Stander Symposium: Projects with UD Institutional Learning Goals

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  Can Sweat Equate to Smarts? Physical Activity and Its Connection to Academic Achievement

  Jackson Lucas

  Physical activity is an important part of an overall healthy life. Outside of obvious physical benefits, it has a plethora of other advantages. From this literature review, I share the connection between physical activity and academic achievement for middle and high school students.

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  Channel Assignment Problem

  Tom Jacob

  This is a project for MTH 466, Graph Theory and Combinatorics. A graph is a mathematical object that consists of two sets, a set of vertices and a set of edges. An edge joins two vertices and depicts a relationship between those vertices. By considering the vertices on a connected graph G of order n to be transmitters and the colors of the vertices to be the channels assigned to the transmitters, we can construct a model that represents the Channel Assignment Problem. This problem deals with the task of efficiently allocating channels to transmitters. Concepts such as radio k-coloring and radio labeling were inspired by the Channel Assignment Problem. By stipulating a minimum permitted distance rule, labeling vertices based on the assignment of their colors, and considering two vertices to be adjacent if they are sufficiently close to each other, it is possible to organize a network of channels that does not overlap each other. The Channel Assignment Problem has origins in assigning channels to FM radio stations through prevention of interference by keeping separation between stations based on signal power, height of their antennas, and frequency.

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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 limitations and biases of diffuse reflectance-based technologies for disease detection and prognosis to facilitate more equitable and inclusive healthcare outcomes.

  Rana Dey

  Diffuse reflectance-based technologies have shown potential to significantly advance disease detection and prognosis in dermatology and other clinical applications. However, these technologies also have the potential to exhibit biases, particularly against individuals with darker skin tones, which can lead to disparities in effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment if the sources of the bias are not properly identified and corrected. For instance, patients with darker skin who are diagnosed with melanoma typically receive the diagnosis at a later stage than their white counterparts. Similarly, current hypoxia assessment methods, including pulse oximetry, have demonstrated reduced accuracy in measured blood oxygenation values for individuals with darker skin, contributing to potential misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment. This study aims to investigate and address these types of disparities through computational modeling of light-tissue interaction, as well as the design of tissue-mimicking materials for experimental analysis. This research will inform the development of more inclusive diagnostic technologies, ultimately improving accuracy and facilitating equitable healthcare outcomes.

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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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  Chronic health conditions in relation to student belonging

  Sophia Mayer

  The relationship between chronic health conditions on college campuses and student belonging is uncertain. This population of students remains underrecognized and understudied. This study addressed this relationship via an online, anonymous thirteen-question survey. What was discovered was that academic support should be approached differently and/or changed to better support students with chronic conditions. The findings reflect gaps in the campus’ current academic support for students who choose to use academic resources. Low levels of belonging were found within the results. This could be improved upon through developing and restructuring the current systems and programs.

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  ClarityMD

  Vinit Jain, Pratham Yadav

  Managing multiple chronic conditions often requires patients to consult different specialists, leading to fragmented care where critical health information may not be effectively communicated between providers. This communication gap poses significant risks, as treatments prescribed by one physician might inadvertently conflict with a patient’s coexisting conditions or medications. To address this challenge, we present a patient-centric digital platform designed to streamline communication between patients and healthcare providers. The application leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze uploaded medical records, identify potential conflicts (e.g., drug interactions, contradictory therapies), and generate personalized checklists of topics for patients to discuss during clinical visits. By automating the synthesis of complex medical data, the tool reduces reliance on error-prone manual note-taking, ensuring patients and doctors prioritize critical health concerns. Feedback from interviews with 4 physicians, highlighted widespread recognition of this issue. Clinicians emphasized that inconsistent information sharing between specialists and patients often complicates care coordination, and they endorsed the application’s potential to bridge these gaps. Doctors noted that AI-generated checklists could standardize patient-provider communication, reducing oversights during consultations and mitigating risks of conflicting treatments.The platform’s second phase introduces an AI-driven visualization engine that dynamically selects optimal data representations (e.g., graphs, timelines) based on the patient’s medical history and current health metrics. This feature aims to minimize cognitive overload by presenting information in formats tailored to enhance comprehension for both patients and providers, allowing more time to focus on treatment plans. Our research underscores the transformative potential of AI in addressing systemic communication challenges in multi-specialty care. By integrating predictive analytics with clinician-informed design, the platform enhances patient safety and fosters collaborative decision-making. Future work will explore scalability across healthcare systems and the impact of adaptive visualizations on treatment adherence. This dual-phase approach positions technology as a catalyst for cohesive, efficient, and patient-centered healthcare ecosystems.

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  Climate Change Impacts on The Central American Lenca Tribe

  Yeimi Bartolon Perez, Joseph Guagenti, Norah Hess, Maya Pelshaw

  The Lenca people are the largest indigenous population in Honduras, with around two thousand villages and around 116,000 people; they also represent a large population in eastern El Salvador of around 37,000 people. They inhabit remote, mountainous regions with limited access to infrastructure and economic opportunities. Their livelihoods primarily depend on agriculture, weaving, and pottery. Recent developments, such as hydroelectric projects and mining operations, have infringed upon their ancestral lands, leading to significant environmental and cultural challenges. For the residents of a northern village, Guapinol, their problems began in 2014, when the Honduran government granted a mining concession with the Carlos Escaleras National Park (Global Witness). Consequences such as unreliable source of drinking water due to the mine, intimidation, and arrests for those who dared to defend their environment against the authorities began to rise. Looking towards the future, the Lenca people have resolutely decided that there is no other option but to fight for their rights and the protection of their land, a movement that can be seen to this day.

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  Collecting road conditions with virtual travel

  Shani Patel

  The primary objective of this research project is to develop an automated system for collecting road condition images through virtual travel, eliminating the need for vehicle-mounted dashcams. Instead of manual driving, our approach leverages Google Street View within Google Maps to gather visual data. An automated program running on a virtual machine systematically navigates designated routes, retrieving high-resolution images. This method offers key advantages: a virtual machine operates continuously without fatigue, ensuring efficiency and consistency. By automating data collection, we enhance the accuracy and timeliness of road condition assessments, benefiting transportation agencies, urban planners, and researchers focused on infrastructure maintenance and development.

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  Combining bioinformatic and transgenic approaches to better understand the regulatory control of genes for a Drosophila pigmentation trait

  Logan Brubaker, Hayley Long, Allison Pavlus

  Spatially- and temporally-regulated patterns of gene expression are an essential feature of animal development. Moreover, changes in expression patterns are known to underlie cases of evolution and disease. These expression patterns are sculpted by the activity of sequences often referred to as cis-regulatory elements or CREs. The collective number of CREs in a typical metazoan genome greatly exceed the number of genes. However, even in the most thoroughly studied animals, like Drosophila (D.) melanogaster, most CREs remain to be found and/or characterized. We previously used a small set of known CREs that function in a gene regulatory network (GRN) for the sexually dimorphic pigmentation of D. melanogaster to predict additional CREs genome-wide. Using the transcription factor motif-blind SCRM-shaw bioinformatic tool, more than 500 potential pigmentation GRN CREs were predicted. Here, we share our findings that are part of a follow-up study that focused on CRE predictions residing in or near to regulatory genes, including those populated by multiple predicted CREs. This includes the ten CRE predictions distributed across the Eip74EF locus. In addition to furthering an understanding of the evolution and development of a fruit fly trait, the results and future studies may shed light on the expression control of regulatory genes and its evolution.

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  Commuting Connections: Assessing Belonging Among Commuter Students

  Amaya Johnson

  This study explores the experiences of commuter students at the University of Dayton, focusing on their level of campus involvement, perceptions of the designated commuter spaces, and their overall sense of belonging. A total of 60 commuter students participated in an anonymous survey in Fall 2025. The findings reveal that commuter students feel disconnected from the campus community across a variety of dimensions, and that utilization of campus resources for commuter students is low. These insights highlight the need for improved institutional support and resources to foster a stronger sense of inclusion and engagement for commuter students at the University of Dayton.

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  Comparative Analysis of Graft Strength and Longevity in ACL Reconstruction: Evaluating Allografts and Autografts

  Evan Cianci, Merrick Hirt, Allison Johnson, Kathryn Piech, Brendan Ware

  Introduction: Our research topic is about the evolution of different grafts in the sports medicine world and which is more beneficial for an individual with an ACL injury. According to the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, the ACL reconstruction re-revision rate was 2.2 times greater for allograft compared to autograft procedures (Nissen et. al, 2018). This shows that those who undergo an allograft surgery are more likely to need follow-up work which could be important when deciding which graft to pursue.We looked at different surgical techniques, different types of grafts, recovery time and most effective recovery, chances of reinjury/failure of grafts, investigated the movement patterns that predispose athletes to ACL injuries, how physical or mental fatigue alters biomechanics and increases susceptibility, and genetic predispositions to ligament laxity and ACL injury to determine this. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to determine which graft will have the most strength and longevity following ACL reconstruction surgery. The research will focus on the use of autografts and allografts during ACL reconstruction in college-aged males and females. ACL reconstruction recovery is a long process and more research can ultimately lead to better outcomes for the individual.Methods: Most of our data came from empirical articles. We will also interview several University of Dayton students on campus who have had their ACLs repaired and compare their experiences with ones from the empirical articles we studied. Questions will be asked about which graft they had done and how long their recovery was. Discussions/conclusions: While this study is still under investigation, it aims to show the relationship between recovery and the type of graft used during ACL reconstruction surgery. The research will help teach individuals about the advantages and disadvantages of both graft options, which allows for more informed decisions.

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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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  Connecting the trans-regulators of an evo-devo trait to their direct target genes through genetic, genomic, and biochemical approaches

  Connor Brandt, Joseph Kash, Devon Seibert, Ashley Williams

  Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) control the orchestrated spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression that are responsible for trait development. The gain, modification, and deconstruction of GRNs logically must be major causes of trait evolution. In spite of this perceived importance, the evolution of few if any traits are thoroughly understood at the scale of a GRN. This shortcoming has several causes. One is the difficulty of finding the breadth of GRN transcription factors and mapping these to their binding sites in cis-regulatory sequences of their downstream realizator genes. Another is the need for GRN studies to occur in experimentally tractable species for which closely-related species exist that possess ancestral, modified, and secondarily lost phenotypes. One suitable model trait is the gain, modification, and loss of sexually dimorphic abdomen pigmentation in the lineage of Drosophila melanogaster and its close relatives. We will share updates from our genetic, genomic, and biochemical studies that are mapping the regulatory connections between the key transcription factors of a pigmentation GRN and their realizator genes that comprise a pigment metabolic pathway.

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  Corrupt Power in Governance: An Analysis of Moloch Tropical

  Julie Pugh

  This presentation examines Raoul Peck’s film Moloch Tropical and its ability to critique political power, within the broader context of Francophone cinema. Although it focuses on a fictional regime in Haiti, the film’s portrayal of President Jean de Dieu’s unraveling governance is not merely a reflection of one nation’s struggles but a universal commentary on the cycle of corrupt power. The film illustrates how leaders consolidate authority through fear, suppress dissent within their inner circles, and rely on foreign influence—mechanisms that ultimately render their power unstable. Peck’s work reveals how corruption can emerge subtly, even from supposedly good intentions, and serves as a cautionary tale for all governments, including democracies. By analyzing how Francophone cinema, particularly from Haiti, delivers urgent political messages, this presentation explores the film’s significance as both a critique of authoritarian tendencies and a warning of the fragility of democratic institutions as they are susceptible to authoritarian decay.

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  Creating and characterizing the transgenic tools to explore the function of genes in non-model organism species

  Ava Kelly, Madeline Ranly

  Loss Of Function (LOF) and Gain Of Function (GOF) experiments are among the most successful approaches for uncovering the role of genes in animal development, physiology, behavior, and evolution. The former approach removes a gene’s function to reveal its necessity, while the latter adds a gene’s function to reveal its sufficiency. These experiments have been utilized for hundreds to thousands of genes in limited model organism species, such as the fruit fly species Drosophila melanogaster. However, model organisms do not possess the complete diversity of traits and phenotypes that are compelling to study. Thus, the full potential of genetic inquiry requires the ability to perform LOF and GOF experiments in what can be considered non-model organisms. Here, we will present our progress in creating and characterizing genetic tools for LOF and GOF experiments in non-model fruit fly species. Success here will create opportunities to investigate how evolutionarily conserved genes have shaped the gain, loss, and modification of traits among fruit flies. These tools may be useful to scientists studying gene function in other animal genres, classes, and perhaps even phyla.

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  Creating Equitable, Ethical, and Sustainable Computing Solutions: The Theory and Feasibility of Building A Globally Scaled Community Cloud

  Nicholas Lloyd

  As technological infrastructure becomes more advanced and expensive, companies have started to turn to “the cloud”, a term that has been used by many companies for at least a decade. It was designed to make things easier and cheaper for businesses. However, it has become more cumbersome and generally more expensive than a traditional on premises solution. To provide a good experience for everyone, the hardware requirements need to be current, but not unobtainable. There also needs to be a standard for how these compute resources are virtually stored, meaning that a distributed, hyperconverged, or parallel filesystem is required. The providers must also have a good method for giving secure network access to the user’s compute resources, whether it is bare metal or virtual. There may also need to be downtime for providers, so there must be a way to communicate with customers when those downtimes are, and how long of a notice is required. With all these requirements and considerations, how are we going to ensure that providers are being honest and abiding by the rules? My research will thoroughly describe the inquisitions, research, and a proof-of-concept deployment of this idea that compute resources can be created, run, and governed by a community for the betterment of everyone.

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  Creative Writing: Strategies for Implementation and Curriculum Design

  Mary Tarkany

  Creative writing, also identified as narrative writing and story-telling, is a strategy to approaching curriculum that is applicable from kindergarten to undergraduate education. It is also utilized in schools and non-school educational environments. Implementing creative writing can engage students in dialogues that enrich perspective, grow communication and collaboration. Conversation among students and educators acknowledges cultural learning for social justice embodied in this interdisciplinary practice.

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  Cultural Differences and the Problems They Present to Employees of American Multinational Corporations in China

  Kaimee Knisley

  China and the U.S. have many cultural differences, which often present challenges to American multinational corporations (MNCs) that attempt to operate in China. Furthermore, those cultural differences often present different challenges to different levels of employees, including the executive level, management level, and the workers. Therefore, this paper seeks to answer the question “How have the differences between U.S. and Chinese cultures presented problems for the different levels of employees of American multinational corporations in China as those corporations attempt to adapt to China?” Within the past twenty years, there has been much research done on specific aspects of Chinese culture, American companies’ adaption to China, and U.S. management in China. However, there has been little to no research that seeks to analyze the main problems faced by all levels of employees of American MNCs. Furthermore, the main goal of this paper’s research is to aid in explaining why some American MNCs have been successful in adapting to China and Chinese culture while others have struggled (including Google’s struggle to gain a firm foothold in mainland China). In achieving that goal, this paper could help inform American MNCs of what they should and should not do in order to successfully transition their business, and their employees, into China and Chinese culture. The main research method of this paper is analyzing and cross-referencing studies done on Chinese culture and business with studies done on U.S. businesses’ operations in China, including studies that focus on specific MNCs, such as Walmart and McDonald’s, in order to find major problems presented by U.S.-China cultural differences to employees of American MNCs.

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  Cultural Negotiations and Trips of Rearrival in Hala Alyan’s The Arsonists’ City

  Merna Fahmy

  Displacement, voluntarily or exilic in nature, strikes such a deep chord within the immigrant that it permanently changes the global landscape to them, even if they remain abroad, and especially if they return home. The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan, published in 2021, takes the Nasrs from California, Austin, and New York and delivers them back to Beirut. At the head of the family are Idris and Mazna, first-generation immigrants, fleeing from Lebanon and Syria, respectively; their children, Ava, Mimi, and Naj are born in the US. The trip to Lebanon is made every summer until the Nasrs grow wary of this return due to various traumas. The propelling event for their ‘reverse immigration’ years later is when Idris, a cardiovascular surgeon, hears a heart he’s operating on telling him to return to Lebanon to sell his childhood home.This paper contextualizes and tracks the effects of transmobility of first and second generation immigrants and the different coping or defense mechanisms of processing diaspora. For the Nasrs, who long for Beirut with as much devotion as they resent it, the rearrival journey serves to demythologize their ‘home.’ However, instead of reiterating the Arab-American conundrum of being Arab in the US and American in the Arab World, Alyan creates a new space where both the Arab and US identities are inherently changed due to the characters’ transnational acts of mobility. The rearrival breaks through the hegemony and the veils nostalgia places on memory.

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  Dayton Civic Scholars Senior Capstone: Addressing Homelessness and Housing in the Dayton Region

  Luke Cerminaro, Caralina Crouch, Andie Lang, Katherine Larger, Julia Parra, Jenna Reinhart, Kendall Visco, Leonard Zaleski

  The 2025 cohort of Dayton Civic Scholars capstone focused on housing and homelessness in Dayton. This presentation will highlight the process and work done in partnership with community partners. The cohort divided into two groups in order to highlight the work of our partners, Miami Valley Housing Opportunities (MVHO) and Montgomery County Homeless Solution System Performance and Evaluation (SPEC) team. Our work with MVHO aimed to assist the organization in building their social media as well as researching the impacts of their several housing programs throughout Dayton. We conducted several interviews and a focus group with MVHO residents, as well as toured their facilities. At the end of our capstone, we provided a document with further direction on how to market MVHO and its mission. This included social media templates and topics for increasing engagement. The SPEC team assisted with building a new interactive data dashboard surrounding homelessness data. We conducted interviews with local housing providers in order to include qualitative data and add context to the numbers. We also worked with design to incorporate the interviews and broader story of homelessness in the Dayton area and make it visually appealing. The MVHO and SPEC teams were able to learn more about the context surrounding both nationwide and local homelessness, as well as provide support to our partners in spreading awareness to larger audiences about housing issues.

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  Decapentaplegic and Defective Proventriculus: A Tug-of-War in Determining Eye and Head Fate

  Anjali Sangeeth

  During organogenesis, the establishment of the Antero-Posterior (AP), Dorso-Ventral (DV), and Proximo-Distal (PD) axes is crucial for the transition from a two-dimensional organ primordium to a three-dimensional organ. These complex developmental processes rely on the coordinated actions of transcription factors, morphogens, and signaling pathways along spatio-temporal axes. Recently, we identified defective proventriculus (dve), a K-50 transcription factor, the ortholog of human SATB1, as a dorsal fate selector gene in eye development, which induces wingless (wg) to promote head-specific fate. In Drosophila eye, Decapentaplegic (Dpp), a member of the evolutionarily conserved Dpp/Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) pathway, is crucial for initiating morphogenetic furrow progression at the posterior margin, regulating proliferation and retinal differentiation. Dpp interacts antagonistically with Wingless (Wg) to modulate retinal differentiation. In this study, we explore the interaction between the dve and the Dpp signaling pathway, highlighting how this interplay determines the fate of the Drosophila eye versus the head cuticle. Our findings indicate that Dpp and dve are mutually antagonistic in defining eye versus head identity. Misexpression of dpp in the head vertex region shifted the fate from head to eye, overriding the wg influence. This alteration was accompanied by negative regulation of Homothorax (hth) and ectopic expression of retinal differentiation factors. Moreover, we demonstrate that this interaction is conserved in mammals through SATB1, which has been implicated in hypertelorism, a craniofacial defect characterized by an abnormal increase in the distance between the eyes, resulting from disruptions in axial patterning processes.

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  Defective proventriculus interacts with Yorkie to regulate growth in the developing eye

  Rohith Nanjundaiah

  The developing eye of Drosophila is a well-established model for studying developmental genetic processes and growth regulation. Our long-term goal is to understand the molecular basis of Dorsal-Ventral patterning and growth in the eye by interactions of the dorsal selector genes and growth regulatory genes. We recently identified defective proventriculus (dve) as a candidate for dorsal-ventral eye patterning that acts as a transcriptional regulator. Gain of function of Dve, results in eye suppression, while loss of function of dve, exhibits dramatic eye enlargement phenotypes. This raised an interesting question, whether the dorsal patterning gene dve, apart from its main function of specifying cells fate, plays a dual role in regulating growth during eye development in Drosophila? We hypothesized that Dve may interact with the Hippo growth regulatory pathway to control patterning and growth of the eye. We tested the interactions between Hippo pathway and dorsal-ventral patterning using the GAL4-UAS system and MARCM. To investigate whether yki is involved in dve domain growth, we used GAL4 drivers in the eye like Dve Gal4 to drive the spatiotemporal expression of transgenes in the dorsal eye, and Ey-Gal4 and GMR-Gal4 to test the epistasis of Dve and Yki before and after MF formation in the larval eye antennal disc for yki target genes ( ex, diap1 and hth) and dve target genes mirr, wingless (wg) (a known and conserved Hippo downstream target) for Dve and Yki mediated effects using reporter assays, clonal analysis and qRT-PCR- based approaches; and our results will be discussed.

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  Delay Differential Equations: Methods and Practical Applications

  Amanda Maylath

  Differential equations are essential in modeling systems in areas such as physics, biology, and engineering. This project explores delay differential equations (DDEs), a type of functional differential equation that builds on ordinary differential equations (ODEs) by including time delays. Incorporating delays allows for the rate of change or derivative to depend on the current state of the system and on its past states, making DDEs useful in modeling real-world systems where past states influence future outcomes. This project looks at several types of DDEs, including linear delay models, Hutchinson’s equation, and second-order delay equations. Solution methods include Laplace transforms and the method of steps in which traditional ODE techniques are applied, such as separation of variables, integrating factors, and variation of parameters. DDE solutions are compared with those of corresponding non-delayed models. Practical applications of DDEs include modeling population dynamics and analyzing engineering systems. These examples show the effectiveness of DDEs in providing a more accurate representation of real-world dynamical systems.

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  Design and Application of a 3D-Printed Measuring Device to Study Impacts of Environmental Factors on Listeria monocytogenes Catalase Activity

  John Rosch

  Catalase is an enzyme found in the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes to help combat reactive oxygen species, particularly hydrogen peroxide. Appropriate production of catalase can help protect Listeria monocytogenes both outside the host against various environmental stresses and inside the host against immune defenses. In this study, I designed a 3D-printed device to measure catalase activity (patent to be filed) and investigated how different environmental signals regulate catalase activity in Listeria monocytogenes. I found that anaerobically grown L. monocytogenes had no catalase activity even after transitioning to aerobic conditions for long periods of time. Propionate, a common food additive, and an intestinal metabolite, exhibited an inhibitory effect on catalase activity. Moreover, catalase activity was also observed in biofilms formed in the presence but not in the absence of benzalkonium chloride (1%), a common disinfectant. These results introduced a new tool for catalase activity measurement as well as highlighting the various factors that can influence L. monocytogenes catalase activity.