Stander Symposium Projects

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  Increasing Intensive English Program Students’ Understanding of the Health Effects of Smoking Tobacco

  Emily Effer, Sydney E Hattendorf, Hanna J Peterson, Sherilyn E Rogers

  Health literacy is defined as the range of abilities to comprehend and evaluate health information in a way that allows individuals to make informed choices about their health. People who are especially impacted by this are the international students at the University of Dayton who are immersed in a new culture with a new language. The focus of our project was to determine what health information the international students in the Intensive English Program (IEP) at UD wanted to learn about tobacco use and smoking. We then edited an existing pamphlet about that topic to make it more understandable for IEP readers. Our original text was published by the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. When a SMOG test was run, it read at a 12.84 reading level. After meeting with the IEP students for a field test and eliminating complex language, we lowered the reading level to 6.5 and improved overall understanding. If all health information were presented at lower reading levels, the healthcare system in the United States could become less daunting to the majority of adults with low literacy.

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  Influence of Newspaper Endorsements in the 2016 Presidential Election

  Alexandra R Scherb

  The purpose of this study is to address the influence of newspaper endorsement on the county level in regards to the 2016 presidential election. I am looking at the newspaper endorsement influence of 346 papers on the vote percentages of their respective counties, and then comparing those to state percentages. That way we can see each newspaper’s specific influence on it’s county. This study is significant because we can start to see if newspaper endorsements are important and influential or not, which could have major ramifications for both politicians and newspapers. If we determined that newspaper endorsements were not important, we could begin to ask what has changed to make them unimportant (for example the change in news consumption). Furthermore, this election could be very out of the ordinary due to extraneous variables, and newspapers might not have had a chance at playing their traditional guiding role in voting choice. Should any of this be the case, there would be a major shift in politics and news as politicians have always relied on mass media for successful politics and mass media has relied on politicians for content.

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  Influence of Reverse Shoulder Implant Positioning on Patient-Specific Muscle Forces: A Simulation Study

  Kayla M Pariser

  A reverse shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) is a common treatment for patients with severe shoulder injuries such as rotator cuff muscle tears and/or severe arthritis. The goal of an RTSA is to stabilize the shoulder and improve a patient’s range of motion. The stability of the shoulder relies on the muscles of the shoulder and with rotator cuff tears, the deltoid muscle becomes the shoulder’s primary stabilizer. The positioning of the implant is important as it directly affects the length of the deltoid muscle moment arm which determines the amount of deltoid muscle force required to produce the necessary torque about the shoulder for it to function after a RTSA. However, it is impossible to experimentally determine the force that the deltoid muscle will be able to produce after surgery. The overall goal of this work is to use simulation and optimization methods to optimize RTSA implant placement and deltoid muscle forces for fifteen RTSA patients. For each of the fifteen patients, a model of the shoulder joint and muscles and an optimization framework will be used to calibrate muscle model parameters and predict the shoulder muscle forces.

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  Integrated Shape and Texture Features for Robust Pedestrian Detection

  Hussin K Ragb

  Over the last decade, detection of human beings became one of the most significant tasks in computer vision due to its extended applications that include human computer interaction, visual surveillance, person identification, event detection, gender classification, robotics, automatic navigation, and safety systems, etc. However this task is rather challenging because of the fluctuation in appearance of the human body as well as the cluttered scenes, pose, occlusion, and illumination variations. For such a difficult task, most of the time no single feature algorithm is rich enough to capture all the relevant information available in the image. To improve the detection accuracy we propose a new descriptor that fuses the local phase information, image gradient, and texture features as a single descriptor and is denoted as fused phase, gradient and texture features (FPGT). The gradient and the phase congruency concepts are used to capture the shape features, and a center-symmetric local binary pattern (CSLBP) approach is used to capture the texture of the image. The fusing of these complementary features yields the ability to localize a broad range of the human structural information and different appearance details which allow to more robust and better detection performance. The proposed descriptor is formed by computing the phase congruency, the gradient, and the CSLBP value of each pixel with respect to its neighborhood. The histogram of oriented phase and histogram of oriented gradient, in addition to CSLBP histogram are extracted for each local region. These histograms are concatenated to construct the FPGT descriptor. Principal components analysis (PCA) is performed to reduce the dimensionality of the resultant features. Several experiments were conducted to evaluate the detection performance of the proposed descriptor. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used in these experiments to classify the FPGT features. The results show that the proposed algorithm has better detection performance in comparison with the state of the art feature extraction methodologies.

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  Intensive English Program Oral Communication Posters

  Ahmed M Al Riyami, Rashed B Alajmi, Sadiq M M A Almotawa, Mishari A Alshatti, Saori Kai

  The presenters are students from the Intensive English Program. The posters they have created are representative of an end of term project for the level 3 Oral Communication and Listening/Note-taking course; an intermediate class for English language learning students at the intermediate proficiency level. The goal of this assignment is to give students an introduction to research and an opportunity to improve their speaking and presentation skills.

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  Interaction of the hippo pathway and dronc in regulating cell proliferation

  Hannah M Scharf, Kirti Snigdha

  Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is one of the most important regulatory events for proper tissue homeostasis. It is a gene-directed program that helps in controlling the number of cells through components that influence cell survival as well as those that control proliferation and differentiation. Dysregulation of apoptosis is a hallmark for cancer in which mutated tumor cells exhibit uncontrolled cell division and evade cell death. Hence, to understand cancer biology and devise effective therapeutic avenue, it is highly essential to study how the genes involved in the pathways of cell growth and cell death get dysregulated to promote tumorigenesis. The Hippo signaling pathway was identified in Drosophila melanogaster, (commonly known as the fruit fly) and is evolutionarily conserved in mammals. The Hippo pathway regulates organ size, cell proliferation, and cell death, and is commonly deregulated in human tumors. Previous study in our lab has shown that the Hippo pathway interacts with initiator capase Dronc, along with effector caspase Drice and Dark to regulate cell death. In addition, Dronc is the first target gene that is negatively regulated by the Hippo pathway. We hypothesized that loss of Dronc, Drice, and Dark function will enable unchecked cell proliferation. To evaluate this we used the eye imaginal disc of the Drosophila melanogaster in which we will produce small clones of mutated cells for Dronc. We will evaluate different cell proliferation markers like cyclin A and E through immunostaining and confocal microscopy. This will help us in understanding how the loss of Dronc affects cell proliferation. Here we present our findings on this.

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  Interfering with the Consolidation of Memory

  McKenzie J Anderson, Kelly A Dunne, Alexander N Lawriw

  Research suggest that sleep improves memory. Specifically, memories are consolidated—incorporated within the context of previously established memory networks— during sleep (Rasch & Born, 2013). Studies indicate that memories are initially unstable after encoding and must be consolidated to become resistant to interference (Robertson, 2011). The objective of the present research was to examine how interrupting the encoding of a memory would interfere with later memory consolidation. Participants experienced a fake computer crash during their study (encoding) of pictures of common objects in a slideshow. While the experimenter attempted to “fix” the crash, participants completed an unrelated task to prevent rehearsal of the pictures. The slideshow resumed, showing the remaining pictures. One group of participants completed a recognition task of the pictures not long after viewing the slideshow. A second group of participants was asked to complete a delayed recognition task of the pictures via an online survey the following day. A third group of participants was asked to complete both the immediate recognition task, as well as the online delayed recognition task, the following day. Overall, we hypothesized that memory would be better for pictures that appeared near the beginning and the end of encoding, while pictures that were presented just before the interruption would be less likely to be remembered. Moreover, this last effect would be more pronounced on the second day because any memory consolidation that might have taken place would be disrupted. Finally, we expected two outcomes for the second day of testing: first, participants would be less confident in their assessment of their memory than they were on the first day of the experiment. However, participants would be just as and even more accurate in their memory for the pictures that we did not expect would be impacted by the interruption.

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  Investigate the role of OPA1 gene mutation in amyloid-beta 42 mediated neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease

  Elizabeth A Borchers, Lydia C Payton, Ankita Sarkar

  Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with no known cure to date. The disease is caused by the extra-cellular accumulation of amyloid-beta 42 (Aβ42) peptides, which results in neuronal death. We have developed transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a fruit fly) model of AD where human Aβ42 peptide was misexpressed specifically in the Drosophila eye using the GAL4/UAS system. Our approach allows Aβ42 accumulation only in the differentiating photoreceptor neurons, which kills only the retinal neurons, and does not affect the reproductive ability as well as life span of flies. It allows us to use these flies to understand the molecular genetic basis of AD. One of the hallmark of AD is generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from mitochondria, which triggers neuronal death. My hypothesis is that OPA-1, a dynamin related GTPase, which regulate mitochondrial fusion, is involved in regulating Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration. A fine balance between mitochondrial fission and fusion events is essential for normal mitochondrial and cellular function. Mutations of OPA1, an early stop signal produces small unstable mitochondrial proteins, which increases ROS levels in neurons. There is a strong correlation between increased ROS levels and mitochondrial fragmentation with neuronal death. I will investigate role of OPA1 in Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration using our fly eye model. This gene is highly conserved between flies and humans. Thus, our studies will have significant bearings on understanding molecular genetic basis of AD and role of energy generating mitochondrial machinery in age related neurodegeneration.

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  Investigating cell-cell interactions in Drosophila glioma models

  Logan J Roebke

  Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a devastating form of primary brain cancer with poor prognosis. Capitalizing on the similarities between mammalian and Drosophila glial cells, Drosophila glioblastoma models have been established that show similarities to anaplastic glia from high-grade human glioma. Using the Repo MARCM system, we established two models of Drosophila glioblastomas by overexpressing oncogene RasV12 together with downregulation of Pten (PtenRNAi) in one model system and suppression of scribble (ScribRNAi ) in another. These genetic alterations lead to overgrowth of glial cells creating glioblastomas in Drosophila larval brain. The glioblastoma containing brain appear enlarged in comparison to normal wild type brain, which clearly suggests the dysregulation of growth control in tumors. We studied expression of ecdysone receptor (ECR) and Taiman proteins in the two model glioblastomas. Taiman is the co-activator of ECR, and cooperatively control growth. One mechanism by which Taiman regulates growth is by cooperatively interacting with Yorkie (Yki) the co-activator of the Hippo growth control pathway. We want to understand the role of these proteins in the development of the gliomas. We first tested the expression of ECR and Taiman in our glioma models and found that in both the models, ECR and Taiman are downregulated in the tumor cells in comparison to the normal expression in non-tumor cells. This suggests the growth control is lost in tumors. We will test the role of Yki in this growth regulatory interaction. Here we present our findings from the ECR-Taiman-Yki studies in Drosophila glioma models.

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  Investigating Factors that Impact the Probability of Covering the Spread in NFL Games

  Larry J D'Onofrio

  This analysis is to determine if the winner against the spread of NFL regular season games can be probabilistically determined. In order to obtain the results for the analysis, a logistical regression will be run analyzing data from the 2010 – 2015 NFL seasons. The data consists of variables pertaining to team resources, individual games, and Las Vegas closing spreads.

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  Investigating the role of inflammatory cytokines on tumor progression and metastasis in a Drosophila cancer model

  Kirti Snigdha

  Tumor cells and surrounding normal cells interact with each other and constitute the tumor microenvironment (TME) which supports the survival and proliferation of tumors. Studies indicate the presence of inflammatory components in the TME. However, little is known about the effect of these inflammatory molecules on tumor growth and progression. The core inflammatory pathways are conserved in Drosophila. Imaginal discs of Drosophila melanogaster are a popular model to study epithelial tumors due to the variety of mosaic analysis tools, and the ease positively marking cells that allow tracking growth and progression of tumor cells. We co-activated oncogenic forms of Yki or RasV12 activities in polarity deficient (scribble mutant) epithelial cells to model aggressively growing and metastatic tumors. To simulate the TME, ‘FLP-out’ clones of tumor cells marked with GFP were generated. The activity of key inflammatory pathways Toll, TNF, and JNK in the TME was tested by immunohistochemistry. We observed upregulation of Cactus (TLR pathway component) and p- JNK (activated form of JNK), and downregulation of Drosophila TNF ligand, Eiger in the tumor cells. Of these, only Eiger was upregulated in neighboring normal cells. Based on these results we hypothesized that a bidirectional cross-talk between the tumor and normal cells in the TME elicits a differential inflammatory response that promotes tumor cell survival and progression. To analyze this, we down-regulated Cactus and Wengen (TNF receptor) and evaluated the effect on tumor size and survival of tumor cells. A comparison of hyperplastic (Yki ScribRNAi) and metastatic (RasV12 ScribRNAi) tumor model was done to identify the role of inflammatory cytokines in tumor progression. Here, we report our progress on the study of the effect of these pathways and inflammatory cytokines on tumor survival and metastasis. Our research will help unravel the correlation between inflammatory pathways and tumor progression in an in vivo model.

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  Investigating the role of putative regeneration genes of Notophthalmus viridescens using Drosophila melanogaster model.

  Abijeet S Mehta

  Notophthalmus viridescens, Red-spotted newt, possess amazing capability to regenerate its organs including tail, limb, heart, brain, spinal cord, lens and other tissues. We have identified a novel family of proteins expressed in adult tissues during regeneration in newts by using a de novo assembly of the newt transcriptome that is combined with proteomic validation. Although, these proteins have no counterparts in public databases, they have a putative signal peptide suggesting the secretory nature of these proteins. To investigate the regeneration potential of these newt-specific genes (and given certain restrains with transgenic newts, such as time), we employed transgenic Drosophila melanogaster model to express these genes. We generated the transgenic flies containing candidate genes, and tried to evaluate their potential to rescue pattern defect mutants of Drosophila melanogaster. Simultaneously, we prepared samples for RNA sequencing to generate the snap shot of gene expression when the candidate genes are misexpressed. Using transgenic approach, these candidate genes were expressed in all the tissues of Drosophila, and samples for sequencing were collected at third instar larval (L3) stage. Interestingly, we have found that these genes are affecting regulatory machinery of Drosophila melanogaster by binding to the sequence specific sites in DNA and regulating the genes involved in Apoptosis and cell cycle. We are further evaluating the potential of these novel genes to rescue pattern defect mutants of Drosophila melanogaster. Our hypothesis is that if these genes are responsible for regeneration they will be able to rescue developmental cell death. The results generated from these studies will be presented in the conference.

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  Investigation of the role of Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a trigger for neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease

  Lydia C Payton, Amit Singh

  Alzheimer’s disease (hereafter AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects cognitive function and memory of the patient. It results from plaques formed by the abnormal cleavage of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP), which result in the formation of 42 amino acid polypeptide, also known as amyloid beta 42 (Aβ42). Accumulation of Aβ42 peptide triggers cell death in the neuronal cell population of central nervous system. However, the trigger for this abnormal cell death is unknown. A possible explanation involves the role of mitochondrial dysfunction as the trigger for neurodegeneration. Mitochondria are involved in vital cellular functions, including ATP production, calcium ion homeostasis, reactive oxygen species production, and apoptosis. My hypothesis is that mutations in genes regulating mitochondrial health may play a role in neurodegeneration observed in AD mediated neurodegeneration. The rationale behind this hypothesis is, mitochondria are present in all neurons and mitochondrial function impairment results in cell suicide. It is known that trigger for cell death initiates from the mitochondria. Therefore, mitochondria might play an important role in Aβ42 mediated neuronal death. In order to investigate these issues, a Drosophila melanogaster eye model is used with the Gal4/UAS to misexpress the human Aβ42 polypeptide in the photoreceptor neurons of the fly retina. I propose to test the role of mitochondria in AD using candidate gene approach. These studies swill have significant bearings on understanding the etiology of AD and identification of biomarkers for early detection of this disease.

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  Investigation of the role of OPA1 gene mutation in amyloid-beta 42 mediated neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease

  Elizabeth A Borchers, Lydia C Payton, Ankita Sarkar

  Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with no known cure to date. The disease is caused by the extra-cellular accumulation of amyloid-beta 42 (Aβ42) peptides, which results in neuronal death. We have developed transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a fruit fly) model of AD where human Aβ42 peptide was misexpressed specifically in the Drosophila eye using the GAL4/UAS system. Our approach allows Aβ42 accumulation only in the differentiating photoreceptor neurons, which kills only the retinal neurons, and does not affect the reproductive ability as well as life span of flies. It allows us to use these flies to understand the molecular genetic basis of AD. One of the hallmark of AD is generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from mitochondria, which triggers neuronal death. My hypothesis is that OPA-1, a dynamin related GTPase, which regulate mitochondrial fusion, is involved in regulating Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration. A fine balance between mitochondrial fission and fusion events is essential for normal mitochondrial and cellular function. Mutations of OPA1, an early stop signal produces small unstable mitochondrial proteins, which increases ROS levels in neurons. There is a strong correlation between increased ROS levels and mitochondrial fragmentation with neuronal death. I will investigate role of OPA1 in Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration using our fly eye model. This gene is highly conserved between flies and humans. Thus, our studies will have significant bearings on understanding molecular genetic basis of AD and role of energy generating mitochondrial machinery in age related neurodegeneration.

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  Is hemipteran community structure in a coastal tallgrass prairie dependent on micronutrients?

  Kiersten P Angelos, Emma E Pierpont, Ryan W Reihart

  Insects play a major role in our ecosystems as pollinators, pest controls, decomposers, and a as food sources. Yet, there is limited knowledge on the factors that frame the structure of herbivore communities. The insect order, hemiptera, have piercing/sucking mouthparts, and are very important in grassland ecosystems as major herbivore species that affect nutrient cycling, primary productivity. They are also an important food source for other organisms. We con a large conducted a large fertilization experiment manipulating macronutrients (N,P) and micronutrients (Ca, K, and Na) in all combinations (16 total treatments) replicated 8 times (128 plots total) in large plots (30m x 30m) in a coastal tallgrass prairie in Texas. We sampled insects in each plot by sweepnetting plots, and also sampled plants and soil properties. We sorted insects to order, and are identifying all hemipterans to morphospecies. Because hemipterans were the abundant group in the samples, their responses drove community level responses of insects. Hemipterans were co-limited by nitrogen, phosphorous, and sodium. Their response may be driven by plant community responses to our treatments: their abundance was positively correlated with plant species richness. Future experiments will test to see if hemipterans are responding the micronutrients or the plant communities. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that this globally important insect group may be co-limited by a combination of macro- and micronutrients in this ecosystem. These findings important implications for the management of insect pest, and management for insect diversity.

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  Journalism Ethics: Bias in Coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Team Sexual Assault Case and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

  Janine A Costello, Nora E Sullivan, Annette M Taylor

  Nora Sullivan considers press coverage of the 2006 rape scandal involving members of Duke University lacrosse team and whether a media bias toward alleged victims led to a rush to judgment and errors in coverage. Her paper explores the ethics involved and how the press could have better reported this case. Janine Costello examines whether bias is evident in press coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her paper focuses on ABC News’ misidentification of photos of rubble in Gaza as being in Israel, The failure to verify information about the photo reinforced the preconceived notions that American news outlets are more likely to sympathize with Israel rather than Palestine.

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  Journalism Ethics: News Coverage of the Trayvon Martin Shooting and Death of Robin Williams

  Dawnn P Fann, Anna Lagattuta Lagattuta, Annette M Taylor

  Anna Lagattuta explores how several news organizations used edited versions of 9-1-1 tapes in their coverage of the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, which created a distorted view of the situation. She considers ethical decision-making in selection of facts and what the press should have done in its reporting. Dawnn Fann examines press coverage of the 2011 death of actor/comedian Robin Williams, and whether the reporting adhered to ethical standards of reporting truth while minimizing harm to the surviving family as well as those suffering mental illness. She considers how the press can remain accountable as well as sensitive when reporting on suicides, especially of celebrities.

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  Journalism Ethics: Stephen Glass and Juan Thompson Fabrication Scandals

  Xi Jin, Christopher M Miller, Annette M Taylor, Qi Wang

  Stephen Glass, at the age of 25, was a popular and prolific writer in the 1990s who had stories published in top news magazines including the New Republic, Harper’s and Rolling Stone. Then it was discovered that Glass had plagiarized and fabricated scores of stories. Qi Wang examines the ethical violations and the impact of his transgressions on journalism’s credibility with audiences. Xi Jin also considers Glass’ transgression in light of today’s charges of “fake news” and how adherence to journalism ethics can prevent against such cases in the future. Christopher Miller examines fabrication in journalism through the 2016 case of Juan Thompson, a journalist for The Intercept, who created sources in some of his stories, apparently to promote an agenda of racial and community justice. While his goal was admirable, Thompson violated ethical norms of journalism and his lying destroyed his credibility with audiences.

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  Journalism Ethics: The Fall of Journalist Jack Kelley and “The Hitler Diaries” Hoax

  Emily P Biery, Annette M Taylor, Elizabeth C Torrance

  The career of Jack Kelley, a longtime USA Today reporter, came to an abrupt end in 2004 when it was discovered that he had fabricated many of his stories. Lizzie Torrance explores the ethical issues involved in the fall of this Pulitzer Prize finalist who once reported on important international events but became better known for violating journalism’s core principles of truthfulness and accuracy. Emily Biery analyzes the systematic failures of verification by German magazine, Der Stern, and several British magazines in the 1983 publication of "The Hitler Diaries," a series of journals allegedly written by Adolf Hitler that were later concluded to be fabricated by German swindler, Konrad Kujau.

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  Keeping Your Friends Close: Perceived Distance as a Function of Psychological Closeness

  Sierra F Corbin

  Traditionally, visual-spatial perception research has focused quite heavily on the visual information necessary to perceive the environment and the locations of objects within that space. Recent research has illustrated that non-visual factors like our emotional states, motivations and physical abilities affect not just the ways we behave, but may also affect how we perceive the environment. Social factors may also impact the way we see the space around us. This study sought to investigate whether feelings of psychological closeness to another person influenced the perception of spatially-oriented characteristics (e.g. perceived distance) of that person. In short, this study asked whether we perceived people with whom we share social ties to be physically closer than people we do not know. This research intended to determine whether psychological closeness affected perceived physical interpersonal distance using a variety of indicators of perceived egocentric (self-to-target) distance. Fifty undergraduate students were recruited from introductory psychology courses at the University of Dayton. Participants made several estimates of the distance between himself or herself and another “target” person. This target person represented either someone with whom the participant shared a relationship or a stranger. I hypothesized that an individual’s feelings of psychological closeness to someone considered a best friend would lead to the perception of closer visual-spatial proximity to a visual representation of that friend than to a visual representation of a stranger. This project contributes to a growing body of literature illustrating non-visual contributions to the perception of egocentric distance and spatial cognition.

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  Ketamine treatment induces sex-specific synaptogenic effects in the medial prefrontal cortex of stress-naïve C57BL/6J mice

  Emily M Flaherty, Joseph N Mauch, Sara S Mohamed, Joseph E Saurine, Connor F Thelen

  Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric disease that impacts more than 350 million individuals worldwide. A neurobiological characteristic of MDD, the atrophy of spines, most often presents itself in brain regions implicated in stress response (e.g., prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). Directly combating these neural deficits, the novel rapid-acting antidepressant drug ketamine has been shown to induce its therapeutic effects by enhancing synaptogenesis and dendritic spine formation in the male rodent brain. Despite the wealth of knowledge on the neurobiological effects of ketamine in the male brain, the effects of this drug in females are not well characterized. Published and preliminary data from our group and others indicate that female mice are behaviorally more reactive to the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine. However, the innate mechanisms underlying the female sensitivity to this rapid-acting antidepressant drug still remain elusive. A modified Golgi-Cox neurohistological staining technique was used to determine whether increases in dendritic spine density in the PFC were associated with the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine in stress-naïve female mice. It was found that a single dose of ketamine (10mg/kg) elicited a synaptogenic response in the medial prefrontal cortex of male but not female mice at three days post-injection. These findings support the notion that different brain regions and/or molecular pathways are implicated in the female antidepressant response to ketamine, and highlight the need for further studies focusing on the sex-specific neuromolecular alterations following ketamine administration.

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  Lift, Run, and/or Stretch: The Decision Making Process of Exercise Choice and Duration

  Jeffrey M Kingery

  Campus recreation environments have been shown to promote physical health and wellbeing for students, yielding great benefits such as higher levels of belongingness and overall academic success, and thus creating a greater likelihood to be retained at the university if utilized. However, there are various types of exercises one can choose to do within a campus recreation environment, including strength (resistance), cardio, and stretching (flexibility) activities. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the decision making process of exercise choice and duration amongst strength, cardio, and stretching activities as experienced by seven full-time undergraduate students who have visited the RecPlex at the University of Dayton at least 15 times over the course of one semester and who self-identify as men and women. Little information is known about the decision making process of exercise choice and duration among college students, specifically within campus recreation and higher education environments. Previous institutional assessment data has shown various differences in exercise choices and durations amongst undergraduate men and women. A greater understanding of these choices can inform those who work various health and wellness professions to design strategies fitted to enhance success and promote greater overall health and wellbeing for students to balance strength, cardio, and flexibility activities within their exercise routines.

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  Light Induced Color Changes in the Purple Protein Bacteriorhodopsin

  Carlie J McGrath

  This research provides new insights into the mechanisms associated with light-induced color changes in the bacteriorhodopsin (BR)-containing halobacterial purple membrane (PM). BR is a purple, 26kDa transmembrane protein which is structurally similar to the human visual proteins rhodopsin and iodopsin. This research focuses on the influences of light scattering and spectral distortions induced by the solvent in which PM is suspended. Varying volume ratios of water and glycerol were used as the solvent for PM samples. A ratio of 60% glycerol:40% water produced spectra with the least scattering, as demonstrated by a low absorbance region (300-420 nm) in the UV-visible absorption spectra and equal intensities of the positive and negative bands in the circular dichroism (CD) spectra. Suspensions of native PM, calcium saturated purple membrane (CSPM) and cation free blue membrane (CFBM) were irradiated with intense 532 nanometer (nm) laser pulses or the 254 nm line from a mercury lamp. During irradiation the absorption and CD spectra were monitored; the spectral changes observed in pure water and glycerol:water suspensions were similar, but faster in pure water. PM, CSPM, and CFBM each produced a UV product with λmax ~360 nm; each species experienced unique changes in the CD spectra as well. With both the laser and the lamp, the absorption spectra of both PM and CSPM “crossed over” (i.e., the long wavelength edge of the main absorption band shifted bathochromically) during the early stages of irradiation; this “crossing over” was absent in CFBM. PM also underwent a later bathochromic shift of its absorption λmax with a concomitant purple-to-blue color change—but only with the laser. With both light sources CSPM and CFBM underwent a color loss but no color change. The structural and mechanistic implications of these spectral changes are detailed below.

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  Listeria monocytogenes Oxygen Consumption

  Andy J Deak

  Listeria monocytogenes is a human pathogen responsible for foodborne illnesses with a high mortality rate. Similarly to many other enteric pathogens, it is a facultative anaerobe capable of growing under anoxic conditions such as some food packaging and our intestinal lumen. Therefore, to better understand how Listeria responds to fluctuating oxygen levels during transmission and infection, we measured oxygen consumption rate of Listeria grown under different conditions. Bacteria were grown overnight to stationary phase in BHI media aerobically or anaerobically and back diluted into fresh BHI for 2 hours to reach mid-log phase. The optical density of all cultures was measured and used to normalize oxygen consumption rate. The bacteria was centrifuged, washed, and resuspended into a concentrated suspension. The oxygen level was measured with the use of an oxygen probe inside an anaerobic chamber. The oxygen level of blank BHI media was measured and subtracted from the final oxygen rate. The results showed that anaerobically-grown mid-log phase bacteria has the fastest rate of oxygen consumption, followed by the aerobically-grown mid-log phase, then the anaerobically-grown and the aerobically-grown stationary phase bacteria. To test the role of electron transport chain in oxygen consumption rate, we treated the sample with the uncoupler CCCP during oxygen concentration measurement. Interestingly, the presence of CCCP did not significantly alter oxygen consumption rate, a result suggesting the presence of another oxygen consumption pathway other than the electron transport chain. The acutely toxic salt anion sodium azide will be tested next to determine if the cytochrome oxidase is involved in oxygen consumption. In summary, our results indicate a significantly different oxygen consumption potential between aerobically and anaerobically grown Listeria that may contribute to its transmission through environments with fluctuating oxygen levels.

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  Local Difference Sign-Magnitude Transform of Edge/Corner Features for Robust Face Recognition

  Almabrok Essa Essa

  In this research, a new appearance based feature descriptor, named Local Difference Sign-Magnitude Transform (LDSMT) is developed for robust face recognition, which efficiently summarizes the local structure of face images. LDSMT is a nonparametric descriptor that utilizes a combined edge/corner detection strategy. We obtain the information about corners and edges of the face image using the Frei and Chen edge detector, then for each pixel position there are two local differences to describe the relationship of pixels to their local neighborhood. The first one is using the sign (positive or negative) of the difference between the values of the central pixel and the neighboring pixel. The second one is using the magnitude of the difference between the central pixel and the neighboring pixel. Then a histogram is built for each component from each edge and corner map respectively. Finally, we concatenate these histograms together to form the final LDSMT feature vector. The performance evaluation of the proposed LDSMT algorithm is conducted on several publicly available databases and observed promising recognition rates.