Stander Symposium Projects

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  Characterization of the p53 Signaling Pathway in Urodele Amphibians during Lens Regeneration

  Kathryn C. Oehlman

  Urodele amphibians such as the red spotted newt, Notophthalmus viridescens, and axolotl are commonly used to study organ regeneration due to their remarkable ability to regenerate organs such as limb, tail, spinal cord and lens. The newt is able to regenerate the lens solely from dorsal iris pigmented epithelial cells in 30 days following removal. Axolotls, neonate salamanders, invoke curiosity because they can only regenerate their lens two weeks post hatching although they have the same regeneration potential as newts for limb, tail, and spinal cord. Using these animal models the role of the p53 protein, a tumor suppressor protein, in regeneration and cell cycle regulation can be further examined. Previous studies showed that when p53 is disrupted using pharmacological reagents limb regeneration is impaired. In this study, p53 protein expression was inhibited and activated and histology was performed to determine the effect on lens regeneration. The outcome of this study will help in the understanding a potential new role of p53 and its signaling partners during lens regeneration.

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  Classification of Vehicles using Monocular 3D Reconstruction

  Yakov Diskin, Nina M. Varney

  State of the art 3D reconstruction techniques utilize frames from a video sequence to render a 3D model of the scene. Our 3D reconstruction technique utilizes Speeded-Up Robust Features along with optical flow points to create a dense point cloud. Each point within the model has been tracked from frame to frame and triangulated into its (X,Y,Z) model position. We present an application for these structure from motion models that exploits our previous work in 3D object classification. In our experiments, we reconstruct a parking lot scene that contains several vehicles. The first step of our object classification algorithm is to segment each of the vehicles. Then, for each separate point cluster, our algorithm utilizes the volumetric and shape properties of the 3D object to label it with a vehicle type. The novelty of this classification approach allows us to tackle the noise challenges commonly associated with monocular 3D reconstructed models.

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  Closing the Gap: Examining Humanities Majors' Perceptions of Career Services

  Eilis Wasserman

  Connecting one’s degree in the humanities to a career path can be an ambiguous challenge in a society focused on job preparation. Career services offices in higher education institutions are at the forefront of helping students advance in their career development, yet little research has explored student insights and perspectives about these resources. This study explores humanities majors’ perceptions, insights, and knowledge of career services at a private institution in the Midwest. A mixed methods approach provided evidence of over 125 students’ knowledge and utilization of career services while supported by in-depth insights of students' experiences. Humanities majors revealed their satisfaction with their degree of study, while simultaneously exposing their lack of awareness and understanding of career services resources, guidance and overall career readiness knowledge. Findings implied that the mission and brand of career services must be marketed in meaningful and intentional ways to connect to and guide humanities majors as they navigate their college experience.

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  Clothing Type Versus Color: Understanding the Role of Dress and Ovulation on Mate-Attraction Effectiveness and Mate-Guarding.

  Sally M. Askar, Thomas N. Ballas, Christine N. Farmer, Charles A. Hunt, Christine Kershaw, Bernadette D. O'Koon, Angela L. Receveur, Cody Stitzel, Clarice Vavro, Sarah A. Wilhoit

  The dual-mating hypothesis suggests that mating strategies adopted by women vary across the menstrual cycle. While women are usually attracted to men who exhibit strong potential as a provider, at peak fertility women are attracted to men who exhibit stronger genes. To attract genetically strong men at peak fertility, research shows that women will alter their behavior in ways that make them more attractive to members of the opposite sex. For example, women tend to wear red clothing and clothing that shows more skin at peak fertility in an effort to attract a mate. These mate-attraction strategies not only increase attractiveness and sexual receptivity to members of the opposite sex, but they also provoke competition from other women. Given that women have a narrow fertile window, using the most effective mate-attraction strategy and derogating potential sexual competition is critical for mate-attraction and reproduction. The present research examined whether there is a most effective mate-attraction strategy, and the role of ovulation in derogation. By manipulating shirt color and type, we tested the effectiveness of mate-attraction strategies by examining the independent effects of each mating strategy and their interactive effects on attractiveness and derogation. Next, we examined whether mate-guarding is stronger for women who are ovulating. Ovulating women should show an increase in mate-guarding in an effort protect her reproductive partner from other women. To test these questions, male and female participants viewed a photo of a woman and evaluated her attractiveness, sexual receptivity, and intentions to mate-guard (women, only). The photo viewed, determined by random assignment, was of a woman wearing a red or white shirt, and the shirt was either sleeveless or long-sleeved. Findings from the present study will increase the understanding of mating strategies and further illuminate the role of ovulation in effectively attaining strong genes.

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  Cocoa and Chocolate: Deconstructing the Development Paradigm in Cameroon

  Chelsea M. Vanhook

  This project focuses specifically on the neo-liberal economic iteration of international development. Neo-liberalism is the idea that the deregulation of the private sector, reductions in government expenditures, and expansion of free trade will lead to growth in undeveloped countries, which will effectively end poverty and increase the standard of living. Development is, thus, justified on the basis of its purported virtues: that economic liberalization has resulted in the prosperity of Western countries and that the same models can be replicated elsewhere to produce the same results. My ethnography in Southwest Cameroon, however, shows that the experience and embodiment of development takes on a new understanding at the local, daily level. Progress and growth is connected to what can be reaped from the ground, obstacles understood as material difficulties that disable work from being done efficiently. Exploring the paradox of cocoa and chocolate in Cameroon, I find that while the average Cameroonian is able to grow cocoa, he/she is unable to afford chocolate. Moreover, assistance from government agricultural technicians provides the necessary aid to farmers and Common Initiative Groups (CIGs) to mitigate the difficulties and technicalities associated with agricultural work. Therefore, not only does neo-liberal economic development not provide the proper prescription for overcoming the difficulties individuals face, but it can hinder the work already being done by local professionals working within their communities. This context calls for a critiquing of the assumptions which undergird the development paradigm in order to understand how and why it so often fails, as well to reconcile development with the local understandings and needs in the Global South, generally, and Southwest Cameroon, specifically.

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  Coding DNA into Music: An Alternate Way of Analysis

  Samuel J. Fesenmeier

  Our study’s purpose is take a completely different approach to understanding DNA, specifically non-coding segments. How we will do this is through coding DNA into music. By applying a system that codes known information of DNA into sound, music could prove to be a powerful means of finding patterns in DNA. It is possible that hearing the segments could allow our brains to pinpoint patterns that are not found through computational or experimental analysis. Music may also open up the expression of complex patterns that are visually hidden. The application of DNA to music will also allow for very long segments to be analyzed in a short period of time. Ideally, discovering certain patterns will lead to a better understanding of function.

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  Comparison of the Life Cycle Energy Consumption in the Use Phase of Wireless Devices

  Nicole S. Erlich, Mariana Lopes, Ahmad Maarafi, Daniel C. Smith

  Smartphone and wireless device market has more than doubled in the United States since 2010. However, only few research have done regarding how much energy is consumed by the smartphone and the wireless device. This research aims at comparing the energy consumption and environmental emissions generated from the most energy-intensive processes in the life cycle of various smartphones and wireless devices with different consumption scenarios. The major processes looked at were the energy consumption for charging smartphones, data usage over 4G, 3G, and WiFi networks, as well as wireless storage in “the cloud”. Data transmission was found to be the greatest source of energy consumption in smartphones, however, new developed networks have dramatically improved the efficiency of data transmission. In order to compare the energy consumption of the wireless devices with the traditional methodology, energy consumption of desktop computers are compared. Moreover, energy required for networking and storage of data for traditional desktops and wireless devices are compared. Desktop computers typically utilize traditional networks and storage application whereas wireless devices typically utilize cloud networking and storage applications. It was observed that traditional desktops require more energy than modern wireless devices. The lower operation costs of smartphones more than make up for their higher data transmission energy compared to a WiFi connected desktop. When comparing traditional networking to cloud networking it was observed that the energy, server utilization, and many other benefits of cloud networking outweighed the benefits of traditional networking.

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  Confessions of a Sorority Woman: Impacts of Hazing on New Members of Panhellenic Greek Lettered Organizations

  Kaci E. Durham

  The purpose of this study was to examine how Panhellenic Greek lettered organizations might choose to haze their new members and how being hazed impacted a new member, physically and mentally. Participants responded to a web-based survey that asked individuals to identify what they believed constitutes hazing, hazing acts they have been asked to engage in, and outcomes of joining a Panhellenic organization. Both new members and initiated members received the survey. For data analysis, participant responses were compared using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). New members of Panhellenic Greek-lettered organizations defined organizational unity and mental/emotional instability as an outcome of joining a Panhellenic organization.

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  Cultural, Linguistic, and Emotional Adjustment: Adaptation of International Students into a U.S. College

  Tong Li

  International students’ enrollment at academic institutions in the U.S. has expanded in the last decade. Plenty of research studies show that these international students experience acculturation difficulties in adapting to both academic performance and residence life (Gebhard, 2012). This study aimed at exploring the cultural, linguistic, and emotional stresses that international students experienced as well as the adjustment they g through to adapt at an American institution. The qualitative approach was used to study international students at an urban, mid-sized, Midwestern university. The findings of this study indicated that international students’ adaptation and adjustment into college learning community could be accelerated by various sources of motivation, cultural interaction services, and language improvement activities provided by education administrators.

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  Defective proventriculus (dve) a new member of DV patterning in the eye

  Neha Gogia

  In multi-cellular organisms, axial patterning is required to generate three-dimensional organ from its primordia during organogenesis. Drosophila eye serves as an excellent model to study patterning and growth. In Drosophila eye, Dorso-ventral (DV) patterning is the first lineage restriction event in the developing eye. The early eye primordium begins with the default ventral fate on which the dorsal eye fate is established by expression of a GATA-1 transcription factor, pannier (pnr). We have identified defective proventriculus (dve), a K50 homeodomain gene as a novel dorsal gene that plays a crucial role in Drosophila eye development. We have found that dve acts downstream of pannier (pnr) in the developing eye. Loss-of-function phenotypes of both pnr and dve results in the dorsal eye enlargement. We will study role of dve and pnr in growth regulation during development. The results from these studies will be presented.Keywords: Axial Patterning, Differentiation.

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  Design and MIMO control of A Hyper-Redundant Robotic Arm

  Xingsheng Xu

  An application robotic platform has been constructed based on the kinematic model of a 9-DOF hyper-redundant manipulator. The efficacy of our kinematic algorithm affects the accuracy and stability of both motion control and path tracking. An objective of this work is to achieve multi-input multi output (MIMO) control, where the inputs are the torques at each joint, and they are used to control joint dynamic variables such as position, orientation, velocity and acceleration in a hyper-redundant robotic system. This control approach can highly improve the robotic performance considering both its kinematics and dynamics while executing motion control or tracking a path. The result of tracking different paths and the error analysis both in joint space and work space show that the MIMO control algorithm works functionally and satisfies all the requirements of experimental design.

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  Determining Volume Changes from Overhead Video Surveillance

  Yakov Diskin

  Cost effective persistent wide area surveillance is a challenging real-world problem that research has not sufficiently tackled yet. At present, surveillance corporations spend millions on human analysts to monitor live or recorded video feeds. Depending on the application, the analysts may be looking for unauthorized activities, suspicious behavior, or a more specific sequence of events. Human performance is costly and is often affected by ambiguous definitions of anomalies as well as natural factors such as fatigue. We present a fully automatic 3D change detection technique designed to support persistent overhead surveillance in changing environmental conditions. The novelty of the work lies in our approach of creating an intensity invariant system tasked with detecting changes in a changing environment. Although previous techniques have proven to work in some cases, these techniques fail when the intensity of the scene significantly changes between the capture of the datasets. Our techniques leverages our 3D reconstruction capabilities to overcome the intensity variation challenges. We present several proof of concept experiments conducted in a laboratory setting, in which we study the effects of model noise and scene illumination on the proposed volumetric changed detection algorithm.

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  Did That Just Happen? Acts of Bias and Perception of Campus Racial Climate of Racially Minority Students at a Predominantly White Institution

  Jasmine Whitlow

  Whether covert or overt, racism, racial prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, and microaggressions are acts in which many marginalized students’ experience, particularly on predominantly white colleges. The study was designed to examine the perception of the campus racial climate among racial minority students after a bias incident has occurred and identify coping strategies and support structures that promote the students ability to matriculate and persist. This examination is critical in properly addressing issues on campus and ultimately supporting students who experience daily challenges as it relates to their perceived racial identification. Findings provided an overview of student experiences on campus as it relates to bias incidents. Recommendations are presented to assist higher education administrators to improve the campus climate for racial minority populations on college campuses.

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  Differential Effects of Commercially Available Probiotics on Listeria monocytogenes Virulence

  Eric Edward Newton, Ashley N. Zani

  Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen which can cause lethal infections in immunocompromised individuals. These infections involve meningitis in the elderly or spontaneous abortions of neonates--both scenarios result from Listeria crossing the intestinal barrier. The conditions that promote Listeria invasion during the intestinal phase of infection are not clearly defined. We have evidence that suggests intestinal fermentation acids as potential signals for Listeria virulence regulation. Therefore, we hypothesized that probiotic bacteria, which generate different fermentation acids, will exhibit different levels of inhibition against Listeria virulence. To test how different probiotic bacteria affect Listeria virulence, we used two commercially available probiotics from Phillips, Colon Health and Digestive Health Support, each containing a unique mixture of bacteria. First, a co-culture experiment between probiotic bacteria and Listeria was conducted to determine the probiotics ability to inhibit Listeria growth. Second, we tested Listeria survival in the fermentation products generated by these probiotic bacteria. Finally, we tested how the fermentation products affect Listeria production of the virulence factor listeriolysin O (LLO). Listeria growth was reduced when co-culturing with either of the two probiotics with both probiotics showing similar levels of suppression. After five hours of incubation in the supernatant of probiotic cultures, Listeria survival was significantly reduced in the Digestive Health Support probiotic compared to the Colon Health probiotic. Exposure to supernatant from the Digestive Health Support probiotic also significantly reduced LLO production. Taken together, Digestive Health Support probiotics exhibited stronger overall inhibitory activity against Listeria fitness and virulence. Future investigations will focus on determining the chemical composition of the probiotics fermentation products to explain the different responses in Listeria. Probiotics are quickly gaining popularity which argues for better understanding of their effects. Understanding their effects on foodborne pathogens will pave the way for applying appropriate probiotics as effective preventative and treatment strategies.

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  Diminishing the Discipline Gap: Restorative Justice as a Promising Alternative in One Urban School

  Polly K. Long

  Across the nation, the education system is responding to student misbehavior with zero tolerance policies that parallel the punitive practices found in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Zero tolerance policies have contributed to the “discipline gap,” wherein schools punish racial and ethnic minorities more often and more severely than they punish whites. One alternative to punitive punishment is restorative justice, which aims to foster respect, responsibility, and empathy in members of school communities. This project evaluates the relationship between restorative justice and out-of-school suspension rates in an urban school district. It also serves as one of the few studies that evaluate the effect of restorative practices on the discipline gap. The results validate previous research findings, as restorative justice is related to reductions in out-of-school suspension rates. Further, the results reveal a promising alternative to the punitive practices that plague the education system, as restorative justice is related to reductions in the size of the discipline gap.

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  Does Study Abroad Impact Students’ Personality?

  Ashley Ann F. Marshall

  International education is universally valued both in academics and the job market because of the perception that those who study abroad have increased intercultural awareness, experience with diversity, and opportunity for personal growth. Given that students who are studying abroad are experiencing increased independence and experience with a new culture, this is a potential time for the development of perspective-taking, empathic concern, non-prejudice, and other forms of personal growth. The present, longitudinal study collected narrative and non-narrative data on these qualities of personality development before, during, and after the participants’ studies. For comparison, we gathered the same measures with a group of students who were taking a summer course on campus. Contrary to popular views of studying abroad, we did not find evidence that summer study abroad facilitated personality development more so than summer study on campus. We did find that students were more likely to report personal growth after studying abroad than studying on campus, but this was explained by the fact that the study-abroad group had higher expectations for personal growth before summer studies.

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  Does that "Ring a Bell?" The Effects of Music-Induced Emotions on Recall of a Story

  Giuseppe G. Miranda

  This research examined the effects of music-induced emotions on memory for information from a story. Previous research has revealed that music is a reliable tool for mood manipulation (Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2012), and emotion has been shown to be a memory enhancer (Janke, 2008). Tesoriero and Rickard (2012) provide two major theories for how music and memory interact, emotional arousal theory and mood congruence theory. The emotional arousal theory predicts that when emotions are aroused there will be an overall enhanced memory for attended information. Further, the mood congruence theory predicts enhanced memory for information that is congruent with reported emotions (Bower & Forgas, 2000). Based on these theories, there should be an improvement in memory for text information for individuals listening to emotionally-arousing music while reading text with corresponding emotional content. Participants in the present study, equipped with a heart rate monitor, listened to classical fear-inducing music while reading a fear-inducing story presented in either moving or static text. Other participants read the story without accompanying music. Both groups were evaluated for their emotional state before, during, and after the story. Following a task to minimize rehearsal of story details, all participants were given a surprise, cued-recall test of information from the story. Data analyses revealed a modest, statistically significant effect of music on recall of story detail. Furthermore, there was a strong, statistically significant effect of the fear story on emotion. Not only was the fear story able to elicit a strong fear response in the participants, but it also increased the participants’ overall basic negative affect and decreased their overall basic positive affect. Analysis is currently underway to determine if fluctuations in heart rate correlate with emotional states of the participants, as determined by the emotional state questionnaires.

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  Do You See What I See? Perceiving Distances from Another’s Perspective

  Emma K. Tokar

  The ability to accurately perceive distances between the self and objects/targets underlies action-guidance and spatial navigation. While one can easily and accurately judge distances from his or her own perspective, it is largely unknown whether distance judgments from an imagined perspective are as accurate as from one’s own viewpoint. This study will investigate the accuracy of distance judgments made from another person’s viewpoint. To do so, participants will be asked to either adopt a confederate’s viewpoint or to imagine standing in a different location (without a confederate acting as a stand-in) and to estimate distance from these novel perspectives. As a control, participants will simply judge the distances between two targets (object to object or exocentric distance judgment). We predict that participants will judge distances most accurately when adopting the perspective of a confederate; distance judgments will be less accurate when made from an imagined viewpoint (with only a marker to denote the adopted viewpoint) and when making judgments of the distances between two external objects. This study will contribute to an understanding of the ways in which we navigate the external world but will also have social psychological implications in their investigation of perspective-taking.

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  Effects of single-dose dietary nitrate on oxygen consumption during and after prolonged submaximal exercise in healthy humans

  Genevieve M. Kocoloski

  Dietary nitrate (NO3-) has been shown to impact oxygen consumption (VO2) as well as exercise performance in a number of prior studies. To date, previous investigations have observed NO3- effects at moderate to high-intensity (e.g. time to fatigue, time trials) exercise and often in trained athletes. However, less is known in regards to prolonged exercise and the potential impact of NO3- on post-exercise excess oxygen consumption (EPOC), particularly in untrained individuals. Here, we tested the hypothesis that acute dietary nitrate supplementation would attenuate VO2 during and following prolonged cycle ergometry. Six young, moderately active, healthy males (age: 26±2 years, body mass index: 23.5±0.5 kg/m2; VO2max: 37.7±5.1 ml/kg/min) performed step-wise maximal cycle exercise and prolonged submaximal cycle exercise (45 min; 38±2% of max work rate) in control (anti- bacterial mouthwash) and acute NO3- supplementedconditions [70ml concentrated beet root juice (0.4g NO3-), 2 hrs prior to exercise] on separate occasions. Measurements of VO2 (indirectcalorimetry), arterial blood pressure (MAP; sphygmomanometry), and heart rate (HR; ECG) were made for 45 min prior, during, and 60 min following exercise bouts. NO3- reduced MAP at rest ~1-3mmHg and this was accompanied by reflex-mediated HR increases (2-4 bpm). However, NO3- had no impact on VO2 during exercise (average of min 25-45, Ctrl: 24.6±2.4 ml/kg/min vs NO3-: 26.8±3.3 ml/kg/min) or EPOC (area under the curve, Ctrl: 0.86±0.3 L vs NO3-: 0.95±.2 L). Thus, while NO3- supplementation may have performance benefits, especially in elite athletes exercising at high intensities, in recreationally active males, there appears to be little impact on changes in VO2 due to submaximal prolonged exercise.

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  Enhanced Physiological Microenvironment for Improved Evaluation of Nanoparticle Behavior

  Emily K. Breitner

  Due to their distinctive physicochemical properties, nanoparticles (NPs) have proven to be extremely advantageous for product and application development, but are capable of inducing detrimental outcomes in biological systems. Standard in vitro methodologies are currently the primary means for evaluating NP safety, as vast quantities of particles exist that require appraisal. Here, we developed an enhanced in vitro model that retains the advantages of cell culture, but introduces the key physiological variables of accurate biological fluid and dynamic flow. As NP behavior and subsequent bioresponses are highly dependent upon their surroundings, this developed microenvironment provides a more relevant system to evaluate responses following NP exposure. In this study, the microenvironment comprised of the A549 lung cell model, artificial alveolar fluid, and dynamic flow at realistic rates; to mimic a NP inhalation exposure. We identified significant modulations to silver and gold NP characteristics and the nano-cellular interface as a function of particle surface chemistry, fluid composition, and flow condition. More importantly, several of these modifications were dependent on multiple variables, indicating that these responses were previously unidentifiable in a standard cellular environment. Taken together, this study demonstrates that to fully elucidate the behavior and evaluate the safety of NPs, these evaluations need to be carried out in a more complex and physiologically relevant cellular exposure model.

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  Enhancing Industrial Sustainability by Improving Resource Efficiency

  Dillip Thangamani

  With ever increasing energy and raw material costs, coupled with environmental regulations and increasing customer awareness of corporate sustainability efforts, industries are seeking to increase energy and resource efficiency. Over the past decade, the University of Dayton’s Industrial Assessment Center (UD-IAC) has developed a systematic methodology and analysis tool to help industry become more energy efficient. The publicly-available Efficiency Guidebook (EEG) is a comprehensive tool that integrates examples and computational resources for improving energy efficiency. This study describes a parallel effort to improve industrial resource efficiency by developing a methodology for improving resource efficiency and incorporating it into a free publically-available software tool called the Resource Efficiency Guidebook (REG). The methodology focuses on six types of resources: water, raw material, chemical agents, process scrap, packaging waste, and equipment and applies seven principles of resource efficiency to these resources. The result is a prioritized Integrated Resource plus Principles Matrix that guides manufactures through the resource efficiency process. REG combines the Integrated Resource plus Principles Matrix with real-world saving examples and spreadsheet calculators. Case studies with scenario analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of the REG at cost-effectively improving resource efficiency and reducing waste.

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  Examining the effects of self-regulation on self-enhancement.

  Greg Alfred Eisenhauer

  Self-regulation plays a critical role in self-presentation. The present research further examines the association between self-regulation and self-presentation by examining the role of self-regulation in self-enhancement. Research examining self-enhancement consistently finds it to be costly for self-presentation if done so in a blatant (as opposed to subtle) manner. Therefore, a common challenge faced regarding self-presentation is how to balance the desire to have and maintain a positive sense of self (i.e., self-enhance) while concurrently making a positive impression on others. Avoiding blatant self-enhancement, though, requires self-regulatory resources and depleting such resources should therefore influence the ability to fend off blatant self-enhancement. Specifically, depleting regulatory resources should be associated with higher levels of blatant self-enhancing strategies but should not influence subtle self-enhancement strategies. To test this, participants were randomly assigned to a self-regulatory depletion condition or a control condition. All participants completed a thought-listing task for 6-minutes. Participants in the depletion condition were given prior instructions asking them to control their thoughts during the task. Participants in the control condition underwent the same task with no additional instructions. Next, participants completed multiple self-presentation measures: modesty, blirtatiousness (i.e., unrestrained speaking or quick responding), and subtle and blatant forms of self-enhancement. We found no association between depletion and modesty or blirtatiousness, but we did find an effect between depletion and self-enhancement. Specifically, and as predicted, participants in the depleted condition reported significantly higher levels of blatant self-enhancement compared to the control group, but the groups did not differ in subtle self-enhancement. Our results show that participants with intact self-regulatory resources are able to control their approach to self-enhancement, perhaps in an effort to control self-presentation. Depleting self-regulatory resources, however, is associated with an increase in using self-enhancement strategies that can compromise self-presentation.

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  Examining the Role of Self-Esteem in the Association between Emotional Vulnerability and Psychological Well-Being.

  Kathryn M. Schilling

  The purpose of the proposed study was to examine the association between emotional vulnerability and psychological well-being, and test whether the association varies based on level of self-esteem. Researchers define psychological well-being as an appraisal of one’s life where a person gives conscious evaluative judgments about one’s satisfaction with life as a whole (Grossi et al., 2013). Emotional vulnerability is defined as the degree to which a person renders himself or herself exposed to the emotional pain of rejection. Experiencing social rejection has a negative effect on self-esteem, however, having high self-esteem may buffer the self against the pain of rejection. Previous research suggests that vulnerability is an important trait essential to satisfying the human need to create and maintain close relationships. Taken together, the present research examined whether self-esteem influences whether emotional vulnerability is associated with positive or negative psychological well-being. Participants first completed a measure of self-esteem and were then randomly assigned to an experimental group where they wrote about a time they felt emotionally vulnerable, or a control group. Participants then completed a measure of psychological well-being. Current predictions are that emotional vulnerability will contribute to better well-being for individuals with high self-esteem, but poorer psychological well-being for those with lower self-esteem. The findings from the present study have important implications for understanding the role that self-esteem plays in how emotional vulnerability influences psychological well-being.

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  Executive Functioning Games at Home

  Allexa D. Gaewsky

  The research problem we are studying is if classroom-based games used to boost children’s cognitive skills can be adapted to an at-home format. These games have been shown to boost the executive functioning skills (working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control) of young children when played in the classroom (Schmitt et al., 2014). This is important because executive functioning skills help children to adapt to an early learning environment and become ready to learn academic skills (Fuhs, Nesbitt, Farran, & Dong, 2014). Children growing up in poverty are more likely to struggle with executive functioning skills (Noble, Norman, & Farrah, 2006). Therefore, they may benefit most from having access to executive functioning skills activities at home regardless of their participation in a preschool program. As part of a larger intensive school readiness program for families living in poverty in Dayton (Taking Off To Success), we provided families with executive functioning games that we adapted to an at-home format. We will report pilot data from parent surveys to determine if parents played the games, if they enjoyed them, and how they can be improved. This pilot study will determine if the games given to the families each week are helpful and useful. The broader goal of this work is to test if providing executive functioning games to parents and children as part of an intensive school readiness program can boost the executive functioning skills of children growing up in poverty.

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  Expanding TAGS: Facilitating Interaction between Teachers and International Students

  Sky Lantz-Wagner

  The purpose of this presentation is to explore means for supporting faculty who teach international students. One of the challenges facing institutions of higher education in general, and the University of Dayton in particular, is the increasing diversity of student enrollment. This diversity includes international students from different countries, cultures, and educational backgrounds. The greater numbers of international students create both challenges and opportunities for faculty members. One such challenge for faculty members is lack of awareness and support from their administration, who may be similarly unprepared to handle increased diversity or to empower international students in their academic goals. In an attempt to bridge the gap between professors and international students, the Academic Affairs and Learning Initiative (AALI) at UD has created a program called Teaching a Global Student Community (TAGS), a workshop series providing faculty with a generalized look at the interaction of culture, students, and learning. We believe that faculty in a variety institutes of higher education would benefit from an initiative such as TAGS’ ideals and values. Our proposal is to offer pedagogical and intercultural support for faculty members at colleges and universities in Ohio. To provide this support, we will identify schools with a large percentage (10 or more) of international students or that recruit international students, search for existing support systems for faculty, and make recommendations based on the TAGS philosophy. Means of support will come in the form of in-service workshops, but other methods may prove more practical based on each school’s needs. Anticipated areas we will address in training include responding to international students’ writing, understanding and supporting dynamic interaction patterns in the classroom, supporting student understanding of intellectual property and the principles of academic integrity, and implementing appropriate learning/classroom support for non-native speakers (NNS).