Stander Symposium Projects

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  Spatial Metabolic Modeling and Analysis

  Matthew J. Cummings

  Over the summer of 2021, I (Matthew Cummings) and one other undergraduate student worked closely with an Assistant Professor and Graduate Researcher for the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology at Northwestern University. As a team, we extensively researched how manipulation of a set of partial differential equations could effect the reaction pathway for a set of chemical reactions (within a cell) involving 1,2-propendiol, propenaldehyde, and 1-proponal. Analyzing how manipulation could effect these reaction pathways has many applications that could be used in many industries, including cosmetic, perfume, air care, cleaning, and more. In my presentation, I will talk about our team's findings and how we came about them as well as these applications.

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  Speech Therapists’ Experiences with Parental Demands.

  Rose C. Arkus

  This research study focuses on exploring the challenges that speech therapists may face when interacting with parents of children who are receiving speech language therapy. The research works to explore the impact on the patient’s well-being. Some confounding impacts that will be explored through interviews include: the impact of social class, and accessibility to services. The results provide insight on the experience of navigating parental demands and child well-being within both schools and private centers in Ohio. This research is important to examine because it provides insight into gaps of literature and research for those who are practicing speech therapy and those who are receiving the therapy.

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  Spilling the Beans: An Ethical Analysis of Fair Trade Considering Catholic Social Teaching

  Elise Michelle Abshire

  In this poster, I will be presenting research on the difference of direct and fair methods of coffee trading in light of Catholic Social Teaching. My proposition is that buying fair trade coffee beans is insufficient for respecting the inherent dignity of the human person, and direct trade must be the standard for any ethically conscious consumer. Throughout recent years, there has been an increasing ethical consciousness amongst universal consumers to buy more environmentally friendly, cage-free, and organic items. However, modern media fails to caution the ethical consumer about the importance of purchasing products that provide the greatest respect for the dignity of man, and the distinction between fair and direct trade provides insight on this issue. Fair trade was established in the 1980s as a way to ensure workers were being justly paid and living in proper conditions (Le and Janovokic, 2019). However, the issues of accountability and the middleman have been a hindrance in the effectiveness of fair trade. In contrast, direct trade means that coffee roasters are supplied directly from farmers without a middleman (Le and Janovokic, 2019). The Catholic Social Teaching principle of the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person was also examined with the consideration of Marianist Educational Values, especially education for justice. In conclusion, through knowing more about and utilizing direct trade, well-informed, ethical consumers can change lives. Finally, being informed ethical consumers should affect how we live out our daily lives on a Marianist campus, including how we source our coffee beans for our coffee shops.

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  Stander Symposium Logo, 2022

  Grace Reilly

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  Structure-function analysis of Defective proventriculus (Dve) in Drosophila melanogaster eye development

  Anuradha Chimata Venkatakrishnan

  Organ development is a highly regulated process to transform a monolayer organ primordium into a fully developed organ. Formation of morphogen gradient acts as critical cue to determine cell fate in developing tissues. In Drosophila melanogaster (Fruit fly), wingless (wg) morphogen acts as a negative regulator of eye development and wg gradient determines the eye vs. head fate. Previously, we have identified defective proventriculus (dve, an ortholog of SATB1) as a novel dorsal patterning gene that regulates transcription of wg morphogen. Axial patterning is required to establish Antero-posterior (AP), Dorso-Ventral (DV), and Proximo-Distal (PD) axes. Of the three axes, DV axis is the first lineage restriction event during eye development and any deviation results in developmental birth defects. In the dorsal gene hierarchy, dve acts downstream of GATA-1 transcription factor pannier (pnr) and upstream of wg. Loss-of-function of dve results in dorsal eye enlargement and increase in wg while gain-of-function results in eye suppression and reduced wg. In humans, SATB1 functions as a transcriptional regulator and chromatin organizer and requires tetramerization by the ULD domain. Furthermore, SATB1, the human ortholog of dve is highly upregulated in cancers. Here we have used the Drosophila eye model to understand the role of different Dve protein domains. We performed structure-function analysis of Dve protein to elucidate the role of various domains in regulating wg and eye development. We have developed several transgenic lines, which will allow us to induce expression of the specific domains of Dve protein and assay their effect in the eye. Dve has a ULD domain for tetramerization, HOX domains for DNA binding and PPP4R2 domain for H2AFX dephosphorylation. Here we present our results on ectopic induction of these domains and their effect on eye phenotype and wg expression in the developing eye.

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  Student chamber music ensembles performance

  Jamie Allison Burenga, Taylor Lou Flight, Sierrah Lorette Howard, Emily Elizabeth Hunt, Margaret Rachel Moore, Cameron Jacob Page, Jaylee A. Sowders

  The music department presents performances by student performers in chamber music ensembles. These are intimate orchestrations that are composed for very few performers. We proudly present our student woodwind quintet performing Carl Nielsen's Woodwind Quintet, opus 43 and our student woodwind trio performing Francois Devienne's Trio in Bb, opus 61, #5.

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  Studying spatiotemporal gene expression in real time and lineage cells in Drosophila using G-Trace reporter system

  Anuradha Chimata Venkatakrishnan, Imaan Jameel Khan

  All multicellular organisms show strictly controlled transcriptional regulation that determines differential gene expression along the spatiotemporal axis. This dynamic spatiotemporal gene expression determines the variation in cellular structure and functions and also their interaction with other genes or proteins in cells. So far, GFP or LacZ based reporter systems have been widely utilized in Drosophila melanogaster to study such gene expression changes. Alternatively, antibody based immunohistochemical approach is also used to determine protein localization patter in tissues. But such approaches pose a challenge when studying transient or very early expression patterns. Therefore, we have utilized a genetic system that combines Gal4/UAS, FLP/FRT and fluorescent reporters to provide information about spatial, temporal, and lineage expression of genes. When crossed with a Gal4 stock, the Gal4 Technique for Real-time and Clonal Expression (G-TRACE) will reveal real time RFP expression, and ubiquitous lineage-traced GFP expression. Here, we utilize this method to study some of the genes that play an important role during eye development.

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  Study on landfill locations related to the race of the residents in Montgomery County, Ohio.

  Amanda N. Thieneman

  Recent studies have shown that landfills are frequently located in low-income areas. A common definition for a landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. These waste materials give off chemicals and fumes which are harmful to humans, especially those closer to the landfill site. The health of people is at risk. In other studies, a variety of health conditions have been reported of those living closer to landfill sites suffering more from them than those living further away. These conditions include asthma, cuts, diarrhea, stomach pain, recurring flu, cholera, malaria, cough, skin irritation, and tuberculosis (Njoku et al., 2019). Since other studies have already shown that landfills can lead to health problems, we can make the inference that the people living closest to the landfill sites in Montgomery County are also being affected in this way. This research study is solely focusing on the race of residents in Montgomery County and the locations of the landfills. The purpose of this study is to see if race has a correlation to the location of landfills in Montgomery County. There are two operating landfills in the county and the study looks at the percentage of nonwhite people for those areas. This study is important because if there is an environmental injustice happening then people should be informed. It also can provide the community with valuable information that could influence change and promote advocacy for environmental justice.

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  Style Investing: A Study in Long Term Performance of Growth and Value Stock Portfolios, 2009-2021.

  Francisco X. Campos, Camille Rhiann Lubic, Ryan W. McEvily

  In this study, we take 3 Wilshire Growth ETFs and 3 Wilshire Value ETFs and measure their performance over 3 periods of time: 2009-2019, 2009-2020, 2009-2021. We control for size by sorting the ETFs into large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap stocks. We also classify the ETFs by price weighted ETFs and market value weighted ETFs. We test two hypotheses: (1) Value outperforms growth and small cap stocks outperformlarge cap stocks. Finally, we examine the impact of Covid-19 and the anticipated rise in the Federal Funds Rate on ETF performance.

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  Substance Use and Crime Rates

  Nancy Russell

  In this study, I use a combination of existing research and the collection of survey data from college-aged participants to explain the relationship between substance use and the commission of various crimes throughout the college years. The study includes participants who anonymously reported their history of drug and alcohol use within the last year. This information was then compared with violent and property crimes that were self-reported by the respondents. The association between substance use and various crimes committed while under the influence showed a strong positive correlation. My findings highlight the importance of substance use and abuse as a major risk factor for crimes committed on the University of Dayton’s campus as well as in the student neighborhood. This underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding that the more drug and alcohol use on college campuses, the more crimes that will be committed among those living in the community.

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  Success of Trans and Black Directors in Theater

  Jadin Shaw

  My poster presentation is about Black and Transgender directors and how their success has a big impact for Trans and Black representation around the world. When it comes to Black directors it took decades for them to break into the entertainment industry. Directors like Janet Mock, Jordan Peele, Spike Lee, and Ava DuVernay are household names in the industry who have created many commercially successful projects. They have all faced adversity in their careers and were able to continue to make meaning through their art. My poster will document the trouble they went through in order to make it where they are today and the impact of their work, featuring “Get Out, “Selma”, and other works.

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  Sustainable Eating related to the Nutrition Transition in Latinx Population residing in Latin America and the United States

  Mary Claire Atkinson

  Several definitions of a sustainable diet have been formulated in order to understand the components of the diet and the effects sustainable eating and food production have on both human health and the environment. The concept of sustainable eating can be used in observing the diet of the Latinx population in Latin America and in the United States and how that contributes to the overall health of the population. Specifically, sustainable eating in the Latinx population can be looked at in the context of the nutrition transition that is rapidly developing in both Latin America and the United States. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine sustainable and unsustainable eating patterns of the Latinx population throughout the nutrition transition. Furthermore, it is to examine some of the barriers and facilitators to sustainable eating in the Latinx population in examining strategies that incentivize and promote sustainable eating practices.

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  Teaching Students with Down Syndrome

  Margaret O. Ghislandi

  Teaching a student with Down Syndrome involves many strategies; some of them being very visual with the students, having colorful posters on the walls, using videos and pictures, etc., and involving students in group work and giving them responsibilities will be very useful for their learning. Teaching a student with Down Syndrome requires accommodations and teaching strategies, which are addressed in the presentation.

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  “Teaching to the Test” and its Impact on Students

  Clare Murrin

  Standardized tests have been historically critical for high school students’ admission into college. These admissions tests, the ACT and SAT, have a profound impact on the authenticity of students’ classroom experiences. I will explore the various short and long term effects of “teaching to the test” specifically in a high school environment, and the ways in which this focus impacts students’ authentic engagement with material.

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  Text to Image Synthesis via Mask Anchor Points and Aesthetic Assessment

  Samah Saeed A. Baraheem

  Text-to-image is a process of generating an image from the input text. It has a variety of applications in art generation, computer-aided design, and photo-editing. In this thesis, we propose a new framework that leverages mask anchor points to incorporate two major steps in the image synthesis. In the first step, the mask image is generated from the input text and the mask dataset. In the second step, the mask image is fed into the state-of-the-art mask-to-image generator. Note that the mask image captures the semantic information and the location relationship via the anchor points. We develop a user-friendly interface that helps parse the input text into the meaningful semantic objects. However, to synthesize an appealing image from the text, image aesthetics criteria should be considered. Therefore, we further improve our proposed framework by incorporating the aesthetic assessment from photography composition rules. To this end, we randomize a set of mask maps from the input text via the anchor point-based mask map generator, and then we compute and rank the image aesthetics score for all generated mask maps following two composition rules, namely, the rule of thirds along with the rule of formal balance. In the next stage, we feed the subset of the mask maps, which are the highest, lowest, and the average aesthetic scores, into the state-of-the-art mask-to-image generator via image generator. The photorealistic images are further re-ranked to obtain the synthesized image with the highest aesthetic score. Thus, to overcome the state-of-the-arts generated images’ problems such as the un-naturality, the ambiguity, and the distortion, we propose a new framework. Our framework maintains the clarity of the entities’ shape, the details of the entity edges, and the proper layout no matter how complex the input text is and how many entities and spatial relations in the text. The experiments on the most challenging COCO-stuff dataset illustrates the superiority of our proposed approach over the previous state of the arts.

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  The Ark-Woman, Conqueror of Evil and Type of the Virgin Mary: A Marian Reading of 1 Samuel 5 and Revelation 12

  Anthony Luis Hernandez

  This thesis seeks to uncover the Scriptural foundations for the ancient Catholic sensibility of the Virgin Mary being the great opponent of Satan, the devil. The method adopted is a Marian reading of both the ark of the covenant and the Woman clothed with the sun in Scripture, specifically where the ark appears in 1 Samuel 5 and the Woman in Revelation 12. The thesis begins with some brief illustrations of the ark's history from the Old Testament and extra-biblical traditions, then moves on to a close reading of 1 Samuel 5 and Revelation 12, respectively. For 1 Samuel 5, a close reading of the text seeks to uncover how Scripture portrays the ark in this passage as nothing less than God's chosen conqueror of evil. For Revelation 12, a close reading of the text follows John's carefully-constructed depiction of the Woman clothed with the sun, clothed with triumphant spiritual dignity, specially protected by providence, and invulnerable to the attacks of the Dragon. The work concludes with a joint typological reading of the 'ark-Woman' (the ark from 1 Samuel 5 together with the Woman of Revelation 12) through a Marian lens. It is hoped that a Marian exploration of these texts may help to heighten our appreciation of some of the biblical foundations for Marian devotion, as well as alert us to the indispensable role which the Virgin Mary plays in the spiritual battles of all Christians.

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  Theatre In Union: A view into how theatre can bring communities together

  Ben H. Remke

  Theatre has always been a way to bring a community together and in today’s age of polarization it is a way to bring diverse ideas together. Within the local Dayton community there are theatre companies like The Human Race Theatre who try to bring the community together through their shows. In Cincinnati there is the Cincinnati Black Theatre Company and the Cincinnati Black Theatre Artists Collective; they bring the community together through prioritizing the needs of Black theatre artists. This call for change to address the inequity in racial disparities is happening all throughout American theatre and has come to the forefront through movements like Dear White American Theatre. My poster will demonstrate how this organizing and telling the stories of those marginalized will allow local communities to come together and change the theatre industry for the better.

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  The Connections Between Art and Development in Children and Young Adults

  Gabriela Maria Gomez Gomez

  The arts play a part in the development of children and young adults. Engagement with art supports learning and adaptation to a wide variety of events in life that can affect a person at any age including: health issues and personal development.

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  The Discrete and Continuous Fourier Transform

  Michael Kim Moreno

  The decomposition of functions of time into functions of frequency has found a myriad of uses in physics and signal processing. Thus, Fourier transform methods have become an invaluable tool when trying to analyze and understand these systems. This talk will focus on the application of the Fourier Transform as it relates to the heat equation as well as the uses of the Discrete Time Fourier Transform and the Discrete Fourier transform in methods of signal processing.

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  The Dome: A Semiotic Analysis

  John Francis, Michael Harmening, Bryan Kingsley, Jack Lisle

  Students apply Symbolic Convergence Theory to analyze the significance of the blue cupola on the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception and explain how and why the dome and the Chapel reinforce existing fantasy sharing, themes and types.

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  The Echoes of the Beaten

  Tyler Peter Lebegue

  My poster will focus on police brutality. Police brutality has been a problem throughout history, and there still hasn’t been a solution for these actions in the present day. I will be presenting possible solutions to this problem. It is integral to be able to focus on the change that is needed so that George Floyd, Brionna Taylor, and so many others' lives were not lost in vain. I will be including the work of artist Kelly Latimore because she has been very influential on creating awareness through her artwork, specifically through the piece "Mama," which can be seen as a George Floyd as Jesus painting. This piece is a very unique articulation on police brutality. Another source will be the performativity of Colin Kaepernick who has risked his career to stand up for the victims of police brutality. Lastly, I will include the work of artist Kehinde Wiley to represent the need for the common good, and connect the artwork to represent the issue of police brutality.

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  The Effect of COVID-19 on Delirium in Elderly Hospitalized Patients

  Katherine Elizabeth Perri, Elexa R. White

  Delirium is a condition in which a patient experiences a serious decline in mental capabilities leading to a confused way of thinking, disorganized thoughts, and functional impairment. Delirium in hospitalized patients can lead to many complications during their hospital stay. “Compared with non-delirious patients, hospitalized delirious patients are more likely to develop functional impairment, be discharged to a facility, and be readmitted to the hospital” (LaHue 2020). To combat this issue, many hospitals have implemented programs to prevent delirium in elderly patients. The Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) is a program at Miami Valley Hospital where volunteers visit patients ages 65 and above that meet specific criteria and engage them in mental and physical activities in order to lessen the risk for delirium. The impact of COVID-19 forced many hospitals to make policy changes which included closure of programs like HELP and other “ACE” units. “With many hospitals reaching or exceeding patient capacity during this pandemic, some ACE units have disbanded in order to reallocate resources for the care of patients with COVID-19, subsequently fracturing delirium prevention care pathways as well” (LaHue 2020). There are several other factors that also play a role in increasing the risk of delirium during the pandemic. “In the era of COVID-19, hospitalized elderly patients who are already at risk of developing delirium are even more vulnerable. Widely implemented hospital visitor restrictions mean that hospitalized older adults are more likely to be isolated from familiar contacts'' (Nair 2020). The decreased preventative care and increased isolation as well as a variety of other factors have contributed to an increase in delirium in hospitalized patients. (Chilson 2022). The purpose of this poster is to highlight tools used to prevent delirium in hospitalized patients, such as HELP, and discuss how the pandemic affected such programs as well as increased isolation, furthering the risk of delirium.

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  The Effect of COVID-19 on Speech Language Pathology

  Eileen E. Ellis

  This research examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the practices of Speech Language Pathology. The purpose of this study is not only to bring awareness to the severity of the impact the virus had on this occupation as it did many others, but also to increase my understanding of my chosen vocation. I conducted interviews via zoom of Speech Language Pathologists from the state of Ohio, specifically in Springfield, Dayton, and Columbus in order to better understand challenges and opportunities in the field of speech language therapy.

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  The effect of different types of ankle foot orthoses on balance and stability

  Ryan C. Gigiano, Adam J. Jones, Martin P. Kilbane

  Ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) have been shown to negatively affect dynamic balance, while having little or positive impact on static balance. The cost of carbon composite AFOs (cAFOs) is higher than traditional polypropylene AFOs (pAFOs), yet there is limited research comparing the two. This study investigated the effect of using carbon and polypropylene AFOs on static and dynamic balance. We hypothesized that postural sway would be reduced when wearing the cAFO (which has an anterior shell) compared to the pAFO. Seventeen healthy college-aged students first completed quiet-standing trials of the Modified Test of Sensory Interaction on Balance on a force-measuring platform with (1) Eyes Open, (2) Eyes Closed, (3) Eyes Open on Memory Foam, (4) Eyes Closed on Memory Foam. Two trials were recorded for each of three AFO conditions: noAFO, cAFO, and pAFO. Participants then completed three Sit-to-Stand trials for each AFO condition. A number of traditional postural sway measures were calculated. Differences between conditions were determined by Paired-Samples T-Tests (p<0.05). The use of either type of AFO compared to the noAFO condition resulted in decreased sway across 3 out of 4 flat plate conditions. The pAFO elicited greater sway in all conditions than the cAFO. Using the cAFO compared to noAFO resulted in significantly increased sway on the Memory Foam with Eyes Open, suggesting that individuals who may regularly encounter challenging terrain (sand, hiking paths, etc.) may not benefit from a cAFO. Both the cAFO and pAFO elicited significantly larger sway in Sit-to-Stand trials compared to noAFO, suggesting that AFO users may have difficulty performing this routine task, likely due to restricted ankle function. Our work may help clinicians because the choice of AFO is condition-dependent. The use of an AFO generally provides increased stability under normal conditions, and the cAFO provides more stability than the pAFO.

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  The Effect of Job Stress on Police Officer Performance

  Brady Charles Wadl

  Job stress within the realm of law enforcement is very common among officers due to the nature of the job itself. Law enforcement officers within the United States are exposed to constant dangers within their respective communities. It is important to investigate how this stress affects officer behavior and more importantly how it affects their ability to do their jobs. For the purposes of this study, a small police department was offered a short survey that measured the amount of stress the officer has endured inside and outside of work. Addressing the issue of the impact that stress has on police officers could potentially help identify ways to combat job stress among officers and explain negative police perceptions in America.