Stander Symposium: Projects with UD Institutional Learning Goals

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  Optimizing Novel High-Speed Mechanical Press Designs for Improved Ram Dwell Subject to Joint Force Considerations

  Tianze Xu

  This research aims to advance mechanism designs for mechanical presses by targeting desirable ram motion while meeting industry standards for joint forces. Mechanical presses, pivotal in shaping metal parts from pop cans to car fenders, are integral to industry due to their advantages in speed, cost, accuracy, precision, and energy efficiency over alternative forming methods. The prevalent use of mechanical presses has spurred a considerable number of companies to design and manufacture these machines, catering to diverse end-user needs. Given their ubiquity, even minor enhancements can significantly reduce processing times and energy consumption. This study focuses on optimizing five designs to improve their dwells, the amount of time they spend in contact with the material to be formed. Two of the designs are established in industry, while the remaining three propose novel advancements. The two industry-established designs provide baselines for performance, identifying acceptable dwell times and joint loads. The remaining three designs will be optimized to surpass the dwell time while respecting the same joint loads.

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  OptiVAE: A Unified Parallel Gumbel-Softmax VAE Framework with Performance-Based Tuning

  Fangshi Zhou

  Classic training algorithms for Gumbel Softmax Variational Autoencoders (GS-VAEs) often rely on an annealing scheme, which reduces the Softmax temperature according to a given function. We find that this leads to suboptimal performance. To improve the design, we propose a novel framework for GS-VAEs, which embraces dual latent layers and a parallel multi-model structure with diverse temperature strategies. By dynamically tuning the temperature in response to the loss difference between each sub-model and the best sub-model with the minimum loss at each training epoch, our model utilizes exploration and exploitation and significantly surpasses a standard GS-VAE in data reconstruction, detection of altered data, and model robustness. In particular, our model can reconstruct data of unfamiliar categories that are never observed during training. Moreover, in the presence of patch attack or white-box adversarial attack, our model greatly outperforms a standard GS-VAE and other existing models studied in this work.

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  Organizing for Sustainability in the Greater Dayton Area

  Lindsay K. Adams, Patrice Claire Bilodeau, Nicholas Chandiles, Sophia M. Divagno, Amanda N. Film, Renee R. Fortin, Isabel Angelica Garcia Torres, Jessica Lee Garland, Eileen M. Globokar, Anyssa S. Jones, Mara Elizabeth Mackinnon, Owen P. Malloy, Matthew Kevin McGuire, Emma Rae Meyer, Tyler R. Mordarski, Michael Nolan Mosher, Kayla Nicole Nickel, Ja'Niyah Raeann Norman, Cassandra A. Novak, Matthew C. Rego, Claire M. Robinson, Madelyn Elizabeth Day Russell, Isabella Santamarina, Olivia L. Slavin, Alyssa Marie Sparto, Cole Eugene Thomas, Kennedy A. Torggler, Margaret Hope Whitman, Christierra Cici Williams, Charles A. Zahir

  Sustainability is integral to managing organizations in the 2020s. As Ray Anderson, the late chair and founder of the carpet manufacturing company Interface, explains, sustainability in its broadest sense is about organizational survival. Organizations must develop their capacity to identify events that pose risk to them, assess those risks, and respond in ways that allow them to meet those tests -- and even thrive in doing so. As the students of CMM 425 Professional Seminar in Communication Management in Organizations look towards their first professional experiences after graduation, they have been learning about processes and practices conducive to sustainable organization and carrying out projects in which they work with a client organization to identify and respond to a specific threat to their sustainability. In this group presentation, each team of students will recount its story in working with a client, share what it has learned in working that client, and offer insights about sustainable organization overall.

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  Our Lady of the Fields and the American Missionary Calling

  Anh Nguyen

  Using historical research and oral interviews with Glenmarians, this presentation will present highlights from the history of the Blessed Virgin Mary's title as Our Lady of the Fields, a title that has impacted Catholics in North America for many years. The devotion was brought from France to North America by Jesuit missionaries. Although this Marian image was brought in from Europe, her story resonated with many Native Americans and became a symbol for the common working folks of America. Our Lady of the Fields has also inspired a home-grown missionary community, the Glenmary Home Missioners, dedicated to bringing the gospel to the rural Americas. The title of Our Lady of the fields though ancient continues to inspire many missioners to bring the gospel to the poorest of the poor. Our Lady of the Fields penetrates into the American experience.

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  Past and present human rights issues represented in contemporary Latin American Literature: the case of Nona Fernandez's “La dimensión desconocida”

  Nicholas William Ness, Aaliyah S. Rios, Rachel Lynn Zagorski

  This bilingual project discusses the impact of injustice and impunity related to past dictatorships on Latin American culture by focusing on the novel “La dimensión desconocida” by Nona Fernandez (2016). This novel offers a reflection on how historical and personal memory is impacted during and after political turmoil and oppression in Chile. Through a combination of fiction and reality, Fernández explores the impact of political violence and oppression on her society, including grey zones between victims and perpetrators. We will examine how Fernandez portrays the impact of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) on Chileans, exploring themes such as human rights, violence, trauma, and the search for truth in relation to memorialization.

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  Photographing Wildlife: Analysis of Species Richness and Activity in and around Solar Prairies

  Kara Beth Gregory, Noah E. Jones-Beyene, Evelyn Rose Thomson, Claire Elizabeth Van Meter

  Solar energy is one of the most promising forms of clean renewable energy, but there are still issues with land management around solar arrays. The introduction of prairies under solar arrays can significantly increase biodiversity in what would otherwise be a monocrop field of grass. Most solar arrays are surrounded by a fence, which can hinder animal movement. We sought to understand how animals interact with these solar prairies in arrays with and without fences. We investigated animal behavior using wildlife cameras at two different solar arrays in Dayton, OH, one at the Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC), and one at Curran Place on the University of Dayton Campus. We placed 10 camera traps at each site, 5 inside the array and 5 around the border. The cameras were baited twice with deer pheromone gel and either cat food (week 1) or wildlife pellets (week 2). Cameras were set to take 3 photos every 15 seconds of detected movement, and were running for two weeks. We found that the presence of a fence decreased species richness, as it hindered the ability of larger animals to enter the array. At MEEC, which has a fence, 3 species were found inside the array, and 7 were found outside. At Curran Place, which does not have a fence, 4 species were found inside and 7 outside. However, the difference in species diversity could be due to the lack of establishment of the prairie under MEEC, which was only recently established. We recommend that future solar arrays should avoid fencing when possible, and if there must be a fence, it should be raised above the ground to allow small animals to enter and exit as needed.

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  Physical Activity and Its Impact on Mental Health

  Dylan Joshua Varga

  The goal of this research project was to better understand the impact physical activity can have on different mental health conditions in college students. The population that was studied were University of Dayton students aging from 18-22 years old. Participants were provided a questionnaire asking them questions regarding their daily engagement in physical activity, and their current state of mental well-being. The results of this study were analyzed to try and better understand how physical activity can be utilized as a coping mechanism for mental health conditions and stress during college.

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  Physical Activity and Stress in College Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

  Isabelle Marie Giovenco

  The purpose of this study was to find out how physical activity can affect the amount of stress college students have. This study used a cross sectional approach to gain a better understanding on how physical activity can reduce stress in college students. Participants recruited for this study were college aged students ranging from ages 18-23 years old. Participants were asked to answer questions about their daily activity and daily stress levels.

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  Physiological and Subjective Responses to a Novel Version of the Trier Social Stress Test

  Elizabeth A. Chevalier, Sophia Elle Hollins, Stella Odelle Monnig

  Cortisol is the primary hormone involved in the stress response in humans, and it increases in response to psychological stressors (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). One laboratory procedure commonly used to increase subjective distress and trigger a cortisol response is the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), which incorporates cognitively demanding and social evaluative components (Kirschbaum et al., 1993). In our current study, a variation of the TSST was used to test its ability to acutely increase stress, as evidenced by participant’s subjective and physiological responses. These responses were measured by questionnaires and saliva analyses, respectively. Our variation included a non-stress group, modeled after the control condition utilized by Espin et al. (2013), which some versions of the TSST don’t use. Our lab is using the TSST for the first time to investigate our broader interests: stress, negative affect, and alcohol use. Participants were randomly assigned to the stress or non-stress condition. They completed questionnaires about their stress and affect pre- and post-TSST, as well as questionnaires about their alcohol use and cravings post-TSST. Participants provided three saliva samples throughout the procedure: Time 1 was pre-TSST, Time 2 was 30 minutes later, and Time 3 was 25 minutes after Time 2. Hypotheses included: 1. participants in the stress condition would have increased cortisol levels at Time 2 relative to Time 1 and the non-stress group; 2. participants in the non-stress condition would not show increased cortisol levels; and, 3. participants in the stress condition would have changes in mood, and higher ratings of alcohol craving. Analysis of salivary cortisol levels is ongoing, but analysis of subjective responses shows a significant increase in negative affect in the stress group relative to Time 1 and the non-stress group. To-date, these data suggest that our version of the TSST was successful for inducing a mood change.

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  Political Representation, Democracy, and the Electoral College: An Applied Theoretical Analysis

  Jordan A. Marsh

  Though a key institution in the United States presidential election, the Electoral College has often been overlooked for close theoretical analysis and even less frequently dissected for a deeper understanding of its consistency with theories of representative democracy. As such, this presentation summarizes a study of the Electoral College through a theoretical lens to ultimately investigate the degree to which it is democratically representative. The first section analyzes the Electoral College through both a historical and a modern contextual lens. The second section of this paper explores various theories of representation, including the works of Pitkin, Rehfeld, Manin, and Mansbridge, among others. The third section scrutinizes the Electoral College’s representative nature through the frameworks of these theorists. Finally, the fourth section brings the representative nature of the Electoral College in conversation with the ideals of representative democracy, making the case that the Electoral College, in its current form, lacks critical aspects of democratic representation.

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  Porous Materials as a Thermal Protection System for Hypersonic Flight Vehicles

  Megan Colleen Sieve

  Hypersonic flight is defined as speeds of Mach 5 and faster. A critical problem that arises at those speeds is the immense heating of the vehicle. Hypersonic vehicles have thermal protection systems (TPS) to aid in thermal regulation; however, as faster speeds require large TPS, a design concern is how to make the TPS so to not cause any harm to the vehicle’s performance. This research project will investigate the most prominent instability that causes turbulence, and consequently, heat, on a flat-plate at Mach numbers of 4 and above: the second-mode boundary-layer instability. Different porous materials have been shown to dampen acoustic waves, which are the cause of second-mode boundary layer instabilities and is the focus of this study. This project is a continuation of the study “Effect of Porosity on the Ability of Silicon-Carbide Foams to Attenuate the Second-Mode Boundary-Layer Instability” (Bemis et al.). Experimental techniques used were PCB pressure sensors, Schlieren imaging, infrared thermography, and Rayleigh scattering. Silicon-carbide porous foams, wavy wall samples, and impermeable samples were tested on two different sized flat plates. The goals of these experiments were to study boundary-layer transition and the effect that different porous materials had on the boundary-layer.

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  Positive Psychology Interventions With Vulnerable Populations

  Anna Ružena Kopsick

  This poster will review research on the use of positive psychology interventions in the community, with a focus on the utilization of such interventions for vulnerable populations. Then, the poster will summarize success this semester in developing and utilizing such interventions with a homeless shelter population.

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  Power and Ideology Analysis: Escaping Twin Flames

  Hope Clegg, Tristan Fountain, Grace McMonagle

  Rhetoric drawing on religious stories, ideals, concepts, and experiences surround us in our daily lives. These posters represent a sampling of the rhetorical analyses conducted by students from CMM 357 Religious Rhetoric throughout the Spring 2024 semester. Groups presented several themed reports prior to Stander and picked one to showcase at the symposium.

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  Predicting Weather Dependent Energy Savings for Low-Income Residential Buildings for Specific Upgrades with Limited Building Data

  Phillip Allen Clayton

  The pathway to sustainability is challenging. Multiple paths exist, but the key will be to achieve carbon reduction with the least cost. This could be achieved through large scale deployment of renewable energy; however, many studies have shown how important it is to reduce demand first. This study employs machine learning to analyze detailed energy profiles from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), estimating potential energy savings for natural gas heating, electric heating, and electric cooling through modifications such as insulation improvements, setpoint changes, infiltration reduction, or system efficiency enhancements. By comparing these building models with actual building data from Cincinnati, Ohio, via a nearest neighbor approach, mean savings are calculated for the ten most similar simulated houses. This process allows for the use of limited data (annual energy usage for heating and cooling and house area) to identify comparable model sets and estimate potential areas for energy-saving improvements. When savings estimates vary significantly (coefficient of variation greater than 0.2), clustering is applied to find a more consistent subgroup, enhancing the accuracy of the energy savings predictions.This methodology proves particularly effective for high energy-consuming residences, which are often found within low-income housing sectors. By focusing on buildings with the highest potential for energy savings, this approach offers targeted insights for utilities and city planners looking to prioritize energy reduction initiatives effectively. It highlights buildings where interventions could have the most substantial impact, both in terms of energy savings and cost efficiency.The next steps will involve validating the estimated savings against actual data. This validation process is crucial for refining the methodology and ensuring its applicability and accuracy in real-world scenarios. Focusing on high-consumption, low-income buildings, this study aims to reduce energy demand, enhance sustainability, and help vulnerable communities achieve greater energy efficiency.

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  Prediction of Hydrocarbon Density with Machine Learning Models

  Austin Christopher Grewell

  The approval procedure for new sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) is a lengthy and costly process as it requires extensive testing. Several physicochemical properties must be measured for a new jet fuel, and their values must fall within specific required ranges. The ability to mitigate actual testing and measurements with predictive models would accelerate the certification process and reduce the associated costs. Machine learning (ML) algorithms are increasingly attractive tools for developing predictive models for the physicochemical properties of jet fuels.This project used machine learning methods to predict the density of hydrocarbon mixtures based on specific molecular descriptors. A dataset comprised of 17060 hydrocarbons with known density and corresponding molecular descriptors (group functionalities and topological indexes) was used to train ML models. Random forest and artificial neural networks were chosen as training algorithms. A hyperparameter optimization was used to determine the optimum parameters for each model.The random forest models trained with 80% of the dataset yielded R2 values greater than 0.98 for the remaining 20% of the dataset, indicating good performances and minimal to no overfitting. Models were tested on a set of random binary, tertiary and quaternary mixtures, yielding R2 values greater than 0.88.

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  PREPARATION AND STUDIES OF NEW DIFUNCTIONAL SPIROBICYCLIC EPOXY MONOMERS

  Andrew Michael Kelly

  We are presenting results on the investigation of a novel, spirocyclic, P-containing bifunctional epoxy compound, envisioned as a potential reactive flame retardant. We will report results from our synthesis efforts, the use of the target in epoxy formulations, and flammability studies of the resultant epoxy resins.

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  Probing for the developmental mechanisms underlying repeated tooth loss in frogs

  Jacob A. Szafranski

  Teeth have been lost several times during the evolution of vertebrates, resulting in toothlessness, but is most widespread in frogs with over 20 independent losses. Investigations in toothless fishes, reptiles, and mammals have found that the tooth development program is not completely lost. These species maintain early molecular signaling and can develop transient tooth bud rudiments prior to the termination of the tooth development program that is disrupted via multiple pathways (loss of expression for different genes). We investigated convergent tooth loss in frogs by examining a developmental series of several toothed and toothless species using histological sectioning, microanatomical investigation, and gene expression analyses. We hypothesized that several different mechanisms arrest tooth development in the upper jaw across toothless frog species that have independently lost teeth. Unexpectedly, we have found little anatomical or molecular evidence that the tooth development program initiates in the upper jaws of any toothless frog species investigated. These results suggest that frogs are capable of losing teeth without a trace, driven by an underlying mechanism that is distinct from the patterns identified in all other toothless vertebrates.

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  PUND Behavior of an HZO Device

  Tristan David Quach

  Ferroelectric materials form the backbone of silicon electronic memristor devices in silicon electronics and are gradually becoming more prevalent in silicon photonics for optical memory applications. In this context, hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO), an established material in the silicon electronics foundry, is making inroads in silicon photonics aided by its nearly zero absorption at near-infrared wavelengths that makes it compatible for integration with silicon photonic waveguides and resonators. A fundamental measurement technique to characterize ferroelectric material behavior is PUND. The acronym stands for positive up negative down. A PUND measurement is a series of five pulses based around the values of max voltage, period, and pulse width. PUND starts with a negative pulse used to preset the sample. The next two pulses are in positive volts. The last two pulses are in negative volts. This project aims to find ferroelectric properties of a HZO device using PUND measurements. To this end, the needed parameters for the PUND measurement must be found to adequately characterize the hysteresis behavior of the devices. The desired voltage and pulse width are 1V and 1 millisecond respectively. The pulse delay (the time from the end of one pulse to the start of the next) must be long enough to allow the device to discharge between PUND pulses. Once the necessary pulse delay for discharge between pulses is found, the number of PUND cycles the device must go through in order to show ferroelectric behavior, the wake-up effect, must be found. We will present initial measurement results.

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  PV ORIENTATION OPTIMIZATION FOR RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS CONSIDERING FIXED & BI-ANNUAL ORIENTATION WITH A CONSTANT OR VARYING TARIFF

  Jacob J. Brenner

  Optimizing photovoltaic (PV) panels beyond the use of additional technology is one method that many have analyzed to make PV panels as valuable as possible. It often comes in the form of orienting the tilt and azimuth of a panel for the most energy collected. This does improve the value of PV panels, but there are other considerations for the optimum orientation, as having the most energy collected does not guarantee the greatest value. This has culminated in a great amount of analysis of the optimum orientation for revenue over the past decade. The goal of this study was to add to this growing analysis by analyzing cases of commercial and residential buildings across four separate cities in the US using three separate possible tariff plans that are shared amongst every location. Results for savings were found for each location and building type for annual and biannual orientations using PVWatts API version 8. It was found that the maximum difference in the percentage of savings for an annual energy bill between a panel oriented for the purpose of energy and one for savings is 2.45% for annual and 3.12% for biannual. It was also found that when export value is nonexistent the optimum orientation will go for collection during peak hours, and when export value is overwhelmingly larger than the import the optimum orientation will go towards the times when electricity is used the least. It was also found that commercial buildings have their optimum revenue orientation closer to the optimum orientation for energy than residential buildings, and so the overall differences between the two orientations for savings for commercial buildings is smaller.

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  Quantifying the impacts of precipitation seasonality and intensity on groundwater availability in Hosanna, Ethiopia.

  Rose H. Weisgerber

  Understanding the link between precipitation and groundwater is vital for ensuring water resources' availability, reliability, and sustainability, particularly in arid regions such as Ethiopia that are vulnerable to climate change. To understand the main controls of groundwater recharge and estimate the seasonal contribution of precipitation, we conducted a comprehensive water isotope study in Hosanna, southern Ethiopia. Due to the complex interconnection of climate, rainfall, and groundwater recharge in this region, we used multiple approaches. Using stable isotopes of Hydrogen (δD) and Oxygen (δ18O) as a conservative tracer, we developed a local meteoric water line (LMWL) and employed isotope mass balance. These analyses provide a quantitative estimate of groundwater recharged and recharge mechanisms.Additionally, Hybrid Single Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) modeling, correlation analysis of climate data, and intensity threshold analysis shed further light on the source of moisture, atmospheric, and climatic controls. Our findings indicate that precipitation in Hosanna mainly originates from recycled moisture sources, evidenced by d-excess, with the oceanic advected moisture seasonally alternating between the North and South Indian Oceans. The wet season provides most of the annual precipitation, with groundwater recharge biased (~65.5%) towards the wet season. However, the intensity threshold analysis suggests extreme rainfall events had the most significant impact on groundwater recharge. The amount-weighted δ18O values of five extreme precipitation events occur during the wet season and have a similar isotopic composition (0.86‰ difference) with the groundwater δ18O values. While wet season and high-intensity precipitation account for most groundwater recharge, slow diffuse recharge, focused recharge from rivers, and dry season precipitation account for the rest of groundwater recharge. This study establishes the source and main contributors of regional groundwater recharge in Hosanna. It provides invaluable information for surface water contaminant transport, water resource management, sustainable development, and climate change adaptation strategies.

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  Quantitative Methods for the Diagnosis of Traumatic Brain Injury Using Eye Gaze and Biometric Sensors

  Tanner Anthony Cuttone, Nathaniel Robert Doll, Ryan J. French, Isabella M. Saylor, Meredith Katharine Tropeano

  This poster provides a summary of an IRB approved research study on the optical response of the human eye using a GazePoint eye tracking system and biometrics hardware. Pupil dilation, gaze position, blink rate, and reaction time were recorded for human subjects in response to various visual stimuli on a computer screen. In addition, heart rate and galvanic skin response were recorded using a suite of biosensors. The experimental tasks were designed with varying levels of complexity and included both memory-recall and computational tasks. The overall aim of this study was to establish baseline data sets across multiple demographics, which can be used in the future to advance clinical diagnostic methodologies using quantitative methods for various types of traumatic brain injury, including concussion.

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  Quantization of Thermal Radiation in Blackbody Radiation

  Thomas Silvio De Santis, Matthew Joseph Sandor, Nathan Charles Sowder

  A black body is an ideal object that when heated emits thermal radiation but absorbs all radiation shined on it. In the early 1900’s physicists were interested in describing radiation emission of such objects, but to no avail. Classical physics was simply unequipped to describe black bodies. One theory, Rayleigh-Jeans equations, is one such failed attempt. One of the problems of using classical physics known at the time to describe blackbodies was the so called "ultraviolet catastrophe." The ultraviolet catastrophe comes about because classical physics assumes that energy is continuous and as such the calculated total energy emitted by a blackbody becomes infinite, which is physically unrealistic. Max Plank, a theoretical physicist, hypothesized that energy absorbed or emitted by molecules is quantized, thereby leading to what is known Planck's equation that solved the ultraviolet catastrophe and gave birth to a new field of physics called quantum mechanics. The theoretical treatment of black bodies has resulted in many applications. It is now used in medical and thermal imaging, understanding the temperature and composition of stars, just to mention a few.

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  Quantum Entanglement

  Claire Olivia Hogshead, Madeline L. O'Mahoney, Ian Jacob Sundeen

  Did you know that two particles could interact instantaneously across vast distances? This ispossible through quantum entanglement. One way to do this is to correlate two particles in anentangled state. These particles can have two different spins, where the chance of a particlehaving either spin up or down is completely random. However, when the two particles areentangled and the spin of one particle is measured, the other entangled particle will always havethe opposite spin. Strangely, this can happen regardless of the distance between them, exhibitingnon-local interdependence! This “quantum spookiness” has been experimentally demonstratedwith photons and electrons. Quantum entanglement has potential applications in many fields,particularly quantum computing and cryptography.

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  Quantum Field Theory : An Overview

  Joseph Michael Kopp

  Quantum Field Theory (QFT) is considered to be one of the most successful scientific theories of all time. It explains 3 of the 4 fundamental forces nearly perfectly, with the fourth being described by general relativity. In this poster, I will talk about what exactly a field theory is, the 3 fundamental types of fields, their equations, and their interactions, as well as give a few applications of QFT in physics.

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  Queer Joy on Our Screens

  Reagan Marie Lloyd

  This THR/VAR 250 Diversity in the Creative and Performing Arts poster presentation project requires each student to research and present on a topic relevant to the interdisciplinary fields of visual and performing arts through a critical multicultural and social justice lens that foregrounds the appreciation of diversity and enables the expansion of personal cultural competencies.