Issue 6, Spring 2012
Contents
Remixing Business Models: Technology and the Future of the Modern Music Industry
Ryan Brown (Management and Marketing)
The music industry has undergone significant changes over the past decade. The growth of the Internet has caused record labels to reevaluate the ways in which they obtain revenue, market their products, and compensate their artists. However, the industry as a whole has been very slow to adapt to new technology, which has caused widespread industry problems such as music piracy and reduced revenues. In addition, new forums for showcasing new artists, such as YouTube and other social media outlets, have given new artists increasing power to market themselves and achieve success with a reduced reliance on the resources and guidance of record labels. This article will give a brief overview of the scholarly research on the topic, examine the specific ways in which technology is changing the music industry, and provide suggestions as to how record labels can continue to adapt and remain successful for many decades to come.
Co-Crystallization and Polymorphism of Naturally Occurring Peptide Derivatives
Kevin Crowley (Biochemistry)
Carnosine is a dipeptide compound that is found in many dietary supplements and food products. Carnosine has many functions in the body, such as alleviating oxidative stress on tissues by acting as an antioxidant compound. Carnosine, therefore, has important anti-aging properties. Carnosine is also capable of forming protective sequestration structures around heavy metal ions; this process of chelating metals ions in solutions is very beneficial for maintaining the well-being of cells in the body. Thus, carnosine could be useful in pharmaceutical products for creating anti-aging drugs that would reduce tissue stress and promote a healthy cellular environment. I attempted to co-crystallize carnosine with four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites to generate various supramolecular structures based on the placement of carboxyl groups on the co-crystallants. If a co-crystallization method is created for carnosine, pharmaceutical products can utilize the same method in producing carnosine-based drugs. Furthermore, carnosine chelation of various metal ions was conducted to determine if carnosine would chelate in a variety of solution environments. Co-crystallization of carnosine with the four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites was not fully achieved, possibly due to environmental and stability conditions of solutions. Carnosine demonstrated metal-ion chelation properties with copper ions, whereas iron and zinc and iron ion solutions did not reveal carnosine chelation properties. In conclusion, more experiments with carnosine should be conducted to find optimal co-crystallization conditions for the production of pharmaceutical products.
Businesses Going Green
Emma Currin (Business Management)
In general, businesses are increasingly putting substantial weight on adapting their practices in order to become more environmentally friendly. This article aims to discover the primary factor motivating this shift. Current scholarship, when read together, suggests that there is no one answer, but rather that businesses are motivated by a combination of complying with laws and regulations, being a responsible corporate citizen and gaining an advantage that will result in increased profitability. This article explores why a company may be motivated by each of these three factors to adopt environmentally friendly practices and explains how these factors are interrelated. A content analysis of shareholder reports from various companies on the 2010 Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) is conducted and analyzed to determine what it is CEOs are saying about their sustainable efforts, then the reasons for variance among these responses are examined.
Title IX Compliance
Bailey Devon Howard (Recreation and Sports Management)
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its subsequent interpretations have created legal ground for gender equity in collegiate athletics departments. After 40 years of its existence, however, there are still fewer opportunities for women to be involved in athletics at the collegiate level at NCAA universities. While there are some general characteristics that appear to predispose universities to have lower compliance levels, little research has been done on institution-specific compliance. This study seeks to illustrate Title IX compliance levels of the Big South Conference and South Carolina Division I universities, using Coastal Carolina University as the focal institution. Data was gathered from the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Analysis cutting tool based on 20 different categories of information per participant institution, then compared within their general populations. Rankings were tallied for each general population and compared to each other. The data illustrates that Coastal Carolina University’s compliance levels are similar to other regional universities.
Multimessenger Astronomy
Kevin Kern (Applied Physics)
Our Sun is one of roughly 100 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy. Two-thirds of all stars are paired off, with a gravitational bond between the two stars. Such systems are known as stellar binaries. Although these binaries are very common in the galaxy, there is much yet to be learned about their formation, evolution, and interactions. The approach taken in this thesis is to produce simulated data representing the expected measurements that an observational astronomer would collect. We attempt to simulate three different stellar binary star systems: an eclipsing binary, a spectroscopic binary, and a gravitational wave emitting binary. In the case of the eclipsing binary, we aim to create a graph of the amount of light received as a function of time. For the spectroscopic binary, we use the fundamental physical principles to measure the velocity of each of the stars with respect to the Earth. Then for the gravitational wave emitting binary, we generate a plot which measures the distortion of spacetime due to the rotation of the stellar binary. Using these generalized functions, a future researcher will be able to develop a statistical analysis program that combines all of the data from the models in an effort to learn more about the characteristics of the stellar binary.
Midterm Elections Used to Gauge President’s Reelection Chances
Desmond Wallace (Political Science and History)
Since 1952 there have been thirteen instances in which the incumbent president’s party lost seats in the House of Representatives in a midterm election. Researchers have created two competing theories to explain this trend. The surge-and-decline theory argues that the reasons for causing high voter turnout in a presidential election are absent in a midterm election, leading to a decline in voter turnout and subsequent losses by the president’s party. The other theory, the referendum theory, argues that losses suffered by the president’s party are due to the president’s performance and the performance of the economy. When it comes to presidential elections, out of the thirteen midterm election losses, the incumbent party was able to retain the White House in the subsequent presidential election six times. The other six times, the incumbent party lost the White House. However, there is little to no research explaining why this is the case. This article attempts to answer two questions. First, can results of midterm elections serve as an indicator of gauging a president’s reelection chances? Second, if so, which theory, surge-and-decline or referendum, helps explain this trend this best? Utilizing statistical analysis, my research shows that there is insufficient evidence to conclude whether midterm elections can serve as an indicator of gauging a president’s reelection chances.
Freedom in Education
Aliyyah Willis (History)
During Reconstruction a movement gained momentum to educate the newly freed slaves in the South. Historians have agreed that the impetus for that movement came from the freedmen, as they came to be called, as well as northern missionary societies and religious aid associations. In South Carolina that impetus started in the Sea Islands around Charleston. Many historians have studied what is known as the Port Royal Experiment and the educational programs in Columbia and Orangeburg, particularly as they pertain to the higher education institutions for African Americans that arose from these efforts. But no one has specifically studied what was done to educate the freedmen in the Pee Dee region of northeastern coastal South Carolina. Using a combination of research drawn from scholarly sources and primary documents from the time period, this article has found that educational efforts in the Pee Dee mirrored much of the work done in other areas of the state. While not all of the schools created were successful, they provided the basis to push the African American community in the Pee Dee region to continue to keep education in the forefront into the twentieth century.