Stander Symposium Projects

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  The University of Dayton Mock Trial Program

  Thomas Joseph Fechalos, Nicholas Alexander Gregor, Claire A. Kelly, Chris Lanese, Arabella D. Loera, Edward S. Monohan, Fitzgerald Tioluwani Oladejo, Arianna Joi Pearson, Sydney R. Sparks

  The University of Dayton Mock Trial Program presents: The Estate of Genesis Petrillo v. Harper Martini. Come watch a live performance from our nationally ranked team and see what this program has to offer.

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  Those Who Make it Possible: Professional Office Personnel's Role On Campus

  Ann Donnelly Johnson, Tiernan Cottrell Lindy, John Edward Tachin

  The topic for this HRS200 course project is how human rights are displayed in workers associations. We are researching how administrative assistants, secretaries, and other University officials worked and spoke for certain implications they felt were valued and needed. Specifically, the University of Dayton formed an organization called Professional Office Personnel, or POP, to comply with the advocacy work. The oral presentation will display our findings through resources in HRS200 and the University Archive files. The content will involve Human Rights issues found in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which set the foundation for workers’ rights. Number Four of the United Nations Secondary Global Goals, Quality Education, is also connected because the benefits requested by the POP positively impact the community. The research is important to the team, course, and community because we will achieve a better understanding of the role various staff members have in making the University of Dayton the place we love.

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  Those Who Make it Possible: Professional Office Personnel's Role On Campus

  Ann Donnelly Johnson, Tiernan Cottrell Lindy, John Edward Tachin

  The topic for this HRS200 course project is how human rights are displayed in workers associations. We are researching how administrative assistants, secretaries, and other University officials worked and spoke for certain implications they felt were valued and needed. Specifically, the University of Dayton formed an organization called Professional Office Personnel, or POP, to comply with the advocacy work. The oral presentation will display our findings through resources in HRS200 and the University Archive files. The content will involve Human Rights issues found in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which set the foundation for workers’ rights. Number Four of the United Nations Secondary Global Goals, Quality Education, is also connected because the benefits requested by the POP positively impact the community. The research is important to the team, course, and community because we will achieve a better understanding of the role various staff members have in making the University of Dayton the place we love.

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  Three Conceptions of Dharma: Twentieth Century Buddhism through a Two Millennia Lens

  John Carter Herzog

  In the 20th Century West, counterculture movements across the United States embraced their Kantian duty to Enlightenment. They explored heterodox philosophies that represented rebellion and exploration, and they searched for meaning on the other side of the abyss between "East" and "West". This project examines the history of the Indian philosophy of dharma in three of its "schools": the Brahman scholars of Orthodox Hinduism, the philosophers of Buddhism, and the Western Practitioners of Buddhism in the 20th Century. Through comparative historiography and examination of primary texts, the project will attempt to illustrate the problematic adoption of Buddhism without full comprehension of its historical legacy.

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  Topology Optimization Frame Interpreter

  Braeden Jay Windham

  Frames used in aircraft and automotive structures must be rigid and lightweight. With modern software, frame designs that are optimized for stiffness with respect to weight can be readily generated. Manufacturing these frames, however, can be costly and difficult. The purpose of this research is to accept the optimized frame results from the design software and pass them through an interpreter to create a frame that is akin the optimized result, but manufacturable with off-the-shelf components. Along with being more manufacturable, this process also eliminates variation in the final design associated with the frame being interpreted differently by different engineers. This optimization process, called topology optimization, begins with a specified design space, applied loads, and constraints. Within the design space, material is strategically removed in order to maintain the optimal stiffness with respect to weight. From there, the generalized shape is interpreted as an arrangement of members and nodes, which are places that two or more members meet. This information is then passed to a second optimization process that changes the size and geometry of the member and node locations to maintain an optimal shape. With the frame now optimized for stiffness as well as being manufacturable, an automated process generates a design model within SolidWorks with structural tubing and welds so that the physical frame can be created.

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  Toward DLP 3D-Printed Soft Robots: A Stereo DIC Investigation of the Mechanics of Ultra-Stretchable Self-Healing UV-Curable Photopolymers

  Joseph G. Beckett

  Digital light processing (DLP) additive manufacturing (AM) is a recent development in 3D printing where full layers of photo-curable polymers (photoresins) are irradiated and cured with projected ultraviolet (UV) light to create a three-dimensional part layer-by-layer. Recent breakthroughs in polymer chemistry have led to a growing number of ultra-stretchable, self-healing UV-curable elastomeric photoresins, some capable of over 450% elongation at fracture. Coupled with the practical manufacturing advantages of DLP AM, these novel elastomeric photoresins are compelling candidates for numerous exciting applications, ranging from regenerative medicine (e.g., vascular grafts and tissue scaffolds) to soft robotics (the focus of this research). In general, soft robotics refers to the use of “soft” materials (i.e., those with a high degree of flexibility, stretchability, and conformability, such as natural rubber) in robotic devices, producing conformal mechanisms that safely interact with humans and are adept at grasping and manipulating assorted objects. To advance the role of DLP AM in this novel and promising technological space, a fundamental understanding of the mechanical behavior (i.e., deformation and fracture) of UV-curable elastomeric materials over a broad range of loading conditions is requisite. At present, however, this remains an open problem. Thus, the research described herein takes a first step toward addressing this critical technological gap by (a) designing and implementing a stereo digital image correlation (DIC) system optimized for large-deformation soft materials testing; (b) conducting an inaugural experimental test program on a novel self-healing UV-curable elastomer synthesized at the Air Force Research Laboratory; (c) using the resulting mechanical test data to develop working analytical and computational models that facilitate the design, optimization, control, and virtual testing of a prototype soft robot; and (d) validating the models using 3D DIC strain measurements of a full-scale soft robotic actuator.

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  Two Measures of Non-Planarity of Graphs

  Chucheng Yu

  This presentation is for a MTH 480 capstone project. We discuss the topic of planar graphs in the study of graph theory. A graph is a mathematical object consisting of two sets: a set of vertices and a set of edges, where an edge between two vertices depicts a relationship between those vertices. A planar graph can be drawn in the plane without edges crossing. For any given graph G, the crossing number is the minimum number of times edges in G cross each other, while the thickness number is the minimum number of planar subgraphs of G into which G can be decomposed. We will explore and compare these measures of non-planarity.

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  Uncovering the Role of the Central Nervous System in Salamander Regeneration

  Ben Klocke, Augustine J. Miller, Jason Andrew Tornes

  Limb loss is a significant and debilitating health issue, affecting almost 2 million citizens in the United States alone. Unlike humans, the axolotl Ambystoma mexicanum possesses the remarkable ability to regenerate entire limbs and organs following amputation. The nervous system is known to play a critical role in regeneration, as intact peripheral nerves are necessary for proper limb regeneration. However, the role of the brain in regulating this fascinating process is unknown. In order to uncover the role of the brain in limb regeneration, we have conducted a series of neurochemical studies using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), as well as a high-throughput proteomics analysis to identify the neuromolecular processes affected in the axolotl brain during the course of limb regeneration. Taken together, these experimental data will contribute to ongoing studies by our group aiming to uncover the neuromolecular mechanisms underlying the role of the brain in amphibian regeneration.

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  Understanding the Self-Authorship Capacities and Experiences of IACT Students

  Quincy Essinger

  The University of Dayton (UD) Institute of Applied Creativity for Transformation (IACT) requires and promotes students’ capacity for self-authorship; however, the ways in which students progress through their holistic development toward self-authorship is not fully understood. This research aims to examine the experience of students through two questions: (1) To what extent do IACT students demonstrate the capacity for self-authorship? (2) What types of experiences do IACT students report as being significant within their overall UD development regarding self-authorship and capacities for growth? Utilizing a narrative inquiry method, seven IACT students were interviewed. Findings indicate that students are able to articulate experiences which lead to their developmental growth, increase their ability to engage in self-reflection, and examine their relationship with others. This research has implications for better understanding how developmental advising, self-authorship, and holistic student development intersect and for identifying key student experiences for IACT program development and other transdisciplinary programs.

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  Underwater Document Recognition

  Jaimin Nitesh Shah

  In this project, we propose an Image Quality Assessment and Comparison metrics for Image denoising algorithms. It is well known that Image denoising plays a significant role in various Image related applications. Motivated by this, we attempt to develop Image quality assessment and comparison metrics specifically targeting image denoising algorithms. We have prepared a dataset containing images of text documents with appropriate noise specifically to meet the needs of this project. Images are denoised using different algorithms and then fed into an OCR engine to obtain text, we then compare it with text obtained using ground truth images which do not have any added noise to assess denoised image quality obtained using different algorithms Keywords—image denoising, image quality assessment (IQA), optical character recognition (OCR).

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  University Work: The Professional Office Personnel and What it Really Was

  Ian Neil Jespersen, Grace E. Karnatz, Georgia Anne Kircher, Isaac L. Troutman

  Under Goal 8 of the 17 UN Goals, which states a need for decent work and economic growth, and more specifically under section 8.5 of this goal, which states a need for full employment and equal pay for equal value, an organization at the University of Dayton known as Professional Office Personnel (POP) pursued equal pay between men and women based on equal pay for equal value of work. This project discusses the HRS200 Project and advocacy work that has been done close to home through workers associations. We are looking at how administrative assistants, technical staff and other staff advocated for their needs through POP. With a purpose of promoting, encouraging and maintaining the interest of university employees, POP helped advance the quality of work for a large population of the university’s employees. Our research focuses on POP and its operation on campus at the University of Dayton and how it helped improve the quality of life for employees on campus. The presentation will highlight research we have completed for HRS200 in the University Archive files, and will be presented in the form of poster format. The research we are conducting is important because POP helped ensure employment and equal pay for university employees, as per UN Goal 8.5, as well as helped promote training of campus employees for future development.

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  Upward Mobility: Serving the Needs of Underrepresented Minority Students at a Predominantly White Institution, Perspectives of Administration and Staff

  Natalia Davila

  Higher educational institutions are challenged to improve graduation rates and are aggressively making degree completion a priority, thus, the issue of retaining underrepresented students becomes specifically acute and must be addressed. Examining the administration and staff’s perspective on supporting BIPOC students in a predominantly white institution (PWI) is essential to understanding, developing, and implementing effective strategies at universities and increasing graduation rates among minority students. Supportive practices are vital for providing these students with an opportunity to overcome academic struggles and eliminate challenges throughout the educational process. The purpose of this research is to determine the challenges preventing minority students from college graduation and identify the best approaches to support, prepare, and retain students from historically underrepresented groups within PWI’s. To retain and graduate these groups of students, the institution must ensure they are supported and prepared to succeed. This idea involves the university holistically evaluating the implications of race and culture from the effects of history, societal perceptions, and inadequate preparation on underrepresented students in the context of the university. The role of administration and staff was identified as critical to designing and executing plans to retain underrepresented students and support diversity along with associated benefits to the students' academic performance. The positive outcomes of diversity in the classroom are often highlighted by this research, which emphasizes the need for creating ethnically and culturally diverse educational environments. Hence, obtaining feedback and examining the supportive practices to foster minority student groups' retention from the perspective of faculty and administration can provide valuable insight and identify aspects for further, larger-scale research. Connection, engagement, and learning environment are deemed as critical factors of supporting minority students and increasing retention and graduation rates from the perspective of the faculty, administrative staff, and leadership of the PWI.

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  U.S. Catholic Church during the Mexican Revolution

  Caden P. Martin

  During the Mexican Revolution, specifically 1910-1937, the U.S. Catholic Church used various methods to try and help Mexican Catholics. One major way was attempting to influence U.S. Foreign policy through social pressure. The second method used was grass roots campaigns that raised money and organized protests. My research project will be studying the effects these actions had on the U.S. Government and in helping the Mexican Catholics.

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  Using Gene Expression Comparisons to Reveal the Role of Transcription Factors in the Development and Evolution of a Fruit Fly Trait

  Rachel A. Johnson

  The characteristics of animals develop by the use (expression) of hundreds or more genes. Each gene’s expression is reliant on its activation or repression at specific developmental stages and in particular cell types. For traits differing between males and females (dimorphic), some genes exhibit sex-specific expression. Proteins called transcription factors are responsible for patterned expression, as they can bind to specific DNA sequences nearby genes and from which activate or repress expression. My research studied male-specific pigmentation that evolved independently among fruit fly species from the Drosophila (D.) genus. The male-specific pigmentation of D. melanogaster is regulated by the female-specific expression of the Bab1 transcription factor. My research showed that Bab1 is expressed similarly in males and females from species that evolved dimorphic pigmentation independently from D. melanogaster. Hence, this similar dimorphic trait evolved regulation by unique transcription factors, showing how gene expression and trait evolution can have unique origins.

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  Virtual Me: Virtual Medication Evaluation Application

  Uday Aditya Kurapati

  There exist several health reminder applications in practice. In this project, we develop a smartphone application that interacts and reminds users of their routine via the avatar-based reminder system. In particular, the virtual avatar visualizes the user’s health condition. Our application reminds users to take medicine based on the scheduled time. The timely routine of the users in turn updates the virtual avatar. For the evaluation, we will test our system in the pool of actual users for their feedback.

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  Virtual Sears Recital Hall: Department of Music Showcase of Student Performance, Composition, and Research

  Bradley C. Cordonnier

  The Department of Music presents a variety of performances of solo, chamber music, and original compositions throughout the day on our department youtube channel: UD Department of Music. Please visit the page for a more detailed schedule of performances.

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  VR-Based Egocentric Vision Jenga Game Using Oculus Headset

  Shubham Shailesh Bojewar, Mohit Dilip Kumavat

  This research demonstrates the development of the game "JengaVR" using an Egocentric View (First-person vision). The paper's main idea was to promote VR technology in an innovative concept of creating a game in 3d Virtual Space and provide an immersive experience with human interaction. To Implement this game, we are using Unity3D, C#, and Oculus VR headset. Recently, virtual reality technology has advanced to the point that it has applications in entertainment, healthcare, education, civil engineering. Also, Mix reality is an amalgamation of Augmented reality and Virtual Reality. Furthermore, Virtual Reality is still emerging, and it has unaccountable possibilities.Keywords- Egocentric View; Virtual Reality; Unity3d; Oculus VR; Game Development

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  Watersheds in The Region of Columbus, Ohio Located Between Cowan Lake/Creek and East/Todd Fork

  Isaiah Matthew Beaver

  The purpose of this study is to analyze watershed locations in a region of Columbus, Ohio that is located between Cowan Creek and Todd Fork. Cowan Creek is an extension of Cowan Lake, and Todd Fork is an extension of East Fork. All four of these will be used in this study, as they share the same waterbeds, just with different names. This area will be analyzed using several hydrological analysis tools in ArcMaps. This analysis will give results that display each unique watershed area. The USDA describes a watershed area as “the perimeter of drainage areas formed by the terrain and other landscape characteristics” (USDA). Watershed areas drainage locations will be noted as locations that should be considered for detention ponds and/or green infrastructure (Stormwater Solutions).

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  Were the Protests in Vain? - A Quantitative Data Analysis of the Relationship Between Black and White Populations in the United States

  Anna Mumma

  Death by the hands of police and their use of lethal force has been a consistent headline in news across the country. With the Black Lives Matter movement and the cry for justice being heard both online and through protests, this exploratory research study seeks to find a relationship between race and the criminal justice system in the states where the largest Black Lives Matter (BLM) names arose during the summer of 2020. These states include Minnesota, Kentucky, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, and Wisconsin. This research asks, “Are there racial disparities in incarceration rates and conviction rates in the states where the victims of police force—whose names were later echoed in Black Lives Matter protests—were killed?” Utilizing a dataset from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, state-level incarcerated information, and Census data, this quantitative analysis is conducted through a series of independent samples t-tests and chi-square analysis. Based on the p-value, this research seeks to discover if there is a significant relationship between race and incarceration rates. With a highly significant relationship found in each state (a p-value of less than 0.001), my research concludes that there is a 99.9% chance that the relationship between race and incarceration is not due to chance. Therefore, this study suggests there are external factors for high incarceration rates for Black people. While this research cannot determine exact causes, existing literature suggests that possible explanations could be related to implicit bias, militarization of police, and/or overuse of lethal force.

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  Where Do I Belong? Dyslexia and High Achievement in school

  Hannah Y. Riesenberg

  This presentation will explore the unique trials and successes of students that are twice exceptional or “2e” especially in regards to dyslexia. 2e students are children who have both a learning disability and are identified as gifted. I will draw from accounts of 2e students, their teachers and their parents to showcase a larger picture of what traditional education is like for 2e learners. I will explore the process of diagnosing a student as 2e and the resources that are available to help them succeed in a traditional school setting.

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  Women Participation in Development Across Bangladesh

  Anna J. De Cecco, Sophia E. Giles, Rhyan Pearson

  Based on the work and data gathered by Counterpart International, a development agency funded by USAID, this presentation examines how women’s participation in development projects in Bangladesh impact gender equality. This is part of a larger program Counterpart International has implemented since 2018, titled, ‘Promoting Advocacy and Rights’ (PAR) in collaboration with local NGOs. Anchored the in Gender/Women in Development (GID/WID) approach, PAR aims to deepen democratic values within civil society to improve public governance. We are specifically interested in understanding if the NGO is taking the necessary steps to include women participants in their meetings and seminars. One of the main goals of Counterpart’s project, through seminars and training events, is to close the gender gap in Bangladeshi communities to create a more inclusive and progressive society. Like many other patriarchal systems, men in Bangladesh are the powerholders in families, and women have to seek and receive permission from the men in the family in order to travel or take part in activities in Bangladesh. Given this context, Counterpart is working to help develop their society in order for women to have a more independent lifestyle. However, their research shows that women have rigorous domestic work schedules as they are in charge of all of the housework. It has been difficult for Counterpart to find inclusive times and locations as well as childcare for women to be involved. Our group aims to determine the methods Counterpart has used to reach out to women in their 6 cities of study and reduce the gender gap to ensure equal participation in their events. This is significant as these events are meant to empower women in order to create positive and lasting impacts.

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  “Women’s Suffrage for Whom?: How the 19th Amendment Failed to Secure the Right to Vote for Black Women and the Continued Efforts of Black Suffragists During the Roaring Twenties.”

  Megan Grace Brock

  With 2020 marking the 100 year centennial anniversary of Women's Suffrage in the United States, we are forced to ask ourselves, "What is it that we are truly celebrating?" The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 has been revered for the past century as the year of American Women's Suffrage, but the harsh realities of racism and historic disenfranchisement meant that the freedoms guaranteed by the 19th Amendment were not equally extended to all women. Black Women’s struggle for the vote did not end with the passage of the 19th amendment, rather, the 1920s was a decade of both continued struggle and immense organization for Black Suffragists who were still fighting for the equal right to vote across the United States. Black Women's contributions in nearly all dominant historical movements and narratives have been historically overshadowed, misrepresented, minimized, and even omitted entirely. In an attempt to somewhat rectify this injustice, and rather than centering the focus on the factors that continued to restrict the equal access of Black Women to the ballot, this research will focus on the voices, demands, writings, and perspectives of Black Suffragists who lived, worked and dedicated themselves to the continued fight for Black Women's Suffrage during the 1920s. Focusing specifically on what Black Suffragists had to say, how they felt, their demands for change and progress, and the various ways Black Women organized for a cause that was for the first time inherently on behalf of the voting rights of Black Women is imperative to producing more holistic and accurate histories.

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  3D Building Reconstruction Using Cubodial Fitting and Geospacial Information

  Karthik Balaji Ashok Kumar

  3D reconstruction from a set of 2D images has been widely used in building modelling. However, there exist some intrinsic information of building that can be exploited for modelling. In this proposal, we propose a novel method for building modelling. We first fit cuboids into the 2D images. From the cuboid fitting, we initialize the building shape. The building’s texture is later updated via image panorama. Finally, the building model is refined with the geospatial information. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.

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  A Critical Analysis of Youth Empowerment in Afghan Civil Society by Counterpart International

  Emma Adams, Morgan Day, Justin This

  The professed goal of the development paradigm is to bring the “underdeveloped” nations up to the level of the “developed” nations through increased autonomy of their society’s poor and marginalized groups. By the end of the first decade of development in the late 1950s, however, experts had to come to terms with development’s failure to achieve the growth desired in the underdeveloped nations. In light of these shortcomings, many in the field of development concluded the cause was excluding the very people who were supposed to most benefit from development: the poor and marginalized. In an effort to right these wrongs, the development field turned to a new set of methods: grassroots participation, and as a corollary to that, a push for local leadership. Inherent in this push for grassroots involvement is the need to develop leaders within the target population to strengthen the country’s development through its own civil society organizations (CSOs). One such organization that is now pursuing this new goal of local leadership is Counterpart International. Through its Emerging Civil Society Leaders (ECSL) program, Counterpart has been working in Afghanistan to develop local leaders who can help the country address the myriad of problems it currently faces. This presentation aims to provide an analysis of Counterpart’s ECSL program. By comparing Counterpart’s efforts to those of other organizations with similar goals and with literature critical of the development paradigm, the aim is to provide a thorough analysis of the impact of Counterpart’s ECSL program in Afghanistan.

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  Activation of JNK Signaling in Aβ42-expressing Neurons Triggers Cell Death in Wild-Type Neurons in a Drosophila Eye Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

  Catherine Yeates, Ankita Sarkar, Prajakta Deshpande

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that currently has no cure and few effective treatments. One process that underlies the pathology of AD is the accumulation of amyloid beta 42 (Aβ42) plaques, which leads to aberrant activation of cell signaling pathways and neurodegeneration. Many transgenic models use the expression of human Aβ42 throughout the entire central nervous system or developing eye. Here we use a Drosophila eye model of AD to investigate interactions between wild-type and Aβ42-expressing neurons. We have developed a two-clone system using the FLP/FRT and Gal80/Gal4/UAS approaches to generate animals with GFP-negative wild-type (WT) clones of cells adjacent to GFP-positive Aβ42-expressing clones. Surprisingly, we found that WT clones, which do not express Aβ42, are eliminated by cell death, leading to a significant decrease in clone size compared to Aβ42-expressing clones. Furthermore, the evolutionarily conserved c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway is induced in Aβ42-expressing cells. However, it is the WT sister clones that are preferentially affected by the increase in JNK activity from Aβ42-expressing cells. Downregulating JNK signaling in the Aβ42-expressing cells restores the size of the wild-type clones. This suggests that complex crosstalk between Aβ42-expressing cells and adjacent WT cells leads to JNK-mediated neurodegeneration of WT tissue.