Stander Symposium Projects

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  Motivating Factors in Incorporating Physical Activity Into an Individual's Daily Routine

  Sydney Marie Gibbons

  Past research has shown there are many benefits to engaging in regular physical activity. These benefits include but are not limited to managing weight/weight loss, reducing health risks, and improving mental health. The World Health Organization recommends 150-300 mins of physical activity weekly, and while there are many recommendations on the amount and type of activity there is limited research on how to get engagement in physical activity. The purpose of this research project is to better understand the motivating factors behind the start of an individual's physical activity journey.

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  Mouse Brain Image Analysis

  Aditya Shrivastava

  For the study of brain function and behavior, the mouse brain serves as a valuable model system. Methods to accurately analyze the complex signals produced by the mouse brain are becoming increasingly important due to developments in neuroimaging and optogenetics. Techniques that can take the information contained in mouse brain signals and turn it into useful biological insights are especially needed. In brain analysis, image segmentation is commonly used for measuring and visualizing the brain's anatomical structures, for analyzing brain changes, for delineating pathological regions, and for surgical planning and image-guided interventions. In the last few decades, various segmentation techniques of different accuracy and degree of complexity have been developed and reported in the literature. In this work, we focus on dataset collection and computational model for mouse brain image segmentation.

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  Mucin Can Rescue Anaerobically Grown Listeria monocytogenes from Killing by Antimicrobial Peptide Ll-37

  Nicolina Valore

  Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can cause infections with a high mortality rate in the United States. Therefore, learning more about the interactions between this pathogen and our immune defenses could greatly strengthen our ability to protect high-risk communities. During transmission from food to the human intestines, L. monocytogenes is exposed to various environmental conditions, including propionate, a common food additive as well as a fermentation product by our gut microbiota, and various oxygen levels. How these environmental factors influence L. monocytogenes fitness and pathogenesis is not fully understood. My Berry Summer Thesis Institute research investigated L. monocytogenes interactions with mucin and antimicrobial peptides, both are critical barriers found in the intestinal lumen. L. monocytogenes was grown with or without propionate under aerobic or anaerobic conditions and then exposed to mucin and antimicrobial peptides. Then, I measured the bacterial colony forming units (CFUs) to calculate survival after exposure. My preliminary results showed that anaerobically grown bacteria were more susceptible to antimicrobial peptide LL-37 than aerobically grown bacteria. However, the presence of mucin rescued anaerobic, but not aerobic, bacteria against LL-37. These results highlight the need to further investigate the role of oxygen in L. monocytogenes fitness and pathogenesis under relevant conditions.

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  Navigating the Food Crisis: Food Insecurity, Sustainability, and Gandhi

  Kevin M. Gonzalez-Brito

  What is nonviolence — a concept, a mode of protest, a practice for modern living? This poster explores the ways in which nonviolence has been historically interpreted as "ahimsa," "beloved community," and as a way for practical and ethical thinking in our modern lives. We highlight the role of nonviolence as method and practice in historical and contemporary global instances that range from the farm workers movement, anti-nuclear protests, environmental green politics, and Dalit and Black actions towards representation.

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  Navigating the Transition: An Examination of Faculty and Staff’s Experience Supporting First-Year Engineering Students

  Jason Zhu

  This study investigates two questions: What are the common challenges and needs that faculty and staff encounter working with first-year engineering students as they transition from high school to a four-year Marianist university? How do faculty and staff provide support for the common challenges and needs of engineering students during the transition from high school to a four-year Marianist university? Data for this constructivist, qualitative study was gathered from four advisors, two faculty members, and one resident assistant in an engineering focused living learning community. Themes relating to common challenges during the transition, changing challenges and needs, how and when students make needs known, and important campus resources for students emerged. Findings from this study have implications for faculty and staff who work with first-year engineering students.

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  Negative Perceptions of Standardized Testing in Schools

  Olivia Marie Dunning

  Standardized testing is seen throughout schools in almost all grade levels. Standardized testing affects teachers, students and parents. Negative impacts of standardized testing include biases based on race, gender, and household income. Students also experience negative stress in response to standardized testing. This literature review highlights why standardized testing is viewed so negatively throughout the school system.

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  Non-Violence and Vegetarianism

  Casey M. Tirado

  What is nonviolence — a concept, a mode of protest, a practice for modern living? This poster explores the ways in which nonviolence has been historically interpreted as "ahimsa," "beloved community," and as a way for practical and ethical thinking in our modern lives. We highlight the role of nonviolence as method and practice in historical and contemporary global instances that range from the farm workers movement, anti-nuclear protests, environmental green politics, and Dalit and Black actions towards representation.

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  Northern Triangle parent perspectives on the family dynamic effects of immigration-driven family separation and reunification

  Ann Bryner Mcglaughlin

  This study presents the results of in-depth interviews with Northern Triangle parents who have experienced separation from, and subsequent reunification with, at least one child as part of the immigration process. It builds upon previous understanding of how family dynamics are affected by this process. Some of the main themes that emerged involved the challenges the parents faced, the factors they found to be helpful, the role of the school, and a possible return to home country. The results highlight the need for services for this growing population, particularly in the area of trauma-informed interventions that focus on repairing attachments between children and parents.

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  Novel role of miRNA-137 in Drosophila eye development

  Rad Radhika Padma

  During organogenesis various players including genes non-coding RNAs like microRNA (miRNA) are involved in differentiation and development. miRNA are involved in post- transcriptional regulation of gene expression in a tissue-specific manner and thereby fine tune the expression of their target gene(s). Therefore, miRNAs play a crucial role in regulation of the cell fate and differentiation during development. In a forward genetic screen, we identified a miRNA which exhibits reduced eye phenotype upon overexpression in the developing eye. Here, we present our characterization of the role of this new miRNA (miR-137) in growth and development of an eye-antennal imaginal disc of Drosophila. Our results illustrate the novel role of miR-137 in eye development and growth. The results from our studies on molecular characterization of the role of this miR-137 during eye development will be presented.

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  Numerical Analysis of Tapered Optical Fiber Sensors utilizing beam propagation methods

  Chaminda Ajith Kumara Ranathunga Ranathunga Mudiyanselage Ihala Gane Gedara

  Tapered Optical Fibers Sensors (TOFSs) have gained attention as sensors due to their elevated sensitivity, real-time specimen analysis, and practical measuring capabilities. By reducing the waist of the optical fiber, the optical field transmitted inside is permitted to extend beyond the fiber, enabling the detection of subtle changes in the refractive index near the sensitive(tapered) region. This can be efficiently used for bio-sensing and other sensing applications. An FFT-BPM is used to model optical propagation through fibers with different core and cladding thicknesses aimed at modeling a tapered fiber. The refractive index profile was suitably modified from a standard step-index fiber to include the presence of antibodies and antigens on the surface of the fiber with reduced cross-section. Detected power variation with wavelength scanning is proportionally phase-shifted for different antigen concentrations.

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  Numerical vs. Spatial Magnitude Understanding as Seen in Preschool Aged Children

  Merrick Hirt

  The ability of young children to differentiate between numerical and spatial magnitudes is correlated with executive functioning skills and has been recognized as a pivotal predictor of early math success (Fuhs et al., 2021). This ability is defined as flexible attention to magnitudes (FAM). In the current study, we expanded on previous findings which concluded that a child's performance in mixed FAM trials, where the child is asked to switch back and forth between numerical and spatial magnitudes, is most strongly connected to math achievement (Wagner et. al., 2023). To examine this, we added six additional mixed trials to the existing FAM task to see if the additional trials would have an effect on data collection. Data was collected from 63 preschool children (aged 3-5) where in varying levels, children were asked to point to boxes based on instructions to identify the box with either the larger objects, or the most objects. In a third level the previous two levels were mixed and the child was asked to make their selection based on the color of the box. We found that children’s performance did not decline in the 6 additional trials, suggesting 18 test trials will be suitable for future use of the FAM task. As expected, children scored lower on number trials and switch trials. Notably, children also scored worse on trials directly following check trials, suggesting that children struggle to switch between questions about incongruent and congruent objects. This distinction has been noted and is a possible direction for future research.

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  Nutritional Habits of College Students and its Effect on their Physical Well-Being

  Eunice B. Anomakoh

  The human body is a zealous machine that is active from conception till death. Such activity requires energy to fulfill its bodily functions. The nutritional intake of an individual can have a significant impact on their physical well-being; this includes but is not limited to their mental health and strength of their immune system. This project is designed to examine the specific effects of the diet of college students on how well their body is able to function on a day-to day basis.

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  Olympic Sport Evaluation with Machine Learning

  Jacob G. Bish

  The goal of the project was to take visual data from a series of Olympic dives and extract the features of them and inputting them into both a linear regression and another regression that best fits the model. The regression would then be tested against other dives and seeing if the regression could accurately guess the score of said dive. Through the implementation, the student learned how to debug large code libraries and how to properly gather and organize data for further research endeavors.

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  On the Role of SERCA-dependent Calcium Handling in the Mouse Stress Response

  Summer Annalee Istenes, Daniel F. Jevnikar, Ben Klocke, Marc Nya, Hayden Nathaniel Ott, Morgan Elizabeth Roach

  Calcium (Ca2+), a critical second messenger, has been implicated in various cellular processes including gene transcription, muscle contraction, cell-cell adhesion, and neurotransmitter release. Previous research has implicated abnormal calcium homeostasis as contributing to attention/deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a common neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention and other symptoms such as hyperactivity and impulsivity. A major regulator of cytosolic calcium concentration is the sarco-endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase 2 (SERCA2), a protein found in the heart and brain that sequesters Ca2+ into the endoplasmic reticulum. Using a mouse model, our lab has previously found that constitutive deletion of PLN, a protein inhibitor of SERCA2, results in an ADHD-like phenotype characterized by hyperactivity, anxiolytic behavior, and cognitive deficits. In this study, we sought to understand the role of PLN in regulating stress response by assessing the effects of chronic-restraint stress in conjunction with constitutive PLN deletion on mouse behavior. The results of this study help to further our understanding of the role of PLN, SERCA2, and Ca2+ in the regulation of the brain and behavior.

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  Optical band gap study of Bi2 Se3-In2 Se3 superlattices

  Mark R. Gordon

  Topological materials are some of the most promising quantum materials for future deviceapplications. In particular, topological superlattices comprised of Bi2 Se3 and In2 Se3 are of greatinterest because they show potential for creating Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) sensorsthat can detect changes in the angle of a magnetic field. The creation of AMR sensors with theaforementioned topological materials would have many advantages over the traditional ones.These advantages include less susceptibility to stray field interactions, sensors having full vectorfield resolution, less power consumption, and no saturation up to 60 T. This is expected to havewidespread device applications in geological sensing, bio magnetic sensing, and navigation. Thiswork investigates the optical band gap as a function of the Bi2 Se3-In2 Se3 superlattice layerthickness, grown by Direct Current Coil Assisted Magnetron Sputtering, using UltravioletVisible light Spectroscopy and cross-sectional Scanning Electron Microscopy.

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  Optimize Shipping/Receiving for Flow and Efficiency

  Ava Daniel Greiner, Kyle G. Hauptner, Connor James Murphy

  MIS and OPS Senior Capstone Projects include small teams of 3 or 4 senior students working weekly with a company/organization to solve a real business problem. These projects extend for the complete undergrad senior year including both Fall and Spring semesters. Students act as Project Consultants and Managers to guide the project from inception until conclusion by delivering solutions and deliverables to the client. Students produce project documentation and formal presentations at multiple stages of the project and conclude with presentations to the supporting Client's Leadership Team.

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

  Tianze Xu

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

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

  Fangshi Zhou

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

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  Organizing for Sustainability in the Greater Dayton Area

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

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

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  Our Lady of the Fields and the American Missionary Calling

  Anh Nguyen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  Physical Activity and Its Impact on Mental Health

  Dylan Joshua Varga

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

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

  Isabelle Marie Giovenco

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

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

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

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