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  Let's Be Real: Staring into the Sun

  Zac Collopy

  Staring into the Sun asks the question, “Can photography help us reignite our spiritual connection with nature by reimagining the relationships among digital technology, the body and its environment?

  “Let's Be Real” presents six senior capstone photography projects. The collective works all grapple with notions of authenticity, belonging, and expression within the context of contemporary art and existence.

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  Let's Talk about Sexual Violence Prevention in ROTC Programs

  Madeline Kondritz

  The purpose of this study is to analyze how ROTC programs across the United States are teaching their sexual violence prevention program, SHARP (Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention). As both individuals in the military and college students are both vulnearble poplulations to sexual violence, it is importnat to have strong teaching for this program that displays the overlap of the two areas. For this study, college students who are also cadets at their school’s ROTC program were asked to answer a series of questions regarding how their ROTC program specifically focuses on sexual violence prevention, if they think it is effective, and if they think their program would be open to introducing a new SHARP program into their ciriculum. I As SHARP is a program that is seen at least once a year by all Soldiers, it is vital that as future Army officer that cadets are not only familiar with, but are knowledgeable about SHARP and other forms of sexual violence prevention. A goal of this project was to find the benefits and restrictions in which ROTC programs are teaching SHARP in order to inform these future Army officers of the most efficient ways to learn and eventually teach about sexual violence prevention in their future careers in the Army and in their current civilian careers.

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  Living Simply and Sustainably in an Interconnected World

  Meg Maloney

  Meg Maloney discusses the interconnectedness between her faith and living a sustainable lifestyle. She explains how her sustainable lifestyle is not just a choice, but also a calling through her faith that has been influenced by UD's Catholic and Marianist values. Meg discusses a first hand experience in India of how she saw the detriment of climate change impacting communities, and encourages others to live a sustainable lifestyle.

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  Making a Change is a Choice: Practical Steps for Promoting Human Rights and Sustainability

  Jared Marsh

  The concepts of sustainability and human rights are often lauded for the work they pursue but are hard to translate into personal action. Traditionally, the intersection of the two has often been overlooked. In this video Jared exposes the intersection of sustainability and human rights, and relates personal choices with a call to action that is applicable to any individual that wishes to uphold both concepts.

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  Making the Modern Music Therapist Culture-Centered: Resources for Working with Latinx Immigrants

  Michaela Miller

  Due to an increasing need for culture-centered thinking in music therapy and the current political context, it is imperative for music therapists to have resources to work with Latinx immigrants. I will offer ways to redefine music therapy for Latinx immigrants and their communities by outlining various models and approaches that can respond to their areas of need.During this presentation, I will discuss the meaning of the term “Latinx,” compare different definitions of music therapy and talk about how these can be adapted for Latinx immigrants, examine the stigma of therapy within Latinx communities, explore models of music therapy that may be appropriate for some Latinx immigrants (such as Community Music Therapy and Culture-Centered Music Therapy), and review considerations for working with these areas of need. I will also provide examples of music experiences that can be utilized within Latinx communities.

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  Many of my friends are feminist, but I am not: Perspectives and Presence of Feminism at the University of Dayton

  Claire McHugh

  Feminism is an often polarizing topic of discussion for people. While some consider it to be a large and important part of their identity, others are turned off by the very mention of the word. Younger generations have been found to be more accepting of feminism according to previous research. In this study, I analyze results from a survey of undergraduate students (n=88) at the University of Dayton. Survey respondents were asked about their perspectives on feminism as well as the presence and influences of feminism found on their campus. This study is very important because people who are in the typical college age range are the next generation who will be running the country in the coming years. Findings from this research will provide information on this generation's attitudes regarding feminism. At the University of Dayton a majority of students surveyed had a very positive view of feminism. However, few considered themselves feminists privately and even fewer reported openly identifying as a feminist on University of Dayton’s campus

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  Mapping both accumulation and ablation zone of the glacier using deep-learning

  Zhiyuan Xie

  The increased temperature over the past decades has affected the health, dynamics, and processes of the alpine-type glaciers. To understand these glacier changes, we used Landsat satellite images, digital elevation model (DEM), DEM-derived land-surface and drainage basin parameters to develop a deep-learning algorithm to map glaciers. The alpine glacier includes the debris-covered glacier (DCG) in the accumulation zone and snow-covered glacier (SCG) in the ablation zone. For this work, we take advantage of the deep-learning algorithm, GlacierNet, which we have already developed to map debris cover ablation zone. The architecture of GlacierNet is based on the commonly used feed-forward neural network – convolutional neural network (CNN). The GlacierNet exploits the spatial pattern present in the debris cover ablation zone; however, the SCG has less distinguishable features when compared with the snow present inside and outside the glacier accumulation zone. Therefore, we consider each glacier as a drainage basin and utilize the drainage basin algorithm to accurately classify the snow and SCG by using the GlacierNet generated DCG as the reference region. Our innovative approach has been successfully applied to selected glaciers in Karakoram and Nepal Himalaya, and the preliminary results indicate high accuracy. This is a major step in developing a fully automated and worldwide applicable methodology for glacier mapping.

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  Medical Image Annotation in Virtual Environment

  Vivek Rohom

  The research in medical domain has always been interesting due to its complexity, the risk associated with human’s life and the limited availability of the data. Assisting physicians with a 3-dimensional model, will definitely help to diagnose the patient in a timely and accurate manner. There is the need for medical image annotation systems that are accurate as manual annotation is impractical, time-consuming and prone to errors. The objective of this research is to generate and visualize a 3- dimensional model in a virtual environment from good annotated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) dataset. This is a part of my master’s thesis advised by Dr. Tam Nguyen.Visualization in virtual environment is not only beneficial for physicians to treat patients but also to avoid complications during surgery and plan out how to approach a tumor and avoid critical areas like the motor cortex or the sensory areas. Many computational models to support human life will be proposed from the strong annotated dataset.

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  Mental health in Seventeen Magazine: a comparison across three generations (1977-2019)

  Kathryn Smith

  The stigmatization of the mentally ill has a long history of negative views from older generations and society. It was not socially acceptable or as common to talk about any type of mental illnesses in the past due to the stigma they had and how they were viewed. I analyzed mental health and how it has been portrayed and changed within three generations with the process of content analysis. I did this through the culture of Seventeen Magazine, a resource for teens to seek advice, gossip, beauty tips, and more, which has been around for 75 years. I measured this by finding direct mentions of mental health in the text/ pictures, or things that could indirectly relate to mental health, like race, negative talk about self image, etc. I used a random sample to select two issues per year from year to year. After scanning and gathering all the data, I then analyzed the 84 magazines to find where mental health was discussed, both directly and indirectly. I find that mental health has always been present and represented in the magazine, but the way in which the topic is presented across generations has definitely evolved and changed throughout the years. Mental Health has become more relevant and represented in today’s culture and society, and also more acceptable to talk about/ be diagnosed with. Mental health has always had a stigma, but with the three generations I’ve analyzed, I have found that it is progressively getting better and more talked about, which is beneficial to our society as a whole.

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  Military Alliances and Their Role in the 21st Century: Examining Bilateral and Multilateral Realtionships

  Tyler Andrew Johnson

  Throughout history, military alliances have proved pivotal in shaping international politics and determining the outcome of conflicts. The complexities behind alliances in the 20th and 21st centuries have brought a new dynamic to international conflict resolution. With the resurgence of China and Russia as contenders on the world stage, the focus for organizations such as NATO have shifted from counterterroism to preparing to fight a near peer adversary. This research examines the dynamics behind the United States' international military partnerships, and the differences in how the United States utilizes alliances to deter China and Russia.

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  Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Emotion Regulation in Wellbeing Among Childhood Maltreatment Survivors

  Kelsey Julian, Abagail Petit, Alicia Selvey

  Mindfulness and self-compassion have been linked to the capacity for emotion regulation and to better outcomes, including among survivors of childhood maltreatment (CM). Mindfulness is multifaceted and includes observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reactivity, yet little research has examined the roles of specific facets of trait mindfulness in positive outcomes after CM. This study used self-report measures from 157 undergraduates who endorsed CM experiences, and tested combined parallel-sequential multiple mediation models of wellbeing. Hypothesized models linked CM severity to lower wellbeing through reduced self-compassion and subsequent emotion dysregulation and through lower trait mindfulness and subsequent emotion dysregulation. As anticipated, there was a negative indirect effect of CM on wellbeing through lower self-compassion and more emotion dysregulation (CI = -.09, -.01). Unexpectedly, there was no indirect effect through mindfulness and emotion dysregulation. When facets of mindfulness were tested separately, a negative indirect effect only emerged through lower non-judging and emotion dysregulation (CI = -.22, -.02). Results suggest that, in mindfulness-based interventions with CM survivors, self-compassion and non-judging may be critical targets for fostering wellbeing, as their absence may impede emotion regulation capacity.

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  Modeling Bullying in Teenagers: Assessing the Behavioral Effects of Social Defeat Stress in Adolescent Mice

  John Richard Coffey, Patrick Robert Flaherty

  Depression, anxiety, and other stressed-induced cognitive deficits severely affect millions of people worldwide. Strikingly, an estimated one in four adolescents around the globe suffer from a mental health disorder. It has long been known that drastic developmental changes occur in the adolescent brain which makes teenagers far more susceptible to various stressors, most prominent being social and physical defeat from stronger peers (i.e., bullying). In order to investigate the behavioral effects of social defeat stress in adolescence, an adolescent mouse model was utilized. Adolescent mice were subjected to chronic resident-intruder stress and immediately following the completion of the paradigm, a battery of behavioral tests were conducted in order to assess levels of anxiety, depression, and cognitive flexibility.

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  Momentum from Tiny Choices: the Power of Rethinking Our Habits

  Theresa Isemann

  Tess shares some of her sustainability experiences at UD and how they have inspired her to this day. She offers reflection questions to encourage your own exploration of your personal connection to making sustainable choices. Tess speaks to the importance of rethinking our daily habits to internalize climate action in our everyday lives.

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  MyWebGuard: Toward a User-Oriented Tool for Security and Privacy Protection on the Web.

  Jack A. Armentrout, Panchakshari N. Hiremath

  We introduce a novel approach to implementing a browser-based tool for web users to protect their privacy. We propose to monitor the behaviors of JavaScript code within a webpage, especially operations that can read data within a browser or can send data from a browser to outside. Our monitoring mechanism is to ensure that all detected leakage is automatically prevented by our context-aware policies that can be modified and redefined by the user. Our method advances the conventional same-origin policy standard of the Web by enforcing different policies for either each source of the code, or groups of related API. Although we develop the tool as a browser extension, our approach is browser-agnostic as it is based on standard JavaScript. Also, our method stands from existing proposals in the industry and literature. In particular, it does not rely on network request interception and blocking mechanisms provided by browsers, which face various technical issues and lead to an “all or nothing” approach to privacy on the web. We implement a proof-of-concept prototype and perform practical evaluations to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Our experimental results evidence that the proposed method can detect and prevent data leakage channels not captured by the leading tools such as Ghostery and uBlock Origin. We show that our prototype is compatible with major browsers and popular real-world websites with promising runtime performance.

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  Neurochemical alterations upon retinectomy in the developing chick embryo: a preliminary study

  John Richard Coffey

  Chick embryos, between 3.5 and 4.5 days of development, have been found to be able to completely regenerate a removed retina in the presence of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2). FGF2 activates the trans-differentiation of the retinal pigmented epithelium, providing a necessary step in the regenerative process. While the regenerative capabilities of the chick embryo are known, the injury signals, which stem from the retinal injury, effect on the brain’s neurochemistry is not known. The ISE summer CoRPs project aimed to use HPLC analysis of the chick embryo brain tissue during periods of 30 minutes, two hours, and three days post-retinectomy for both embryos with and without fibroblast growth factor 2 to analyze the impact injury signals and subsequent regeneration had on the brain’s neurochemistry. Samples of embryo brain tissue were harvested at Miami University and brought back to the University of Dayton, where they were subjected to ex vivo neurochemical analysis with high performance liquid chromatography. Herein, we present first preliminary evidence for intriguing neurochemical alterations upon retinectomy in the chick embryo.

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  Novel Combinational Therapy Targets Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Infections in a Flow Model

  Jessica Elizabeth Geyer

  The rise of multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogens is one of the greatest medical concerns of the century. In MDR infections, the use of antibiotics is almost entirely useless, leaving patients at a higher risk of mortality. Almost 80% of human infections involve biofilms. The biofilm-associated cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are up to 1000-fold more resistant to antibiotics than planktonic cells. The danger caused by the resistance of these pathogens has initiated an urgent need to look for alternative antimicrobial therapies such as phage therapy, which uses the natural relationship of lytic bacteriophages to eliminate infections. Our lab has examined a successful combinational therapy that treats biofilms of P. aeruginosa using a lytic bacteriophage (PEV2) and our novel patented porphyrin (ZnPor). The objectives of this proposal are to evaluate the synergistic antibacterial effectiveness of ZnPor and PEV2. Biofilm flow models were constructed to represent a in vitro infection model using CDC approved bioreactors. Bioreactors were inoculated with wild type strain of P. aeruginosa and grown for 16~18 hours, then treated with a combination of PEV2 and ZnPor both alone and combined. Phage and bacterial burden were quantified and biofilm structure was observed using confocal laser scanning microscopy. The therapy we have developed involves a novel patented porphyrin (ZnPor), which rendered biofilms more porous and less strongly attached. The subsequent addition of bacteriophage PEV2 resulted in the killing of virtually all the remaining cells. The significance of our novel approach of antimicrobial management is that, unlike other protocols involving biofilm eradication, our strategy addresses the issue of resistance. The ability to disrupt the inherent structure of biofilms and make cells accessible to treatment promotes little resistance and decreases bacterial success in colonization of biomaterials. The treatment of life-threatening infections is foundational to UD’s mission of Research for the Common Good.

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  Olympic Games Event Recognition via Adaptive Convolutional Neural Networks

  Yousef Idris Yousef Mohamad

  Automatic event recognition based on human action is both interesting and valuable research topic in the field of computer vision and deep learning. With the rapid increase and the explosive spread of data which is being captured momentarily, the need of fast and precise access to the right information has become challenging task with considerable importance for multiple practical applications, e.g., image and video search, sport data analysis, healthcare monitoring applications, monitoring and surveillance systems for indoor and outdoor activities, and video captioning. This research, part of my master’s thesis, develops an adaptive content-aware convolution neural network with the capability of analyzing, recognizing and interpreting the sport event in the Olympic games based on human action. 20 of the 33 sports scheduled for inclusion in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will be included in the collected data set to evaluate the proposed method. This method combines convolutional neural network (CNN) and transfer learning (fine-tuning method) to potentially achieve best performance with high accuracy and precision of the event recognition.

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  On Isomorphism Theorems and Characterizing Properties of Groups

  Jack M. Dalton

  In group theory, understanding properties of groups is essential. However, in some circumstances determining the properties of groups is challenging because of the structure or ambiguity of a group. The Isomorphism Theorems provide a solution to this challenge. When two groups are isomorphic to one another, it is said that those two groups have the same properties as each other. Given a group G and subgroups N and K of G, the First, Second, and Third Isomorphism Theorems allow us to find isomorphisms between different groups. In this study, we examine the proofs for the Isomorphism Theorems to understand which groups we can claim are isomorphic to each other.

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  Optimization of Aluminum Scandium Nitride Growth for Piezoelectric Applications

  Ryan P. Laing

  The piezoelectric coefficient of aluminum nitride (AlN), a material important for radio frequency communication applications, has been shown to depend strongly on film crystallinity. Aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN) is an alloy of AlN and ScN that has been demonstrated to have up to a 5x increase in piezoelectric coefficient compared to pure AlN. The correlation between synthesis conditions, film crystallinity, and the piezoelectric coefficient is still being extensively studied. AlScN films were deposited on thin layers of titanium nitride on sapphire substrates using reactive magnetron sputtering. Films were grown with a variety of sputter powers and substrate temperatures to ascertain the effect of these conditions on film crystallinity and surface morphology. The full-width half-max of x-ray diffraction (XRD) rocking curve scans was used to determine the film crystallinity, while atomic force microscopy revealed the surface morphology. This characterization is preliminary work for a greater study in which the d33 piezoelectric coefficient will be measured with piezoelectric force microscopy, which will be correlated with the XRD rocking curve to find the deposition conditions with the highest piezoelectric performance.

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  Parent University

  Erin Collins

  Parent University is a monthly, psychoeducation class offered to parents and guardians on the east and west ends of Dayton where topics such as resiliency, mindfulness, and self-regulation are discussed. This study aims to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from the first cohort of participants on their thoughts on the program and its effectiveness in their lives. Participants will complete the Protective Factors Survey and a measure designed by the researchers in collaboration with the community partners leading the sessions. Data collection is still in progress, and the data will be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the Parent University sessions and what participants hope to see in future sessions and cohorts.

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  Patience, Young Grasshopper: Analyzing the Fungal Composition of the Grasshopper Gut Microbiome

  Staci Seitz, Melani Muratore

  Microbes inhabit many corners of the Earth, including the intestines of all animals. These intestinal microbes, collectively called the “gut microbiome,” provide numerous nutritional and regulatory functions for the animals they live in and thus play an important role in animal health. The fungal communities in insects, specifically, play a diverse, but important role in insect physiology, as well as insect control. The goals of this project were to expand knowledge of R programming through statistical analysis of microbial ecology and to identify the fungal communities in grasshoppers to enrich our knowledge in insect fungal microbiome. The two main objectives in the project include (1) the identification of the composition of the fungal communities in grasshoppers and (2) the assessment of the drivers influencing the composition of the fungal communities. The grasshoppers were collected in the summer of 2017 from a Texas prairie bu Dr. Prather's research team. Upon arrival at the University of Dayton, the guts of the grasshoppers were removed by Melani Muratore to extract the DNA, which was then submitted for sequencing by Zymo Research. After analyzing the sequencing results, with funding from the STEM Catalyst Grant awarded to Dr. Prather, we identified two fungal phyla that were present in all samples: Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. Within Ascomycota, the class Dothideomycetes is most prevalent. Within Basidiomycota, the classes Tremellomycetes and Ustilaginomycetes are most prevalent. Dothideomycetes are typically found as saprobes, or decomposers, that break down dead organic matter. They are also commonly found on living plants, acting as pathogens or endophytes. Tremellomycetes are a type of pathogenic fungus that acts as a parasite toward insects and plants. Ustilaginomycetes, known as “smut fungi,” act as a parasite toward vascular plants. These classes of fungi are directly involved with plant matter, suggesting the association of plant fungi and the grasshopper fungal communities.

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  Permaculture Gardening: The Potential for and Obstacles to Behavior Change in Farming Techniques to Increase Food Security in Rural Malawi

  Morgan Day

  This study assessed permaculture (PC) gardening as a solution to food insecurity in rural northern Malawi by investigating its potential to be adopted by farmers and increase food production. Permaculture is "a system of agricultural and social design principles that synergistically and adaptively centers upon natural ecosystems," which includes strategic water and waste management and plant selection (Rivett et al., 2018). Research was conducted in partnership with Determined to Develop, a grassroots Malawi-based NGO. On a micro-level, this study documented best practices of permaculture in Malawi. On a meso-level, the obstacles to adoption of permaculture by traditional farmers and behavior change of the individual within larger cultural, political, economic, and environmental contexts were assessed. On a macro-level, the state of development of Malawi and whether permaculture is a potential solution to food insecurity was explored through interviews with political, academic, and nonprofit representatives. This study included 21 interviews and one focus group. An overarching theme of reciprocity was found, with sharing of knowledge and resources among stakeholders as well as a symbiotic relationship with the environment being indicators of successful outcomes. Overall, permaculture has the potential to mitigate food insecurity in Malawi, but obstacles, including economic (poverty and lack of education), cultural (aversion to labor and jealousy among neighbors), and ineffective public policies, prevent farmers’ behavior change and permaculture from being an effective solution. This study recommends further research into commercialization of agriculture and reform of public policy to increase available permaculture farming education and inputs.

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  Physical to Virtual Reality Mapping

  Dakota Pease

  Since its commercial release, virtual reality has opened a new world of possibilities, and continues to find its way into an increasing number of industries. One limitation of current virtual reality systems is the user’s inability to feel the objects they interact with. In order to tackle this problem a system was designed to track objects in a physical space and map them to a virtual world. This would allow a user to interact with objects in the real world and the virtual world at the same time. The system would combine three pieces of technology: a virtual reality engine (Unity3D) to manage the virtual world, a LeapMotion sensor to allow the system to track the users hands in the real world and project them into the virtual world, and a Kinect Camera Sensor that tracks the positions of objects in the real world and updates them in the virtual world. The system could be used as a proof of concept to study how this new form of interaction affects the user experience, and serve as a building block for more advanced virtual reality systems.

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  Possible Cancer Treatment using the Drosophila Glioma Model

  Rachel Croyle, Claire Feller, Cristina Flamand De Los Reyes, Catherine Martini, Isha Mishra, Jordan Terschluse

  Glioma are brain tumors with very poor prognosis. The standard of care is surgery followed by radio- and chemo/immuno-therapy, or combinations thereof, however, healthy cells are affected as well as tumorous cells and all patients eventually die. Thus, there is a need to test if recently approved drugs can inhibit the growth and progression of this tumor. We have developed a Drosophila glioma model based on the two genetic/ oncogenic pathways known to be most frequently activated in patients viz., the Ras/MAPK pathway and the PI3K pathway. We designed a chemical screen involving drugs targeting Tyrosine kinases (Selleck Biochem Chemical library) – key enzymes that are activated by oncogenic pathways. The chemical screen involves feeding glioma containing larvae 10uM and 300uM drugs from the library at early third instar stage, then allow these larvae to grow and mature to the third instar stage (120h of development), and then dissect the brain to study effects on glioma growth and track survival on days 5-7 when other glioma positive larvae die. Here, we present data from our screen on promising drugs from this academic year’s testing focusing on drugs H10 and H11. Once we identify potential glioma inhibitors in the primary screens, we will validate them in secondary screens.

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  Praying with your eyes open: potential U.S. lay saints' somatic spirituality

  Joshua Wopata

  This presentation will use modern lay causes for sainthood as sources of somatic spirituality. We will do this by looking through their eyes at the world in a way that is closer to seeing it as at least a sacrament, if not more in keeping with the more classical image of an organism or body. I will attempt to demonstrate how their experiences of particular icons of nature (e.g. trees, leaves) led to encounters with the sacred. These evocative events compliment and connect to their embrace of a more strictly Catholic and liturgical sacramental imagination. Lastly, we will examine how these lay witnesses very own bodies also function as sacramental sites of redemption that reflect a long standing Catholic and Incarnational spirituality, but in a new way and context. Phenomena like the stigmata, or in one even more extreme case- a rose allegedly growing out of the chest of one mystic, frustrate our modern sensibilities, but are suggestive about where the Sacred has come to rest in modern American Catholic Church: inscribed in the fragile bodies and bedrooms of laywomen who themselves become icons of the presence of God in a society that has attempted to quarantine the supernatural. Banished from our imagination to a non-corporeal transcendent reality God remains at a safe distance- entirely within the immanent frame. The Enlightenment metaphor that reimagined the created cosmos as a machine may have suffocated a legitimate Christian instinct finding God within creation. The overly enthusiastic Enlightenment division of the natural from the supernatural may have also limited our imagination about where we can find God. It is the goal of my research to allow these holy persons to assist us in rediscovering a somatic spirituality that can find the transcendent God here in our body and the body of the world.