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  Centuries of Oppression: A Comprehensive Advocacy Campaign for the Hazara Genocide in Afganisthan

  Darla Hastings, Claire Kelly, Illiana Jones, Matthew Ostermueller, Jillian Tore, Emily McNamara, Katherine Bardine, Ashya Moore, Estela Casas, Lydia Artz

  Based on collaborative work with the World Hazara Council (WHC), this panel presents the work of the International Studies (INS) Senior Capstone project. The project focused on the centuries of persecution and genocide faced by the Hazaras, an ethnic group in north-central Afghanistan. As a class, we advocated for the recognition and increased awareness about the persecution and genocide against the Hazaras. The Hazaras practice Shi’a Islam and are recognizable through their Asiatic appearance. Considering that Afghanistan is a predominantly Sunni country and dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group, Hazaras have faced ongoing discrimination. The recent withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, which enabled the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, has further compounded the atrocities faced by the Hazaras For instance, the Kaaj Education Center in Kabul was bombed on September 30th, 2022. This resulted in the death of 58 students, most of whom were young Hazara girls, and injured 110 others. By means of intentional conversations, our advocacy work included: the United Nations to recognize the crimes against the Hazaras as a genocide; raising scholarship funds for Hazara women; organizing petition signings and letter writing campaigns; disseminating information through social media, and lobbying government officials to increase visas for the Hazaras. This work has enabled us to closely engage with structural obstacles faced by marginalized communities, intersectional approaches to advocacy work, and understanding patterns of discrimination. Considering the limitations of the semester, as INS students we brought the situation of the Hazaras to light in various forms. Together we hope this work can continue beyond us and in other such areas of the globe.

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  Characteristics That Impact Use of Force in Suspect and Officer Interactions

  Hope Walsh, Nathan Haitz

  With the rise of Black Lives Matter and the urge for police reform, policing in society has become possibly the most controversial issue in modern American politics. While efforts have been made to reform, the varying sociological issues regarding this issue and its outcomes have not yet been fully understood. Given these circumstances, measuring and analyzing police-citizen interactions and outcomes are vital tools in discovering possible solutions to this issue. The study presented uses information on police-citizen interactions in Phoenix, Arizona and includes key factors that may result in a more or less aggressive response from police officers. The information used in this study from this dataset specifically analyzes the prominence of location in police-citizen interactions with other contributing factors. Prior research has concluded that the people most affected by police use of force are typically minorities, specifically black individuals. However, using the Phoenix Use of Force dataset, police response in this instance was measured against an ordinal outcome through a correlational study. Although the main factor being measured emphasized location, other factors such as age, race, sex, influence, criminal activity, hazards, weapons, and injuries were included as secondary factors. Certain variables within the dataset were re-coded to present themselves as dichotomous or to simplify their meaning into a more ordered structure. These secondary variables were integrated with the primary independent variable forming a regression model for further analysis.

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  Characterization of an Exact Electron Correlation Symmetry in AHCs Using MO Theory at the Single CI Level of Approximation

  Christina Farwick

  Electron-electron repulsion in a quantum system facilitates the correlated motion of electrons, or electron correlation. The extent to which the movement of an electron is influenced by surrounding electrons is proportional to the correlation energy. This project explores unique electron correlation characteristics manifested in the excited singlet states of alternant hydrocarbons (AHCs) – specifically, butadiene and hexatriene. Data was generated using the semiempirical Pariser-Parr-Pople Method, which combines molecular orbital (MO) theory approximation techniques and configuration interaction (CI) calculations. Slater determinants are used to derive configurational wavefunctions that account for all possible single-electron excitations. Each electronic state �� can then be expressed as a linear combination of the singly-excited configurations, with coefficients and corresponding transition energies calculated using the CI method. The results indicate that certain wavefunctions – referred to as plus and minus states – are solely comprised of paired configurations (in equal magnitude), and all other coefficients are zero. The identical wavefunctions of the paired configurations allow for exact electron correlation symmetries to be demonstrated, yielding uncorrelated plus states (��+ > 0 → alternancy heap) and correlated minus states (��– = 0 → alternancy hole). Analysis of each electronic state transition energy as a function of the range of electron-electron repulsion shows that at short ranges, the plus state energy increases due to the presence of alternancy heaps, while the minus state decreases because of alternancy holes. These results are consistent with the exact symmetries derived for the excited singlet states of AHCs.

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  Characterization of the Surface Chemistry at Corroded and Non-Corroded Sites on Aluminum Alloys 7075-T6 and 2024-T3 Samples Exposed at a Tropical, Coastal Location

  Michaela Kendig, Farrah Cole (off-campus contributor)

  Replicate samples of bare aluminum alloys AA7075-T6 and AA2024-T3 were exposed at a coastal atmospheric test site located at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Key West, FL (NRL-KW). The samples were installed on atmospheric exposure racks and retrieved at intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 months. Elemental composition of baseline (non-exposed) and exposed samples were measured using a Zeiss EVO-50XP Environmental Scanning Electron microscope equipped with a EDAX Genesis 2000 energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) system. Pitted and non-pitted sites on each sample were analyzed for compositional elements of the alloy as well as non-compositional elements (i.e., environmentally derived). It was determined that the deposition of environmental elements in pitted locations on the specimens occurred at elevated concentrations to that of major elements present in natural seawater. The deposition and concentration of these environmentally derived elements on the metal surface vary as a function of exposure site and length of exposure time.

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  Charging an capacitor using a transducer and sending data to cloud

  Hanok Dan Bunga

  To convert the mechanical energy to electrical energy using piezo electric effect and storing the current produced in a capacitor and sending data from capacitor to cloud using electric sensor and microcontroller is the basic concept and this current when stored in larger scale is used for charging electronic devices. Hence we collect the amount of current produced using this phenomenon and we can use this current when it met required limit.

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  Chess Across Global Cultures

  Ruth Eckhart and Christian Gordon

  Part of a course project on intercultural communication, which can be expressed and studied in myriad ways. The students of CMM 316.01 investigated various forms of cultural expression by comparing and contrasting the ways a particular form is used by multiple cultural groups. Specifically, each group researched and presented about the ways food, music, festivals, rituals, dance, clothing, and other artifacts communicate cultural identity in at least two different cultures.

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  Civil Resistance Works

  Kyra Hughes, Garrett Kemper, Sierra Rummel

  UD alum Erica Chenoweth, now Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, has collected data demonstrating that movements of nonviolent civil resistance are effective. This poster will explain her findings and illustrate her points with reference to the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement led by Leymah Gbowee.

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  Clap-Activated Switch

  Likitha Sai Jeerlapally

  This paper represents the implementation of a clap-activated switch device that can be used in many real-time applications. This design consists of various hardware devices such as Arduino, battery, and relay. By giving the appropriate connections according to the usage, this device can be developed and implemented. This clap-activated switch is not only applied to one appliance but also can be applied to multiple devices like Lights, fans, TV, AC, etc. In this fast-forward generation, many prefer smart work to hard work. Arduino sketch code is also required to run the required application and dump it into the Arduino board. This can be implemented anywhere in the home or office. This is mainly useful for old people who are unable to walk or disabled persons who cannot walk through switches to ON and OFF the required appliances like lights, fans, and TV. Even for children who can not catch the switches when they are alone at night then this will be very useful for them when their parents or caretakers are not available for them. The main aim is to activate this clap-activated switch for different appliances in the house or in an office with different modulation of sounds using audio frequency. This can be done using sound sensing sensors. This is the main concept of this paper working on.

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  College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Showcase: The Fitz Center for Leadership in Community

  Abigail Shahady, Alexis Taylor, Destiny O'Neal, Madeline McEldowney, Kathryn Riddle, Grace Hungerford, Nicholas Beltran, James Lambert, Abishek Eagala

  The Fitz Center for Leadership in Community addresses community identified challenges by cultivating reciprocal, collaborative, and inclusive partnerships and learning environments to catalyze a more healthy, just, and equitable future for the Dayton region. The Fitz Center will be presenting its five student programs through Pecha Kucha presentations. As the the audience learns about the Health Equity Fellows, Educational Equity Programs, Dayton Civic Scholars, Ethics and Leadership, and the River Stewards, they will also see how our students learn to be reciprocal and responsive partners, partner with communities to move forward shared goals, and become leaders in ways that shape their future vocations and continue their impact.

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  College Recreation: Club Sport Develops Skills in Leadership

  Mia Parise

  Leadership is something which appears in every aspect of our lives whether we realize it or not. Everyone has been part of a team in some way. The way we elect or see leaders is often assumed or a controversial topic. The program proposed will analyze existing leadership training programs focused on club sports that already exist and further discuss how they can be improved and implemented in the future. It will allow young adults to learn how to formally define a leader in order to set their organization up for success. This program needs to be included at this event to inform club sports participants and professionals on how to properly train the leaders of tomorrow.

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  Collision Prevention System using Ultrasonic Sensor, Arduino, and Node-RED

  Rahul Bhattar

  The main aim of this project is to solve the accidents or collisions if an object is close to the sensor. the basic setup would be using an ultrasonic sensor with an Arduino board and node-red. Usually, the setup would include by connecting an ultrasonic sensor to an Arduino board, programming the board to read the sensors data and creating the node-red flows to display an alert message when the object is too close. This project can be useful in a variety of applications like home automation and Robotics.Also, maybe I can try to enhance depending on the temperature if the window is open or not.

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  Communication Optimization in Tiny Federated Learning

  Rahul Theresaraj

  Tiny Federated Learning is a combination of Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) and the Federated Learning (FL) approach. TinyML is a field of study that involves machine learning and embedded systems that can be run on small, low-powered devices, and Federated learning is an emerging approach used to train a decentralized machine learning model across multiple edge devices. Tiny Federated Learning is a federated learning approach on tiny edge devices with low latency, low power, and low computational cost. This approach is helpful in many ways. The edge device can learn new things every day and updates itself to do the tasks better.TFL trains a shared Machine learning model in Embedded devices like microcontrollers while keeping the training data locally without sharing it with the Server. TFL suffers from the problem of transmitting the data from the edge devices to the server as edge devices have limited computational power.To solve this problem, we design an approach for reducing the transmission cost between edge devices and the server. More specifically, we build a model by pruning approach to reduce the model computational cost and find effective means of communication of data from the trained data to the Server. We focus on sending only the instance of newly learned model update to the server rather than sending the whole model update to the server. The Proposed approach reduces the uplink transmission cost. Our Overall objective is to build a model that can perform better and learn better on an embedded device and also sends updates to the server by reducing computational and transmission cost.

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  Community Health- The North Dayton Area

  India Richardson, Ashton Hanna, Katerina Von Fahnestock

  In a conducted windshield survey for the north downtown Dayton area, many safety issues have been identified. Our defined problem is “Safety Hazards for Children as evidenced by a lack of safety measures to the north downtown Dayton area such as glass and trash on the streets and sidewalks, lack of protection barriers (for example fencing around schools), and ineffective zoning for those who attend or are near the middle school.” There are a lack of safety measures and resources available to the community that reside in the north downtown Dayton area as we surveyed this area and took note that it is unsanitary and unsafe for residents to walk, and not safe for children at all. There is also a lack of protection barriers and ineffective zoning for children who attend nearby middle school as there is minimal outdoor space including only a parking lot, and no green space for children to run and play, as well as no fencing around the school perimeter. The school is surrounded by north downtown Dayton streets which are very close to the sidewalks that surround the school. Children walking near the school are at risk for being hit by cars, falling off the uneven pavement, or tripping into the street from the trash that is on the sidewalks. A care plan to reduce the amount of safety concerns surrounding our community was created. Some of the interventions created include the creation of fencing around school areas for an additional safety barrier for the children who attend the school, fixing pavements, volunteer trash collection, properly marked construction zones, and the creation of fences and green spaces in the North Dayton area.

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  Community nutrition assessment, intervention and evaluation: Engaging with various community partners in Harrison Township

  Amelia Deerwester, Emma Klinger, Anna Madachy, Madeline Dodenhoff, Khala Powell, Maria Vilsack, Nicole Palmieri, Meghan McCabe, Erin Prendergast, Lori Rakes, Anna White, Sarah McDonnell, Anna Carragher, Ian McDonald, Travis Manring, Jenna Brus, Katherine Borst, Matthew Stubenfoll, Kassidy McGlone, Caitlin Sheehan, Brooklynn Kaylor-Owens, Benjamin Russell Ronald Jones

  Five group of students in the community nutrition course engaged with three community partners within or near Harrison Township: Northridge Schools, the Wesley Center and New City Church. Each group completed a community nutrition needs assessment to identify a nutrition problem within the target population and assets within the community. Secondly, they developed and implemented a nutrition intervention to address the identified problem. Lastly, they evaluated the intervention using process, impact and outcome-based measures. For this presentation, each group will present their findings and discuss the development and implementation of the nutrition intervention.

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  Compact atto-joule-per-bit bus-coupled photonic crystal nanobeam switches

  Jianhao Shen

  Over the past decade, the benefits of photonics over electronics such as ability to achieve high bandwidth, high interconnectivity and low latency, together with the high maturity of silicon photonics foundries has spurred robust applications in optical transceivers and in classical and quantum computing. In both application areas, silicon microring resonators (MRRs) using carrier depletion effects in p-n junctions represent the most compact optical switches manufacturable at high volume with 5.2fJ/bit power consumption. Matrix computation approaches as well wavelength-division-multiplexed modulators require several MRRs in series coupled to the silicon waveguide optical bus. Such architectures are potentially limited to ~30 by the limited free-spectral range (FSR) of an individual MRR. However, with ever increasing data volumes, there is a need to process larger matrices and/or modulate more wavelengths in the telecom bands along a single silicon bus channel. Photonic crystal (PC) dielectric structures confine an optical mode to sub-micron mode volumes and have shown the potential to reach 0.1fJ switching energies. Research till date on PC devices have centered on either inline one-dimensional PC nanobeam structures or on two-dimensional PC waveguide coupled microcavity configurations. In this paper, through detailed electrical and optical simulations, we demonstrate the feasibility to achieve compact switches with 1dB insertion loss, 5dB extinction and ~260aJ/bit switching energies in the bus-coupled 1D photonic crystal nanobeam platform. Resonance linewidths < 0.1nm and FSR > 300nm enable energy efficient computing of larger matrices with ~200 resonators in series separated by ~0.5nm wavelength over the entire C+L bands. Device architectures will be presented.

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  Comparing Amount of Mechanical Work and Metabolic Cost between Two Kettlebell Swing Protocols

  Daniel Vencel

  The kettlebell swing has been touted as having both cardiovascular-driven metabolic and strength benefits which several studies have investigated. However, to the authors’ knowledge, none have researched the work economy of the exercise by capturing both mechanical work and metabolic cost. Here, we implement a commonly studied kettlebell swing protocol consisting of short intervals of 20 reps and 30 seconds of rest and compare it to longer intervals of 60 reps followed by 90 seconds of rest. Work-rest ratio was 1:1 for both protocols based on a consistent cadence (short: 36.75 ± 2.12 vs. long: 37.08 ± 1.66 reps/min). Total volume was the same. A group of 6 young adults, familiar with the kettlebell swing, performed both protocols separated by 20 minutes of rest. To calculate total mechanical work performed (J/kg), we used the Noraxon motion capture system. Oxygen consumption (VO2) and other metabolic variables were captured using a metabolic cart (Parvo). We hypothesized that longer intervals might challenge form due to muscle fatigue, thereby changing economy despite matched work-rest ratios and total volume. Contrary to our hypothesis, there is no statistical significance in total mechanical work (short: 1043 ± 261 J/kg vs long: 1159 ± 334 J/kg, paired t-test: p = 0.49) between the two protocols. Similarly, total VO2 (short: 121 ± 14 vs long: 126 ± 15 vs long: mL/kg; paired t-test: p = 0.62) was not significantly different and the total work economy, total VO2 divided by total work, was also not significantly different (short: 0.122 ± 0.031 ml/J vs long: 0.118 ± 0.043 ml/J; paired t-test: p = 0.34). These findings suggest protocols of the same work-rest ratios for the kettlebell swing elicit similar work even with different duration intervals.

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  Competition Versus Choice: Evolution Along a Narrow Path in Drosophila β2 Tubulin

  Olivia Parson

  The Drosophila melanogaster β2 protein (Dmβ2) has sustained a long evolutionary stasis for the last 60 million years. Even small changes to the protein’s primary amino acid sequence render it non-functional, suggesting its stasis may be due to stringency in the structure/function relationship. This project seeks to understand what has prevented Dmβ2 from evolving, with the two main hypotheses being that Dmβ2 either exists as an ideal protein configuration that competitively bests all alternates or that Dmβ2 is the only possible configuration that will support spermatogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster. In order to test these hypotheses, the ability of other proteins to rescue β2 function must be assessed. Previous work done to test β2 function used the major, non sperm-generator tubulin (β1) as a backbone to test the function of candidate sperm-generating residues. While sperm-generating residues were identified, none were sufficient to rescue fertility in a Dmβ2 null background. This project represents a different approach to analyzing the evolutionary stasis of Dmβ2 by testing the ability of a known sperm-generating ortholog from Glossina morsitans (commonly known as the tsetse fly) to rescue fertility. This sequence is 96% identical to Dmβ2 and is of particular interest because it is the closest relative to Drosophila melanogaster that possesses a variation in β2 sequence. When expressed in a Dmβ2 null background, the tsetse fly β2 (Gmβ2) generates long-tailed, fertile sperm when examined by light microscopy on testis samples and fertility tests between transgenic males and virgin wild-type females. This evidence supports the first of the two hypotheses outlined above, that β2 alternates exist but Dmβ2 is competitively superior. This shows the potential for β2 to participate in the process of evolution, potentially through allelic effects on sperm-tail length, which plays an important role in the retention of sperm in the female reproductive tract. Comparative analyses of outgroups, such as the human β2 ortholog (Hsβ3), will provide further information necessary to assess the roles of generic aspects of β2 such as motility versus more lineage-specific properties such as sperm tail length in the process of spermatogenesis.

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  Connecting Compositions of Gustav Holst: Folk Songs and The Planets

  Rachel Dalrymple

  Gustav Holst, a British composer from the early 1900’s, is most well-known for writing “The Planets,” an orchestral suite with movements for each of the planets and their corresponding astrological personalities. A significant portion of Holst’s lesser-known compositions were based on British folk songs. In my thesis, I am exploring the connections between Holst’s folk song-based pieces and “The Planets” in terms of the compositional devices of meter, tonality, orchestration, and melody. These compositional devices are threads that connect both types of pieces together and define Holst’s characteristic style.

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  Conservation of testis protein structure and function revealed in a swapping experiment of human testis tubulin in the fly D. melanogaster

  Rihanna Domingos

  Drosophilid spermtails are the peacock feathers of the world of sperm by virtue of their incredible length, from 2mm in Drosophila melanogaster to over 5cm in D. bifurca. D. melanogaster use a specialized, testis-specific B2 tubulin isoform to generate the microtubule scaffolding of their spermtail axoneme. Structure/function tests show B2 does not tolerate change, even small alterations in its amino acid sequence render it non-functional. This sensitivity is reflected in its evolutionary stasis, the Drosophilid B2 protein has not evolved at a single amino acid in 60 million years. There are two hypotheses for its stasis, either 1) the DmB2 protein is an ideal configuration that has outcompeted variants over the past 60 million years, or 2) it is the only configuration able to support the Drosophilid sperm by evolving into a corner it cannot evolve out of that is resistant to evolutionary change and templates long axonemes. This is tested by assessing the ability of the Homo sapiens sperm-generating beta tubulin protein HsB3 to replace Drosophila B2 in transgenic Drosophila flies. HsB3 is capable of generating sperm, despite being only 90% identical to Drosophila B2. Conversely, a chimeric B1-B2 tubulin over 97% identical to Drosophila B2 cannot. Comparing the 3D protein structures reveals testis tubulins have conserved protein domains and function, indicating convergence on testis-supporting isoforms across deep evolutionary time.

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  Contesting Human Rights Coherence: Neoliberalism as an Epoch of Brutality

  David Quick

  The end of the Cold War solidified modern human rights’ dependency on neoliberalism. Neoliberal capitalism fosters universal commodification, hyper-individualism, and a standard of excess. A consequence of these developments is that some persons of marginalized populations turn to crime as a means of achieving basic human rights. To particularize, the realization of the self as a rights-holding subject emerges from the brutalization and subsequent de-realization of the other. Furthermore, justifications of such actions may be coherent within the modern human rights discourse. This thesis is contextualized by the historical dynamics and present-day observations of El Salvador, which I take to represent broader global trends in the development of human rights into a discourse of apparently coherent brutality. Given this contradiction, I compare the peril and potential of reclaiming human rights as a popular discourse.

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  Cooperative Regulation of Growth by defective proventriculus and yorkie in the Drosophila eye

  Arushi Rai, Rohith Basavanahalli Nanjundaiah

  The developing eye of Drosophila is a well-established model for studying developmental geneticprocesses and growth regulation. The developmental genetic networks discovered in Drosophilaare highly conserved in all animals including higher mammals. Axial patterning precedesdifferentiation in the Drosophila eye which begins from a ventral equivalent state. The dorsal fate isestablished by onset of expression of the GATA-family transcription factor Pannier (Pnr), and otherdorsal-specific genes like Iroquois (Iro-C) family proteins. Our long-term goal is to understand themolecular basis of Dorsal-Ventral patterning and growth in the eye by interactions of the dorsalselector genes and growth regulatory genes. We recently identified defective proventriculus (dve)as a candidate for dorsal-ventral eye patterning that act as a transcriptional repressor that binds tothe K50 site. Gain of function of Dve, results in eye suppression, while loss of function of dve,exhibits dramatic eye enlargement phenotypes which raised an interesting question, whether thedorsal patterning gene dve, apart from its main function of specifying cells fate, plays a dual role inregulating growth during eye development in Drosophila? Dve may interact with the Hippo growthregulatory pathway to control patterning and growth of the eye. We tested the interactions betweenHippo pathway and dorsal-ventral patterning using the GAL4-UAS system. We tested if thesepathways act independently to control eye patterning and growth or act via shared targets andregulatory interactions. In this context we investigated the effect of overexpressing Yorkie (theeffector of the Hippo pathway) and Dve during larval development specifically in the dorsoventraldomains of the eye imaginal discs. Over expression of Yki extends the Dve domain in the eye discas a result of which the disc growth is enlarged, and suppresses eye differentiation, therebysuggesting that these two distinct genes may regulate a common downstream target to control thedisc growth and differentiation. We have tested wingless (wg) a known and conserved Hippodownstream target for Dve and Yki mediated effects using reporter assays, and qRT-PCR- basedapproaches and our results will be discussed.

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  COVID-19, Academic Caretakers, and Mental Health

  Hannah Kessler

  The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected research productivity in academia. Yet, as more and more studies have been conducted, it has been clear that it has not affected everyone equally. In particular, COVID -19 has exacerbated existing inequalities in academia. For example, there has always been a gender inequality in academia with women publishing, getting paid, and promoted less than men. In addition, women often shoulder most caretaking responsibilities in the household, which puts more strain on them in their jobs. During the quarantine period of the pandemic, nearly all childcare services were unavailable, causing academic parents to juggle full-time caretaking in addition to their full-time job. Numerous studies have shown that COVID-19 and quarantine left women and caretakers in academia with more responsibilities and less relief, affecting not only their research productivity and university jobs, but also their mental health. In a research study about academic caretakers at the University of Dayton in which 19 faculty from various departments were interviewed, almost all respondents mentioned the negative effects COVID-19 had on their mental health. Common themes included feeling stretched thin between work, childcare, and other duties and feeling burnout and unmotivated. Many respondents cited the stress of being a full-time caretaker and employee, the lack of in-person support, and anxiety about the future as central causes of their mental health decline. However, despite mental health struggles being an issue for all respondents, many said that being in various communities that supported each other were a huge help to them during this time.

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  Creating a Secure Cloud

  Caleb Cecil

  The next wave of computing is moving to the cloud. The cloud offers reliable, scalable, and cheap ways for companies to upgrade their business. It has revolutionized how we interact with each other today and is becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. However, when companies move to the cloud, they must set up their cloud architecture or data transmission securely. This leads to huge security risks in which sensitive data could be released. This project outlines the different threats and vulnerabilities that the cloud faces. It also surveys the current solutions to cloud security. Finally, a generalized model and considerations are discussed when creating cloud architecture. This model will be used in a case study to validate the efficacy of this cloud architecture.

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  Creating Effective Formative Physics Assessments to Guide Instructional Practices

  Gretchen Obergefell

  Since the 1970s, quality instruction and assessments within the field of physics have become a highly researched area in physics education research (PER). These assessments help identify common misconceptions that continue to plague the field of physics for years. Some of the most experienced students and teachers in physics have misconceptions and pass them along to classmates and students. The research goal is to design an assessment relating to the circuits unit of a conceptual physics course that can diagnose a student's prior knowledge and track progress after introducing the unit. The assessment consists of two parts: a pre-test and a post-test. Students take the pre-test during the class before the circuits unit. The test assesses students’ prior knowledge of electrical circuits. The same assessment is administered during the next class meeting after the circuits unit concludes as a post-test to measure how instruction affected student understanding. The research was conducted in a conceptual physics lab class with a population of 8 students. The population consisted of mainly non-science majors who have taken the corresponding lecture course, or are concurrently enrolled in the lecture course with the lab. Results showed that students improved their ability to define key characteristics of simple, series, and parallel circuits. Data also illustrated that students struggled to use Kirchhoff’s Loop and Junction Rules. Information gathered from this research demonstrates that quality formative assessments provide helpful feedback to guide instructors on how to teach students best. Low stakes formative assessments can be used as formative instructional practices to highlight prior knowledge and misconceptions of students. Teachers can then respond to these misconceptions and attempt to correct them during instruction.

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  Creating Inclusive Community: Understanding, Connecting, and Taking Action

  Logan Trzeciak, Tiernan Lindy, Sierra Cook, Angelic Edwards-Rojas, Alexia Siakwan-Adusei, Daunte Brown, Deja Richardson, Aila Carr-Chellman, Mikayla Petrovic

  Creating Inclusive Community involves students, faculty, and staff who enrolled in UDI 380 “Understanding, Respecting, and Connecting: Examining Privilege and Taking Action” and attended a diversity conference. The focus of the conference was to examine the challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and to develop strategies to create a more equitable world. Come hear the students experiences at the conference and discuss the skills and knowledge they gained to enhance the campus climate for inclusivity and diversity at the University of Dayton. Please join us for a lively discussion!