Stander Symposium: Honors Program

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  Adaptations of Listeria Monocytogenes in Cold Environments

  Margaret Bailey

  Listeria Monocytogenes is a bacterium which adapts and multiplies quickly under cold temperatures. L. monocytogenes infections, called listeriosis, oftentimes only cause a mild sickness in immunocompetent individuals, but to high-risk populations, listeriosis can result in a more severe sickness and sometimes death. The adaptability of L. monocytogenes under cold temperatures makes the regulation and control of the bacteria in cold storage challenging. Through my research, I will be investigating the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of L. monocytogenes in cold temperatures. My first objective was to observe the surface modifications of L. monocytogenes in cold temperatures. I did this by examining the cell shape of L. monocytogenes at three different temperatures for three different time increments. It was seen that the rod shape of L. monocytogenes has become more circular in colder temperatures. Furthermore, we investigated how this circular shape may affect how white blood cells attack L. monocytogenes. My second objective was to determine the fitness of L. monocytogenes in cold temperatures. I measured the fitness of this bacterium by its sensitivity to lysozyme and bacteriocin. The results from my Berry Summer Thesis Institute research will help us understand how L. monocytogenes is effectively growing in cold temperatures. These findings can then be used to create new preventative measures against L. monocytogenes, which will protect many people from potentially becoming infected by L. monocytogenes.

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  Alfred Rosenberg: An Analysis of the Volk from 1930-1944

  Sarah Theewis

  Alfred Rosenberg was born in Revel, Estonia. After Moving to Munich in 1918, he became one of the founding members of Der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [The National- Socialist German Workers Party] (NSDAP). Rosenberg is known primarily for being one of the leading NS ideologues and the head of the Eastern Occupied Territories. In 1930, Alfred Rosenberg wrote one of his most famous publications, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts [The Myth of the 20th Century]. In this three part publication, Rosenberg uses the concept of the Volk as a defining factor for NS ideology. The Volk is a German term that describes the concept of a group of peoples. A word that encompasses blood, culture, tradition, language, heritage and nationalism. The concept of the Volk , a German word first used in the 16th century, was used by Rosenberg to describe a people while simultaneously attempting to disenfranchise, discrimi- nate and challenge the existence of different cultures within their ‘society.’ Jewish people, Roma individuals and anyone who did not fit the mold of the German Volk were subjected to harsh treatment and persecution. The corpus of this analysis consists of Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhundert, Rosenberg’s diary from 1934–1944, and his autobiography, The Memoir of Alfred Rosenberg, written during the Nuremberg trials. Throughout Rosenberg’s life, his concept and use of the Volk manifested through these works, showing the change in his ideology and by proxy the ideology of the NSDAP within the confines of Christianity. The ideas of the Volk during the third Reich will set the stage for other Authoritarian Nationalist states. As Authoritarian Nationalism is on the rise in the 21st century by many developed nations, the study of the Volk helps to understand how Christianity conforms within modern political spheres. The structure of different modern political parties foster the same sentiments on Christianity as the NSDAP, which allows for an analytical and historical approach to under- standing nationalist authoritarianism.

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  “Almond Moms” and Their Influence on College-Aged Emerging Adults: An Investigation on Eating Cognitions, Behaviors, and Psychological Wellness

  Rebecca Sutton

  The present study examines the potential psychological and behavioral impacts "almond moms" have on their college-aged children. Previous studies examining how parents influence disordered eating habits found that parental attitudes, specifically maternal attitudes, towards appearance, weight, and dieting are associated with their children's risk for disordered behaviors. These past studies suggest that parents play a significant role in how children both think and behave around food, potentially contributing to unhealthy thought patterns and habits down the road. These studies were conducted before a specific type of parent with particular behaviors towards dieting, the "almond mom," was defined in popular culture, so examining that type of parent’s potential influence on their children will bolster research on parental influence on eating habits. It is hypothesized that college-aged students who report growing up with a parent who exhibited more characteristics that are typical for an almond mom will demonstrate more worry about nutritional choices, disordered eating habits, and less positive body image. They will also demonstrate a more rigid value system around food, categorizing foods as “good” or “bad” based on what their parents taught them about food. Impulsivity is predicted to moderate the link between parental experiences and eating habits as control is a large predictor of food choices. Socioeconomic status will serve as another moderator since those of a higher socioeconomic status tend to have the resources to only shop for foods tailored to their diets or with certain ingredients and nutritional qualities (i.e., “clean eating”).

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  A new BODIPY photosensitizer capable of excitation within the near-infrared (NIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum

  Emily Hardie

  Photodynamic therapy is a technique that uses and activates photosensitizing agents through the absorption of light of a certain wavelength in order to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). When present in a cellular environment, ROS can induce cell damage and oxidative stress leading to cell death. This study introduces a NIR activated BODIPY dye capable of generating both superoxide and singlet oxygen. The synthetic route to this dye along with characterization and evaluation through 1H NMR, electronic absorption spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy is presented. Using singlet oxygen and superoxide radical quenchers, this dye shows high quantum yields for the production of ROS.

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  An Extreme Injustice: Evaluating the American Judicial Response to Incidents of Domestic Terrorism

  Kathryn McAuliffe

  Response methods to incidents of domestic terrorism vary greatly but all maintain one common thread: failure, because there is currently no federal charge for domestic terrorism which has led to significant breakdowns in the legal response to acts of domestic terrorism. This also relates to accountability and legitimacy in the American judicial and criminal justice systems. To better understand the current situation, a qualitative, descriptive case study will be used to evaluate specific moments in American politics that are considered domestic terrorism. Through analysis of archival, court and media documents, an assessment of these cases will yield deeper insight into the workings of the American judicial system and the way the nation responds to terrorism. Responses, currently, fail to hold terrorists accountable and do not grant legitimacy to what some consider the greatest threat to America––hate. Policy recommendations and changes should be made to ensure accountability and legitimacy are granted to these threats. Only when acts of domestic terrorism are regarded at the same level as threats of international terrorism will we have granted the proper legitimacy to domestic terrorism. Increased recognition of this danger and possible outcomes will help steer us to a more secure nation.

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  Assessing the behavioral effects of pharmacological SERCA activation in the dizolpine-induced mouse model of psychosis

  Erin Flaherty, Hayden Ott

  Intracellular calcium (Ca2+) homeostasis plays a critical role in a variety of neural processes including neurotransmission, development, and apoptosis. The sarco-endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA) is a Ca2+-handling regulator that sequesters cytosolic Ca2+ into the neuron's smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Notably, disruption of mechanisms that are responsible for maintaining Ca2+ homeostasis has been implicated in the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders such as Schizophrenia. In the context of the current study, our lab sought to investigate the effects of chronic pharmacological SERCA activation via administration of CDN1163, an allosteric activator of SERCA, on the dizocilpine (MK801)-induced mouse model of psychosis. Male and female mice of the C57BL/6J strain were chronically treated with daily intraperitoneal injections of CDN1163 and their locomotor activity was assessed upon acute dizocilpine administration. The results of this study provide us with a better understanding of SERCA's role in behavior as well as its putative implication in the neurobiology of schizophrenia.

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  Automated and data-driven discovery of behavioral signatures in preclinical models of developmental disorders

  Henry Salisbury

  The primary mode of identifying developmental disorders in children involves behavioral analysis. However, behavioral datasets are mainly quantified and analyzed using manual methods that are time-consuming and cumbersome. Automated and data-driven quantification and analysis of neurobehavioral datasets is therefore a pressing need. By leveraging advanced computer vision algorithms, we aim to analyze and interpret the behaviors of mouse models of developmental disorders in specific experimental tasks. By harnessing cutting-edge computer vision algorithms such as automatic detection of body-parts and tracking using DeepLabCut, combined with data-driven identification of “behavioral signatures” using the Behavior Segmentation of Open field in DeepLabCut (B-SOiD) pipeline, we will train a system to objectively perform data analysis on data gathered from videos of mice performing diverse experimental tasks including the three-chamber social test and the Erasmus Ladder test for motor learning. Through this, we seek to find patterns between the neurobiological and behavioral data from these mouse models, to learn how developmental disorders including Down syndrome and premature brain injury impact locomotor learning and neurophysiology. Our methods provide a platform to identify potential treatment options for humans with these developmental disorders.

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  Automated System For Photonic Integrated Circuit Measurement

  Daniel Donnelly

  In recent years, with the advent of mature miniature semiconductor fabrication processes, the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) has emerged as a potential solution for the increased power consumption and bandwidth of conventional electronic computing technologies. As low-energy, optical devices, PICs serve to bring the solutions and advantages of optical technologies down to the form-factor of typical electronic microchips, including applications in telecommunications, high-speed computing, sensing, and quantum computing. However, despite the existing technologies for semiconductor fabrication, PICs, unlike their electronic counterparts, are exceedingly difficult to package and test, with each part of the process individually taking up roughly 30% of the manufacturing cost. Thus, in recent years, much focus has been placed on reducing these costs through increased automation of the various testing processes, particularly the fiber alignment process, in which, for a given device, the input and output fibers are moved to the optimal position for maximum throughput. The following paper describes the construction and implementation of an automated PIC measurement system in the Silicon Photonics Lab at the University of Dayton, including implementations of automated fiber alignment routines. The system exceeds state of the art output metrics in terms of measurement throughput and includes components for both optical and electric device measurement. The paper also describes the system’s use in measuring an innovative miniature on-chip Fourier Transform spectrometer presented at the SPIE Defense+Commercial Sensing 2023 conference.

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  Building Bridges to Math Success: Exploring Children’s Flexible Attention to Numerical and Spatial Magnitudes

  Deja Richardson

  The study will analyze how children in early childhood engage with number books and how they influence mathematical abilities such as flexible attention to magnitudes (FAM) and executive functioning. It is hypothesized that the number of books consisting of mathematical language will lead to an increase in math ability. We will also explore the correlations between children’s engagement with the books and their outcomes. It is suggested that number books will engage children using mathematical language and real-world settings. This study will be a pretest-intervention-posttest design, where 40 participants between the ages of three and five years old recruited from daycare centers and preschools in the Dayton area will complete 6 one-on-one sessions with an experimenter in their school. The pretest will consist of the following assessments: Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Early Cognitive and Academic Development (WJ ECAD) Number Sense, WJ ECAD Picture Vocabulary, Give-N, and Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS). The intervention will involve participants, who will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions, completing 4 reading sessions with an experimenter. The mixed condition involves number books with questions about size and number language, while the control condition will have questions about special colors. Each condition has two book settings, a farm, and a restaurant. The post-test will include the FAM Task and WJ ECAD Number Sense assessments. The study will analyze results from the book trials and assessments used in the pre and post-tests using ANCOVA analyses that control for pre-test and demographic covariates.

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  Characterization of a Drosophila CRC 3-hit model using genetic approaches and impact of inhibitors on tumor growth

  Sydney Anderson

  Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, resulting in the deaths of over 50,000 people every year (American Cancer Society, 2023). The similarities shared between mammal and Drosophila melanogaster anatomy within the intestinal tract make Drosophila a great model for studying colorectal cancer. This study will investigate tumor characteristics of a Drosophila CRC model generated by modulating three genes within the key Hippo pathway to create a 3-hit model: p53, RasV12, and APC. The gene combination in the 3-hit model closely emulates how CRC presents in humans and is therefore important to study. This study will (a) characterize the tumors in the guts of Drosophila for invasion, metastasis, and other phenotypes such as blockage of the intestinal tract. This study will also (b) investigate the impact of different pathway inhibitors as single or combination therapies on tumor size and metastasis. The results of this study will expand the discipline’s knowledge of CRC tumor characteristics, and metastasis to investigate the effects of new single or combination therapies on CRC.

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  Characterizing the Broadband Frequency Response of Pressure-Sensitive Paint

  Charles Strunc

  Pressure-Sensitive Paint (PSP) is a valuable tool for measuring pressure distributions in aerodynamic testing, but its effectiveness depends on its response time to pressure fluctuations. This research investigates the frequency response of PSP using a custom-built resonance tube designed to generate controlled pressure oscillations across a wide frequency range. The tube exploits the resonant properties of an air column to amplify pressure fluctuations produced by a speaker system, theoretically enabling precise characterization of PSP behavior at frequencies from 100 Hz up to 60 kHz. PSP pressure readings are compared to a high-precision transducer to quantify phase lag and signal attenuation, providing insight into the operational limits of different PSP formulations. The goal of extending frequency response characterization beyond the typical 10 kHz threshold offers a more comprehensive understanding of PSP performance at high frequencies. The resonance tube developed in this work establishes a permanent experimental setup for future PSP testing and optimization, supporting advancements in high-speed aerodynamic pressure measurements.

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  Conduct, Discipline, and Punishment: Representations of Early Modern Women in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing

  Madeleine Onderak

  In early modern England (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), women’s nature and preferred conduct were frequently discussed in pamphlets, essays, ballads, and conduct manuals. This research project examines how early modern women are represented in William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing and the implications of such characterizations. Early modern literature defines virtuous women as good housewives, obedient, patient, chaste, wise, and pious; they should avoid vanity and submit to men. Early modern depictions of the ideal woman were influenced by the virtues emphasized in Christianity and Classical history and mythology. Women were encouraged to model themselves after well-known female exemplars from Christian and Classical stories. The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, both comedies written in the early modern period, feature female main characters who either conform with these social expectations or defy them. An analysis of these plays reveals how early modern conceptions of women’s conduct were reflected and reinforced on stage, as well as how the women who did not conform could be disciplined or punished. In particular, these plays justify public humiliation as a response to unchaste women and domestic abuse as a response to disobedient wives. Plays have the ability to influence their audience’s perception of the world. As The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing are regularly performed today, it is important to understand and critique the lessons they teach contemporary audiences about women’s behavior.

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  Design Space Exploration for a Novel Self-Healing Elastomer, Informed by Bayesian Optimization

  Robert Drexler

  Self-healing elastomers are an emerging class of materials capable of mitigating vulnerability to externally-induced damage. Recent advancements in polymer chemistry have led to self-healing elastomers that are 3D-printable, exhibit real-time self-healing in the absence of external stimuli (e.g., heat, light), and use commercially available (COTS) precursors to enable production at scale. However, at present, the trade-offs between virgin mechanical properties and self-healing efficiency are not well known. To address this research opportunity, this talk presents an experimental program – informed by a Bayesian optimization platform – to (a) facilitate design space exploration and (b) investigate the interplay between virgin mechanical properties (i.e., hardness and toughness) and self-healing efficiency (e.g., ratio of healed toughness to virgin toughness) as chemical composition is varied. The material of interest is BeckOHflex, a new acrylate/thiol-ene elastomer that exhibits real-time, autonomous self-healing and is exclusively prepared from COTS precursors. The experimental design was conducted by varying the crosslinker and thiol components from 0-10% by volume while holding the molar ratio of acrylate and photoinitiator constant. Test samples were cast in custom silicone molds and cured using an external UV lamp. Hardness data was obtained using an analog Shore OO durometer, and mechanical property data was collected through uniaxial tension testing. Informed by previous-iteration experimental inputs (chemical composition) and the resulting outputs from mechanical testing (virgin hardness, virgin toughness, and self-healing efficiency), a Bayesian optimization platform (EBDO+) was used to suggest next-iteration experimental inputs. Through this iterative process of synthesizing, testing, and analyzing different compositions throughout the experimental campaign, a well-defined Pareto frontier will be determined to bound the design space, allowing for a fundamental, quantitative understanding of tradeoffs between virgin mechanical properties and self-healing efficiency. It is expected that the Pareto frontier will be determined after tens of experiments out of a possible 2,000+ discrete input parameter combinations.

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  Deus Ex Machina: Exploring the Feminist Phenomenology of Body, Motherhood, and Technology

  Aila Carr-Chellman

  Either by nurture or nature, we have a social situation wherein the control and domination over people is necessary for the world to function. The modern man is made instrumental to anything and everything, spurring systematic disconnection and alienation. The physical, psychological, and social alienation of women, in particular, is crucial for understanding the true nature of personhood. What alternative narratives of existence could emerge if the patriarchal structure of our world were dismantled? What would it mean to understand ourselves outside of a system that strips us of our connection to the social and relational world? I seek to contribute to a tradition of corporeal phenomenologists; philosophers that seek a more free version of existence through the lived body. The process of women grappling with the social distinction of Mother creates a unique relational and existential perspective that is important to understanding freedom in life. A technologizing world will continue to make all things, people or otherwise, mere means to an end. The ontological perspective of Women, of a lived corporeal reality, is essential in creating a more free world. My project seeks to draw upon the liberatory thinkers like Merleau-Ponty, Haraway, Heidegger, and De Beauvoir to reconsider our existential situation through the eyes and bodies of women. This project is to understand more deeply how a traditionally masculine project of control and domination perpetuates systemic disconnection, exploitation, and the dismantling of humanness in the most inherent sense.

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  Development and Validation of General Greenhouse Model for the University of Dayton

  Jacob Brenner

  The use of a greenhouse model is essential to ensuring that any greenhouse design presents the best value that is possible within that region of the world. Often times, greenhouse models within research papers are created, with varying levels of detail, but the models themselves are often not shared openly. This problem can be solved via some of the greenhouse models that have been made openly available, but unfortunately, the vast majority of these require a subscription, either to the model itself, or to a software that the model was built on. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to create a clear open source model, created in the programming language Python, that is published alongside this paper. This model was validated through data collected for a short period from late August to early October of 2024 within two greenhouses in the area of Dayton, Ohio. The data was collected via temperature and humidity loggers placed within 3D printed solar shields that were previously validated, while the two greenhouses contained two different environments, one with vegetation and no electronic equipment, and one with no vegetation and a fan present.

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  Diverse bacteria from the skin of Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus)

  Nicolina Valore

  Amphibians are facing a significant biodiversity crisis. In the last few decades, these animals have been decimated by two fungal pathogens, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal). Curiously, the most common amphibian species in the northeastern United States, the Eastern Red-backed Salamander, (Plethodon cinereus), appears to be largely resistant to Bd infections and also does not appear to be greatly affected by Bsal. The factors that contribute to this resistance are not fully understood. In this study, we collected P. cinereus skin swab samples from a total of three locations (Caesars Creek, Hills and Dales, and Taylorsville) surrounding Dayton, Ohio. Suspensions from the swab samples were plated to isolate bacteria. From a total of 27 skin swab samples, we obtained a total of 107 bacterial isolates. Many of the isolates are identified as bacteria commonly found in soil. Interestingly, some isolates are closely related to environmental clones where no cultivation of the organisms has been reported. In a preliminary test, the antimicrobial activity of the bacterial isolates was tested against Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, Salmonella enterica, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Findings from this study will help elucidate the role of skin microbes in the protection against pathogens for P. cinereus and ultimately provide insight into amphibian conservation.

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  Does the existence of multiple color variants aid in predator avoidance for a common frog in southwestern Ohio?

  Adelyn Hughes

  Blanchard’s Cricket Frog, found across the Midwest and Southwestern United States including southwestern Ohio, exhibits a color polymorphism, but reasons for the evolution of these different color patterns remain unclear. In a summer research project at the Berry Summer Thesis Institute Program, I investigated whether varied color patterns aid in camouflage and predator avoidance. Assisted by Dr. Hantak’s lab, I used non-toxic colored clay to create over 600 frog models mimicking Blanchard’s Cricket Frog; half of which were brown with a green stripe, and half being uniformly brown. Placed at Spring Run Conservation Area near Dayton, 414 models were positioned one meter apart along transects near ponds where these frogs reside. After five days, the models were collected and then analyzed for predator marks. Trends in the data indicate that color may play an important role in predation. However, at this time, with a low sample size, we lack sufficient power to form strong conclusions. Additional data will be collected in the fall of 2024 and spring of 2025 to increase support of our findings.

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  Effects of Step-rate Manipulation on Running Economy at a Performance Pace in Elite Male Distance Runners

  Noah Clemens

  Background: Running economy (RE) is a key performance variable for distance runners, as greater efficiency improves performance. Step-rate (SR) represents the number of steps taken per minute while running and is commonly manipulated to improve running economy or reduce injury risk. Research shows that highly trained individuals are not self-selecting their most economical step-rate when running at slow speeds, but no available research has examined highly trained individuals running near competition velocities.Purpose: This study aimed to determine if highly trained male distance runners self-optimize their SR at an ecologically valid performance pace.Methods: Twelve highly trained male participants 22.5+/-3.7 (M+/-SD) years of age completed this study. The protocol consisted of nine 4-minute trials of running at 4.96 m/s, with two minute rest periods. In the first trial, participants self-selected their SR. In the following eight trials, a metronome cued different SR. Oxygen consumption (VO2) was collected for each trial. VO2 was plotted against SR and a line of best fit was used to estimate each participant’s most economical SR.Results: Eight participants were included in the analysis. Optimal SR could not be determined for four due to an inability to match a wide range of cued SRs. Participants’ selected SR (M+/-SD; 186+/-7.56 steps/minute) was higher than their optimal SR (M+/-SD; 179.15+/-9.07 steps/minute); however, this difference was not significant (p=0.1417). Participants were more economical at their optimal SR than their self-selected SR, but not significantly so (p=0.07476). The mean difference of 0.7665 mL/kg/min represented a 1.3% improvement in RE at the optimal SR.Conclusion: Our results suggest highly trained runners do not self-select their optimal SR. The 1.3% improvement in running economy leads to an expected improvement in race velocity of roughly 1%. This equates to roughly a 30 second difference over the half-marathon distance – a meaningful difference to competitors.

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  Efficient Light-Induced Reactive Oxygen Species Production from a Cationic Mitochondrial-Targeting BODIPY Dye.

  Cynthia Bukirwa

  Efficient Light-Induced Reactive Oxygen Species Production from a Cationic Mitochondrial-Targeting BODIPY Dye. Cynthia Bukirwa (Undergraduate student), Dr. Shawn Swavey (Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Dayton)BODIPY dyes have demonstrated their effectiveness as photosensitizers due to their diverse reactivity and high selectivity. These dyes are highly versatile and can be modified to absorb light across the visible and infrared spectrum. This study introduces a red light-activated BODIPY dye capable of subcellular localization within the mitochondria, yielding high quantum yields of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The potential of this dye to serve as a photodynamic therapy (PDT) agent highlights its promise as an organelle-targeted phototherapeutic. The synthetic route for this dye, along with its characterization and evaluation through 1H NMR, electronic absorption spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy, is detailed. The dye's ability to generate singlet oxygen and superoxide radicals, as well as its capacity to photo-nick plasmid DNA, will also be addressed. Integrating this organelle-targeted strategy into cancer treatment therapies could help mitigate drug resistance and reduce the recurrence of tumor cells.

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  Electropolymerization on ITO-Coated Glass Slides of a Series of π-Extended BODIPY Dyes with Redox-Active Meso-Substituents

  Alexa Wright

  A series of meso-carbazole and meso-pyrene boron dipyrromethene(BDP) dyes have been synthesized using a two-step method. This simplified synthetic method did not require catalysts or oxidizing agents. Solution spectroscopic and electrochemical studies indicate that the HOMO and LUMO energies are dependent on the extent of π-conjugation associated with the pyrroles. Solution electrochemistry of the dyes in chloroform reveal film formation onto glassy carbon electrodes. Electrolysis of chloroform solutions of the dyes using indium tin oxide (ITO) glass slides as the working electrode show, using UV/vis spectroscopy, the formation of films. For two of the dyes, the BODIPY structure stays in tact upon electrolysis, exhibiting sharp absorption peaks on the ITO slides similar to that observed for the same dyes in solution.

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  Enhancing Quadrotor Autonomy Using Robust Control Algorithms

  Kevin Johnston

  In the evolving landscape of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the autonomy and stability of quadrotors are crucial, especially in critical applications such as search and rescue missions and surveillance. This research focuses on the development and implementation of planning and control algorithms within the Robot Operating System (ROS2) framework. Initial work focused on developing Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control algorithm in a realistic simulated environmental conditions, incorporating the effects of sensor noise. Following successful simulations, the study transitioned to real-world testing, validating the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in ROS2. The work conducted has not only demonstrated the practical utility of these algorithms in both simulated and real-world environments but has also laid the groundwork for more advanced applications in aerial robotics. The successful integration of ROS2 has opened up new avenues for modularity and scalability, critical for the ongoing evolution of autonomous drone technology.

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  Enhancing Quadrotor Autonomy using ROS-based Control Algorithms

  Kevin Johnston

  In the evolving landscape of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the autonomy and stability of quadrotors are crucial, especially in critical applications such as search and rescue missions and surveillance. This research focuses on the development and implementation of planning and control algorithms within the Robot Operating System (ROS2) framework. Initial work focused on developing Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control algorithms in realistic simulated environmental conditions, incorporating the effects of sensor noise. Following successful simulations, the study transitioned to real-world testing, validating the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in ROS2. The work conducted has not only demonstrated the practical utility of these algorithms in both simulated and real-world environments but has also laid the groundwork for more advanced applications in aerial robotics. The successful integration of ROS2 has opened up new avenues for modularity and scalability, critical for the ongoing evolution of autonomous drone technology.

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  Estimating Disease Transmissions with Assortative Mixing by Vaccination Status

  Jacob Biesecker-Mast

  Many mathematical models of infectious disease assume the population is well-mixed, meaning every pair of individuals is equally likely to contact each other, potentially spreading the disease. In reality, populations are rarely well-mixed, and an important way in which they are not is assortative mixing, that is, when pairs of individuals who are similar are more likely to contact one another than pairs of individuals who are different. Failing to account for assortative mixing by vaccine status leads to biased estimates of important quantities that characterize disease transmission, including reproduction numbers. We expand on this by developing a model that can overcome this bias using a framework called dynamic survival analysis that studies the epidemic using techniques from survival analysis. Additionally, our model circumvents gaps in the information required. For example, our model works when test times, rather than infection times, are known.

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  Ethical & Effective Federal Artificial Intelligence Policy

  Liam Row

  Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be the defining invention of our time. As some put it, it will be humankinds' last invention since everything from thereon will be created by it. Moreover, it will possess capabilities that far surpass any known technology and will have a similar technological impact to that of the internet. The rise of the internet and, subsequently, social media is viewed as one of the greatest technological changes and impacts of the world today, changing every aspect of our modern lives for both better and worse. However, when political thinkers retroactively examine the policies around both the internet and social media, it is clear that some of the necessary policies to protect people never came to fruition and it is now too late to effectively regulate most aspects of either. This is the same logic that many worry will be true when it comes to artificial intelligence, but with one key difference: AI has the potential of significantly greater and more catastrophic harms. In other words, to avoid these future harms and ensure that the policy opportunity window is not missed as was the case with the internet and social media, an effective policy must be adequately researched and developed. Furthermore, the policy must be created with all possible considerations and full evaluation of the potential benefits and downsides. Thus, this project will aim to identify the potential harms, and benefits, of AI in the future as well as how they may be impacted by prospective policies. The end goal of this project is to create and justify an effective artificial intelligence policy that protects against the potential downsides and promotes the benefits such technology can provide, minimizing harms and maximizing advantages.

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  Examining Gender and Race/Ethnicity Differences in Self-Esteem: A Birth Cohort Analysis Spanning 46 years

  Ella Donnelly

  Self-esteem has been increasing generationally among the general population. This study will determine if one’s race and gender influence their self-reported self-esteem. Self-esteem is the degree to which one’s perceived self-concept is positive. Over 120,000 participants were collected as a convenience sample from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future Study. Participants completed a survey that included measures from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem questionnaire. Responses were collected from over two million 12th graders from 1975 through 2023. They completed this survey in a classroom setting. Data will be analyzed using an analysis of variance statistical testing by R statistical programming language. If necessary, follow-up tests will be conducted using TukeyHSD testing. It is important to understand the factors that may influence self-esteem generationally so that psychologists, educators, and health care professionals can alter their practices for each gender and race.