What is a Senior Research Project?

At BASIS Tucson, seniors have the chance to propose an independent research project that takes place off campus during the last trimester of the year. The seniors whose proposals are accepted write their own syllabi and then head off into the world, to a site where they conduct their research while interning with a professional in the field. Those of us stuck on campus follow their adventures on this blog. Now that the projects are over, we are all excited to attend their presentations. The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, May 11, 6-8 PM
at the U of A Poetry Center (environmentalism projects)
Sierra Cordova, Nicole Rapatan, Zobella Vinik and Dany Joumaa (see titles of projects, below)

Saturday, May 14, 10-12 AM
at The Loft Cinema (arts projects)
Clarice Bales, Samone Isom, Josh Waterman and Angelynn Khoo (see titles of projects, below)

Monday, May 16, 6-8 PM
at BioSciences West, Rm. 310, U of A ( U of A projects)
Joseph Tang, Jayanth Ganesan, Andrew Graham and Gabriel Carranza (see titles of projects, below)

Tuesday, May 17, 6-8 PM
at U of A McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, Blg. MCLND, rm. 207 (travel abroad projects)
Clover Powell, Greg Spell, Agustin Temporini and Margarita Sadova.

We'd love to see you there!



The BASIS Tucson Class of 2011 Senior Research Project bloggers (with the titles of their projects) are:



Clarice Bales: "Narrative and Film"



Sierra Cordova: "The Intent and Application of Environmental Policy"



Clover Powell: "The Artistic Interpretation of the Biological Sciences"



Greg Spell: "Micro-venturing in Guatemala"



Agustin Temporini: "A Study of the Role of the Press in 1960's/70's Argentina"



Gabriel Carranza: "Analysis and Research on Drugs associated with Torsades de Pointes"



Dany Joumaa: "Innovations in Display Technology: Synthesis of Organic Luminescent Materials Compounds"



Joseph Tang: "The Creation and Project of 3D Holograms"



Jayanth Ganesan: "Research of Game Thoeretic Models in relation to Non-Market Games"



Andrew Graham: "The Malaria-Resistant Mosquito"



Samone Isom: "Art and Artist: in peril of Devaluation?"



Angelynn Khoo: "Mousa, Mouseion, Museum: MOCA Tucson"



Nicole Rapatan: "Sustainable Architecture and Design in Modern Times"



Margarita Sadova: "Pulmonology at St. Joseph's Hospital"



Josh Waterman: "The Fiery Crossroads of Artistic Value and Financial Success in the Independent Film Industry"



Zobella Vinik: "Environmental Psychology with the Drachman Institute"







Enjoy the Blog!



















Monday, March 21, 2011

Seems I Find Errors Errors Everywhere... - Gabriel

Well, after a rather uneventful week last week, with no posts, I am back to work. This is the issue. Information takes approximately an eternity to acquire when you have nothing to do to occupy your time before it comes back.

I am rather happy with my internship, and I feel more and more each day that I am making a contribution to the office and even society. The coolest thing is I'm finding flaws in the sources themselves that we're getting our info from.

Empirica Signal is a tool we use here to help find out if a drug causes diseases or side effects. Basically, every time we see a disease and a drug, the FDA reports it under the AERS (Adverse Event Reporting System) that this symptom was found while this drug was being taken. What Empirica does is I type in the drugs I am looking for and the diseases I am looking for. Then it shows me every case in which these drugs and diseases have crossed paths. Using this data, we can determine if the drug can be truly considered a cause, or if its just coincidence. However, sometimes the data is not automatically indexed by Empirica, so a custom data mining must be set up to find the missing data. The problem is that it can sometimes take up to 3 hours to yield zero results. I have found several errors with the system that have now been brought to the creators of the database for fixing (these people I work with have MAJOR connections, it's not everyday you have an issue with a search engine and then the creators are put to work fixing your issue). Already three times I have yielded zero results for several drugs, and that is where I have found the errors in the system. My work is possibly leading to a drub being taken off of one of the lists, which is HUGE, cause it takes a lot of work, research and expertise to do so. I am getting things done here.

This week I have finished gathering the stats for Torsade on most of the drugs, and now I am gathering data on the instance of QT prolongation.

SANDWICHES AT MEETINGS THIS WEEK. Yum.

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