of watercan be supported before the water pressureexceeds the surface tension and the Cassie statetransitions to the Wenzel state. This transitionoccurs at relatively low pressures and limits theusefulness of superhydrophobic surfaces.The goal of this experiment is to increase the waterpressure that a superhydrophobic surface cansupport. Our approach is to fabricate asuperhydrophobic surface supported on a porousmesh instead of a solid base. In this way we cancontrol the air pressure below the membraneindependently as the water height is increased.Measurements of the water pressure that can besupported on a porous superhydrophobic surfaceas a function of air pressure below the membranewill be reported.We will explore the characteristics of the surfacesthat make them superhydrophobic, also. Throughthe use of ultraviolet light, we will expose thesurfaces in order to increase theirsuperhydrophobicity. The ultra violet light will beused at varying power settings, distances from thesurface and time intervals in order to increase thecontact angles, simultaneously increasing thesurface’s superhydrophobicity.42