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  Sustainability Tourism

  Melissa Weidner

  Part of a course project on intercultural communication, which can be expressed and studied in myriad ways. The students of CMM 316.01 investigated various forms of cultural expression by comparing and contrasting the ways a particular form is used by multiple cultural groups. Specifically, each group researched and presented about the ways food, music, festivals, rituals, dance, clothing, and other artifacts communicate cultural identity in at least two different cultures.

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  Synthesis and characterization of BODIPY single molecule probe for protein conjugation

  Amy Hess, Erin Stuczynski

  A single molecule 4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene (BODIPY) dye designed toconjugate to the peripheral amines of proteins have been synthesized. The syntheticroute taken toward this dye along with characterization by 1 H NMR will be described.This dye offers extraordinary absorption and emission properties within the visibleregion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Details of its spectroscopic properties alongwith first attempts to conjugate this dyes to proteins will be presented.

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  Synthesis Of a Single Stranded DNA Aptamer to Inhibit Multidrug Resistance Caused by Bacterial Efflux Pump Overexpression

  Lara Mitzka

  The increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria has become a major concern for public health, due in part to the high cost of treatment. One factor contributing to this resistance is the overexpression of bacterial efflux pumps which are proteins located in the cell membrane that can pump out antibiotics as they enter the cell. To address this issue, this research aims to develop a DNA-based inhibitor, called an aptamer, to target the TolC component of the bacterial efflux pump and inhibit its function. By blocking the TolC, it is expected that this will reverse the multidrug resistance phenotype and make bacteria sensitive to antibiotics that were previously ineffective. The aptamers will be selected from a single stranded DNA library using a systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) process, which involves selecting and amplifying DNA molecules that bind to TolC. The optimization of asymmetric and symmetric PCR techniques to ensure that single stranded DNA is amplified efficiently as well as several SELEX rounds was successfully completed. Currently, SELEX rounds are being analyzed to determine if any active aptamers were recovered. Once the TolC-binding aptamers have been identified, they will be synthesized and evaluated for their efficacy as agents to sensitize bacteria to antibiotics. The successful development of aptamers as inhibitors of the TolC component of the bacterial efflux pump has the potential to have a major impact on public health.

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  The Assumption of Mary across Select Christian Literature in Light of Modern Catholic Church Teaching: 4th to 12th centuries

  Vincent LoBiondo

  This presentation analyzes the Assumption in literature across history with a focus on early Christianity and Medieval Christianity. Using Catholic Church teaching, the presentation will assess the various literature in terms of how well they match to modern day Church doctrine. The presentation will use the modern sources of Munificentissimus Deus, Lumen Gentium, Redemptoris Mater, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the early Christian work Panarion by Saint Epiphanius of Salamis as Church teaching and doctrine. Many texts in the beginning of Christianity were often heterodox in nature and are opposed to Church teaching today. Early assumption literature still led rise to the pious acceptance by Catholics during the medieval ages. The texts analyzed in this paper include The Six Books Apocryphon, English Sermon literature, Norse Homiletic books, and various Anti-Jewish Christian literature.

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  The 'Cultish' Rhetoric of Mark Driscoll

  Phillip Cicero

  This project focuses on the rhetoric utilized by Mark Driscoll in a series of blog posts that appeared on the Mars Hill Church website in late 2001 to early 2002. Using Amanda Montell’s theorization of the rhetorical characteristics of a discourse she calls “Cultish” in her book, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, this project identifies the various ways Driscoll’s rhetoric fits within her theorization of “Cultish.” The core of this project is a rhetorical analysis of Driscoll’s blog posts that seeks to demonstrate that his rhetoric mobilizes key characteristics of “Cultish.” Then, using Stuart Hall’s theorization of desire, identification, and investment in popular culture texts along with Judith Butler’s notion of subjectivation (the process by which we are always being constructed as subjects by the rhetoric within which we are immersed), this project will aim to explain how Driscoll’s “Cultish” rhetoric attracts and retains audiences one might expect would reject Driscoll. More specifically, this project will argue that Driscoll’s “Cultish” rhetoric has attracted white men who have felt emasculated and disempowered by neoliberal (and other dominant discourses) during late 20th and early 21st-century American culture by constructing a “Cultish” form of “Christian” identity that aims to give these men a sense of masculine identity, power, and belonging. Driscoll’s rhetoric does this by constructing a homophobic and misogynistic form of “Christian” masculinity that he aggressively advances as the only form of “Christian” masculinity that is “good.” Thus, his rhetoric gives his reader two options: be actively and explicitly homophobic and misogynistic or admit that you have been “pussified” – that is, completely emasculated.

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  The Effects of Mental Illness on Reoffending Among Juvenile Offenders

  Patrick Westendorf, Kevin Cook

  A current issue in our criminal justice system today is determining what factors are linked to criminal behavior and reoffending. One factor that can be taken into consideration is mental illness. It is important to examine research among juvenile offenders to see what factors are linked to reoffending. Past research has shown that juvenile offenders with mental health issues are more likely to reoffend than those without mental health issues. The current study will use the Pathways to Desistance dataset, a longitudinal study with a quantitative approach that examines adolescent offenders as they make their transition to early adulthood. 1,354 individuals from Maricopa County, Arizona or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania while being between the ages of fourteen and eighteen at the time of committing their offense. The participants involved in the study completed a baseline interview, follow-up interviews throughout the course of many months, and release interviews within 30 days of release when held in a residential facility. The sampling technique for Pathways to Desistance is a prospective design where the researchers follow and observe a group of participants over time to track information for their data and to see what outcomes will occur based on the information collected. Factors taken into consideration were age, family structure, ethnicity, and gender to determine whether there was a relationship between mental illness and reoffending. Certain variables were re-coded to make them dichotomous variables.

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  The effects of Values on the case of Henrietta Lacks

  Mykaella Romain

  Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman born in the late 1920s who was diagnosed with cervical cancer. While she was being treated at John Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore her cells were stored and studied without her knowledge leading to one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in history. The HeLa cell line is still used in medicine today since it reproduces indefinitely under the correct circumstances. My class Science, Values and Society looks at scientific research and how select values whether it be from scientists or the public influence how and what we study. For my project I would like to research how values played a role in Lacks treatment and the change of the medical field.

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  The Exponentiated Kumaraswamy-Burr Distribution and its Applications

  Alexander Griffiths

  In light of increased data collection coupled with a growing need for data analysis, we increasingly require more accurate models and lenses to analyze data. In probability theory, statistics, and economics, the Burr distribution is widely used to model household income, insurance risk, crop prices, travel time, flood levels, and failure data. Two well-known methods exist to construct generalized statistical distributions to increase flexibility, including the Kumaraswamy-generated and exponentiated methods. By combining these two methods, in this project, we obtain the Exponentiated Kumaraswamy Burr (EKB) distribution which is a generalization of the Burr distribution. Some statistical properties, including the cumulative distribution function, the probability density function, the hazard function, the moments, and the skewness, are presented. The maximum likelihood method is used to estimate the parameters of the EKB distribution. Finally, the proposed distribution is verified against real data to determine its usefulness, applicability, importance, and flexibility and compare it to other competing distributions.

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  The Holy Family

  Kiley Blatt, Anna Gagliardo and Kacey Moyna

  Students in the CMM 357 Religious Rhetoric course were given the choice to choose a statue, building, space/place on campus that is marked as a religious text/artifact or propose a new object of visual rhetoric in order to analyze using the rhetorical theories from class. Thier analyses employ a variety of rhetorical theories and concepts discussed in class during the semester. Each group collaborated to answer the question: how does this artifact/text rhetorically communicate and construct religious identity at UD?

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  The Impact of Peer Influence on Juvenile Recidivism

  Arabella Loera, Claudia Vanzandt

  This study analyzes the impact of peer influence on juvenile recidivism. It is essential to understand the specific patterns of reoffending to improve efforts on reforming the juvenile justice system. Previous research has focused on certain indicators that predict juvenile reoffending. This study focuses on peer influences as the most significant predictor of recidivism for juveniles. For the purposes of this study, peer influence is analyzed by looking at the resistance to peer influence, antisocial influences and behaviors present in juvenile offenders, race/ethnicity, and gender.

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  The Impacts of COVID-19 on School Readiness Skills

  Jacquelyn Lavigne

  Preschool in the US is an important, but costly affair for many children. Roberts and Bryant (2011) found that preschoolers who live in homes with a low socioeconomic status (SES) are less likely to perform highly on measures of kindergarten readiness than their peers who come from homes with a higher SES. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that there is a significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures on children’s academic performance in school. However, there is little that is known about the impact of the pandemic on school readiness skills among children who live in homes with low SES. This study analyzed the academic impact of school closures due to the pandemic on children who live in low-SES homes who were in preschool before or after the pandemic forced school shutdowns. We analyzed cohorts of preschool students who participated in a large-scale longitudinal study of school readiness in 2018 - 2019 and 2021 - 2022. We used the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) and Woodcock Johnson Scale to test the children's executive functioning, vocabulary, literacy, and math skills. College students assessed preschool children ages 3-5 in the midwest. The majority of the parents of students we studied had not received a college degree and had an annual income of less than $42,000 a year. Children in the post-pandemic cohort made significantly less gains in their language skills compared to the pre-pandemic cohort. In contrast, children in the post-pandemic cohort made significantly more gains in their pre-literacy skills compared to the pre-pandemic cohort. This information indicates that students may need more classroom support in the area of language development as they develop and age through the school system.

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  The Implementation of Solar Prairies Affects Ecosystem Structure

  Lauren Corrigan, Emily Berkshire, Victoria Jacobs, Madeleine Cachat, Palmer Lambert

  Solar power is increasing in Ohio. There is little research on how the development of solar arrays affect ecological processes. Additionally, there is interest in making the area underneath solar arrays useful habitat by planting native plants underneath. Here we investigated how a solar prairie affects ecosystem structure (plant biomass, litter mass, canopy cover, and soil properties) by comparing a developed solar field with a prairie underneath to two mowed lawns that the City of Dayton is considering developing solar at. We found that the solar prairie created more canopy cover, increased plant biomass, and indirectly created more litter mass all while maintaining suitable soil conditions. These are all conditions that create microclimates for organisms to thrive. The other two sites containing only open, manicured fields had less canopy cover, plant biomass, and litter mass but did also contain suitable soil conditions. Creating a solar prairie can enhance ecosystem structure, and be a useful habitat for organisms that may colonize the area.

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  The Influence of Italian Food and Architecture

  Erika Christie, Jenna Borrelli, Connor Fritzsche

  Part of a course project on intercultural communication, which can be expressed and studied in myriad ways. The students of CMM 316.01 investigated various forms of cultural expression by comparing and contrasting the ways a particular form is used by multiple cultural groups. Specifically, each group researched and presented about the ways food, music, festivals, rituals, dance, clothing, and other artifacts communicate cultural identity in at least two different cultures.

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  The Intermediate and Mean Value Theorems with Open Intervals and Infinity

  William Woidat

  This presentation serves as an analysis of the Intermediate and Mean Value Theorems in Calculus. Included in the analysis is the observation of whether or not these theorems hold true when considering functions over open intervals rather than closed intervals, as well as functions involving infinity. Along with a series of proofs of the theorems under different criteria, an analysis of how these theorems depend on other theorems is posited.

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  The Intersection Between Preferred News Source, Region, and Importance Level of Community Involvement

  Annette Klausing, Yana Crossland, Tania Chanda

  It is no secret that the rise of social media platforms and how they affect the public has been a topic of interest to academics and the average person. In the past presidential election cycle (particularly in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic), there has been much discourse surrounding the interaction between social media and the sharing of information, credibility of news sources, community involvement, and political discourse. Using publicly available data through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (2013), this study aims to look for differences in personal importance of the level of community involvement based on preferred political news sources, as well as examine the relationship between reported importance of the level of community involvement and region.

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  The Miscasting of Annabel Christopher: Agency, Archetype, and Reproduction in The Public Image

  Tess Poe-Slade

  Muriel Spark’s 1968 novella, The Public Image, follows celebrity Annabel Christopher as she tries to save her reputation from post-humous sabotage designed by her husband Frederick. The novella has been regarded by feminists, literary scholars, and critics as an exploration of a shallow actress motivated by vapidity. However, I argue that such a reading of Annabel and The Public Image ignores the ways in which Spark plays with the idea of archetype in order to emphasize the social imperative of breaking sexist scripts. Further, I will explore the ways in which The Public Image is one of many examples of Spark both following and breaking generic conventions as a means of social commentary. Spark is regarded for her sharp style and dark humor, often taking common tropes to their darkest extremes. In following these deeply ordinary conventions in such a manner, Spark is able to demonstrate the disturbing implications of these conventions. My research examines Spark’s The Public Image, The Driver’s Seat and its film adaptation in conversation with Spark’s speech “The Desegregation of Art,” focusing specifically on Spark’s use of generic conventions to provoke social change through a reclamation of agency.

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  The Moral Courage Project Presents, "UnHousing: Claiming the Human Right to Home"

  Ifeanyichukwu Nwanoro, Josie Forsthoff, Veronica Bernacki, Anna Luepke, Liliana Busic, Meredith Robinson, Amariá Jones, Sarah Behnke, Sofia Garcia, Reagan Miller, Havana Glover, Grace Hungerford, Ahmi' Moore, Eryk Charlton, Olivia Shirk, Jayonna Johnson

  For the fourth cycle of the Moral Courage Project, a team of undergraduate students conducted fieldwork in Oakland, California and learned about the housing crisis from activists and organizers on the frontlines. Our team interviewed and photographed individuals who creatively and boldly build sustainable solutions to problems like gentrification, displacement, affordability, and eviction. The communities we encountered compel us all to re-think how we understand housing and propose collective ways to secure permanent shelter. In this presentation, we will share the materials we produced including the newest season of our podcast, "Moral Courage Radio," and an exhibition. The Moral Courage Project is a program of the UD Human Rights Center and its partner, PROOF: Media for Social Justice.

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  The post-Soviet Collapse and the American perspective on Eastern European economic Transition in the 1990s

  Brant Bolton

  The post-Soviet Collapse and the American perspective on Eastern European economic Transition in the 1990s.The economic, governmental, and social changes experienced by Eastern Europeans during the approaching Soviet Collapse in the late 1980s were caused by the democratization of the Soviet administration. The progressive Reforms brought by Mikhail Gorbachev, led to political strains between the Central Soviet government and the republics which made up the Eastern Block. Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the USSR in 1991 and resined as Cremlin; this caused a massive shift in world politics since the USSR, a world Superpower, ceased to exist. This was a time referred to as Transition; the paper will examine the American media's portrayal of the Eastern European Transition. This presentation/paper will deliver the narrative that political Liberal and Conservative based newspapers used the dynamic of Eastern European Transition to extend into American-based political arguments targeted at the economic decisions of former Soviet countries. Using newspaper archives from 1989 through 1999, by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Bussines Insider, we can see both debates. The issue of German reunification became a primary issue for liberals debating that accepting other Eastern Europeans as ethnic Germans and accepting them as citizens was a moral right since Stalin removed them in the late 1940s. Conservatives speaking about the same event labeled it as poor administrative practice since becoming a German citizen gives them access to Gracious social services, such as housing, retirement pay, food, and mounthly allowances. The conservative narrative focused on Germany's poor economy due to incorporating East Germany and the social safety net provided by the government, as well as increasing the median wage they argued was poor administrative practice and economic practice.

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  The pros and cons of conspecifics; How predator exposure impacts anti-predator behavior in platyfish between the sexes

  Lauren Roy, Emma Nash, Elizabeth Rhodes, Grace Jackson

  Antipredator behavior often fits into three categories: escape, aggression, and freezing. There are multiple studies which point to differences in these responses between males and females. Rainbow Platys are an excellent model organism for this study, as they are sexually dimorphic and very active, allowing us to clearly see behavioral differences. We studied antipredator behavior of males alone, females alone, and both together when temporarily exposed to a predator threat. We recorded behavior both before and after a simulated predator threat. It is important to understand how individual and conspecific interactions affect a fish's ability to successfully evade predators, and to examine the differences and similarities between male and female behavior in anti-predator maneuvers. Sex differences in antipredator behavior is extremely important because males and females act in different ways when introduced to a predator. We found that, after predator exposure, female Platys spend significantly more time frozen than compared to males. We also found that, after a predator stimulus, males spend more time freezing when alone compared to when they are with a female.

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  The Rainbow (Darter) Connection: Darter population and diversity as bioindicators in the Dayton area

  Lauren Roy

  The conditions of water quality in our rivers and waterways drastically impacts the organisms inhabiting them, with low water quality, reducing the fitness of the individual in many ways. It is important to both understand and document the conditions organisms are in.To better understand the impacts of water quality on the organisms in their environment, I went out to the five rivers surrounding Dayton and performed catch-and-release field work on Darters, which are part of the Etheostomatinae family. Darters are a very common Ohio river fish that are excellent indicators of water quality due to their intolerance of pollution. The quality of the water that these darters are living in varies greatly, as both outfalls into the river and wastewater treatment plants can release water full of pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and various metals. I used a seine net to catch the darters, identify the species and sex as well as take measurements of their length and weight to compare to other sites that vary in water quality parameters. I also collected macroinvertebrates along a restoration site on the wolf creek river to assess the quality of the water before the restoration occurs, and to match macroinvertebrate abundance to darter abundance. The data collected will provide information on darter populations, diversity, and success in correlation with outfalls and wastewater output in the Dayton area, reflecting the overall quality of the local ecosystem.

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  The Role Extralegal Factors Have on Convictions

  Shane McGriff

  The United States of America's justice system has grown to become a very flawed and biased system over time. There are issues in certain parts of the justice system that are more flawed than others, such as the connection between rehabilitation and mental health, and the 'mandatory minimum sentences' that come with certain offenses. Additionally, extralegal factors can be unintentionally used negatively to determine the sentence length for convictions. The possibility of these disparities leave room to disprove the idea that all men/women are treated equally under the eyes of the law. Research studies can pinpoint connections and patterns between sentence length and extra-legal factors. In this study I plan to examine the Survey of Prison Inmates from 2016 to do just that, to find these connection and patterns in the American prison system. For this study I will use a negative binomial regression to see the effect that each characteristic of the independent variables has on the dependent variable.

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  The Sensationalization of Domestic Abuse: Televised Celebrity Trials

  Madlyn Hansen

  In 2016, after being married for just over a year, Amber Heard filed for divorce from her then-husband Johnny Depp, citing irreconcilable differences. Heard was granted a temporary restraining order against Depp after alleging he had physically abused her throughout their fifteen-month-long marriage. The following year, Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”, in which she discusses being abused in her lifetime and urges others to fight against sexual violence perpetrated against women. Depp sued Heard in 2019 for $50 million on claims of defamation despite never being mentioned by name in the piece. Depp lost this case and requested an appeal but was denied. In April of 2022, Court TV announced that they would be televising the $100 million libel suit between Depp and Heard. This televised trial of public figures granted everyday citizens a look into a libel case with domestic abuse being claimed by both parties. Immediately after the first hearing, thousands of videos containing uninformed opinions began circulating around social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram that would continue to be made throughout the trial. Following the verdict, journalist Jon Lafayette reports that “the verdict in the … trial drew more than 500,000 viewers to Court TV, the largest audience since the network was relaunched by the E.W. Scripps Co. in 2019.” It is arguable that Court TV’s decision to televise the case was in some part informed by their need and want for higher viewership. Televising the case of Depp vs. Heard and other celebrity trials surrounding domestic abuse can create an environment for victims that discourages speaking out, getting help, or seeking justice.

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  The Snuffed Critique of Modernity: Adapting Brideshead Revisited for the Twenty-First Century

  Caitlin Spicer

  This thesis is an effort to understand the operation of divine grace in Evelyn Waugh’s famous queer and Catholic novel, Brideshead Revisited. I focus on the final pages and scenes of the original novel and the 2008 film adaptation, and I argue that they take different approaches to the final moments. I examine how each portrays divine grace in the lives of the characters in connection to Catholicism and the contrast of romance and religion at the center of each work. I argue that the novel holds the flame of faith at its center while the film ignites the spark of romance at the core: this difference matters because the film loses Waugh’s essential critique of the movement toward secularism in the modern world. This research fits into the critical conversation surrounding Brideshead Revisited and its 2008 film adaptation in that my argument takes on the sentiment of Gallagher and Colebatch in their criticism of the film—particularly of the treatment of God as the villain and the overarching theme of guilt that is not prevalent in the novel—while considering the question of conversion that Mooneyham presents. I claim that the 2008 film deviates significantly from the original novel, becoming a representation of the modern and secular world which is exactly what Waugh was afraid of.

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  The Theory Behind the Cape: The Ethics of DC Comics' Superman in Relation to Nietzsche's Moral Super-man

  Mary Newman

  For this project, the main question I set out to answer was is the DC Comic character Superman an accurate representation of Nietzsche’s Super-man theory? In his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra which was published in four volumes throughout the 1880s, Nietzsche explored the idea of a moral exemplar who would rise above other moral theories and create a new, superior set of morals for all humans. Nietzsche titled this moral exemplar the Übermensch, or Super-man. Beyond the name relation, it felt appropriate to analyze Superman’s ethics because Superman is a popular public figure that is often seen as a force of good with a strong moral compass, a seemingly perfect candidate to rise above humans and lead them to better morals as Nietzsche’s moral exemplar does. Superman’s dual identity as both a human, Clark Kent, and superhero also allows for a unique comparison between what ethics he has an ordinary citizen versus as a superhero. I argue that while Superman does meet some of Nietzsche’s criteria for the moral exemplar, such as Superman having an ethical advancement beyond Clark Kent, he does not meet all of them because Superman does not wish for all of humanity to adopt his ethics. Superman also differs from Nietzsche’s Super-man in that he never developed his ethical code with the intention to lead humanity into a new moral era, so while Superman may advance past typical human ethics, he does so with the intention of him being an exception not a leader which does not align with Nietzsche’s Super-man.

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  The Transition to a Renewable Energy Electric Grid in the Caribbean Island Nation of Antigua and Barbuda

  Patrick Hoody

  Most nations in the Caribbean rely largely on fossil fuels, specifically diesel, for power generation. The dual-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda does not differ in any manner from this, relying for 93% of its electricity on diesel generated electricity. Although small island states are responsible for only a vanishingly small amount of historical greenhouse gas emissions, as climate change continues to increase in severity, it is important for all nations to address the root of the issue by decreasing their carbon footprints. Fossil fuel prices have also been rising for some time, and there is little chance that this trend will stop. It will be beneficial to nations such as Antigua and Barbuda to transition to renewable energy to decrease electricity prices and help the fight against climate change. Nations in the Caribbean heavily favor renewables that rely on solar energy because of the daily sunshine all year long. The renewable energy technologies that are most economical and favorable to the region include wind energy and both solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). This latter technology has rarely been considered for the region but could represent an important option. A model was developed to determine how much of certain technologies would be needed if the energy sector were to be redesigned and to be reliant on renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. This new system will also require energy storage such as utility-scale batteries and thermal storage used with CSP. Different combinations of technologies can accomplish this, but finding the best for each nation is the main purpose of this model.