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  Soil Health in an Anthropogenic Landscape

  Pepper Julia Cantwell, Olivia P. Fenner, Ellise K. Westerheide

  With the knowledge of roads being a man-made structure that can have important ecological effects, we were interested in how these structures can affect root growth and soil characteristics. By measuring root growth, soil moisture, and pH at varying distances from a paved road, we can learn how anthropogenic factors affect soil. It’s important to address these scientific questions at this time of civilization because we are encroaching on natural resources now more than ever before. Using a soil coring method, we can test pH and soil moisture levels, as well as collect and record any root samples captured in each core. From past research, an ideal soil moisture for the type of soil we are testing would be between 10-18 percent and with a neutral pH of around 7. High root growth generally indicates a healthy system, so that would be ideal too. We expect to see the amount of root growth and moisture increase as we get further away from the road, as well as the ideal pH starting to appear as samples are taken away from the road.

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  Sororities in Pop Culture Research Study

  Eloise Elizabeth Crane, Elizabeth M. Finnigan, Grace Marie Kennedy

  Sororities and sorority life has blown up over the past decade. There are many social stigmas related to sororities and over the years, sororities have been depicted a lot differently than they are in reality. More specifically, a recent TikTok trend has gone viral of girls posting videos during their recruitment process of what they are wearing and where they purchased the items from. These videos, predominantly from the south, went viral as people started to mock them and send them to friends. The goal of this research study is to unravel the socialization influence sororities have and come to a consensus on how sororities are depicted in pop culture and why. This study advances theory since there are not many studies done on this particular topic. Sororities are organizations that everyone hears about but not many people are aware of what they are really about unless they are a member. The social stigma that sororities face are most commonly not accurately depicted, especially from movies and television shows.

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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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  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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  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 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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  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 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 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.

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  The Effect of Size and Diversification on a Concentrated Portfolio of Consumer Discretionary Stocks: An Empirical Analysis of Portfolio Returns, 2009-2021

  Vincent Patrick Rullo

  We develop portfolio weighting models for 3 concentrated portfolios: (1) Top Ten by market value, (2) next Ten by market value, (3) Top Twenty by market value. The principal factor loading is Revenue Per Share Growth. Returns are calculated for 2009-2019, the base period,2009-2020, which includes effect of Covid19, and 2009-2021, which includes the effect of Covid-19 and rising interest rates. We test the hypothesis that Revenue Per Share Growth is a priced-in risk factor i.e., all three portfolios out perform the broad market over the abovementioned time periods. We also determine if the risk premium varies by size (Top Ten vs. Next Ten) and by diversification (Top Ten vs. Top Twenty). Finally, to check on the effects of Covid-19 and rising interest rates we check to see if the cumulative return growth for 2009-2020 and 2009-2021 declined relative to the base period, 2009-2019.

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  The Effect of Social Isolation on Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  Sydney Lewis Melrose, Hailey Marie Payne

  At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, the world was forced into isolation in hopes to stop this new virus from spreading and infecting millions of people. However, the social isolation orders that were put into place are associated with significant declines in mental health (Walsh, 2021). The psychological consequences of isolation are commonly known as anxiety and panic, obsessive compulsive symptoms, insomnia as well as depressive symptoms and post-traumatic stress (Pietrabissa, 2020). When surveying 950 Americans, Walsh (2021) found that 36 percent of respondents had reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “all of the time”. Strikingly, 61 percent of the Americans in this survey aged 18 to 25, reported high levels of loneliness. Loneliness in and of itself can be described as the state of isolation or being without company. This state can be a miserable feeling and is a risk factor for many mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, adjustment disorder, and chronic stress (Banerjee, 2020). The purpose of this poster is to summarize research which investigates the impacts of social isolation and provide possible solutions to combat and reduce the negative effects of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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  The Effect of the HELP Program on Instances of Delirium

  Grace Elizabeth Bruns, Natalie G. Narcelles

  The University of Dayton partners with Miami Valley Hospital to provide students the opportunity to volunteer with the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP). HELP requires volunteers to assess and gather data on the elder hospital patients’ state of mind. The HELP Program serves to reduce the risk of patients experiencing episodes of delirium, or a sudden state of confusion, throughout their hospital stay. The activities performed with patients include: having a conversation about their daily routine and life in general, asking patients to recall three words, draw a clock and repeat the three words back, and helping the patients to get up and move as best as they can. The focus of this presentation is to determine whether HELP plays a role in preventing the development of delirium. Ten different floors of Miami Valley Hospital will be compared, consisting of five HELP floors and five non-HELP floors. The data is from the year 2021 and includes instances of delirium diagnosed on the non-HELP floors versus HELP floors. The information obtained about the instances of delirium is from Miami Valley’s data on patients diagnosed with delirium during their hospital stay. We hypothesize that there will be a lower occurrence of delirium during hospitalization on the HELP floors than on the non-HELP floors. Previous studies, including one published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, have shown significant reductions in occurrences of delirium diagnosed during a patient’s hospital stay. Both mentally stimulating and physical activities encouraged through HELP, assist in keeping patients alert and oriented.

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  The Effects of Peer and Parenting Interactions on Adolescent Delinquency

  Hanna Dwyer Stier

  This study compares the many variables that influence adolescent delinquency. Secondary data was collected from CNLSY79 and NLYS79 using 11,501 participants. Participants self-reported information on measures that may contribute to adolescent delinquency. The predictions of this study are that, in early adolescence, parenting, self-control, and peer pressure, independently, will predict delinquency in late adolescence. Parenting and peer pressure will more strongly predict delinquency for adolescents with lower self-control than for adolescents with high self-control.

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  The Effects of Rearing Environment on Stickleback Behavior

  William R. Ogburn, Lauren E. Roy

  Anthropogenic influences cause rapid changes in aquatic habitats, both because current habitats are being rapidly destroyed or degraded while new habitats are being created. These extreme environmental changes can reduce the fitness of organisms living in those environments by increasing stress levels, stunting growth, and making organisms more vulnerable to predation. We are unaware of how changing environments alter optimal behavior and if plastic responses can be observed in fish. Three-spined sticklebacks are a highly plastic fish that experience a wide range of habitats and predators. In this experiment, we reared fry in one of two environmental extremes –bare and covered– to explore how the ecological environment encountered during development affects growth, mortality rate, how individuals utilize their environments, and their antipredator response. From these trials we found that individuals of both treatment groups spend significantly more time under cover and less time in the bare area after the predator attack compared to before. This suggests that the predator stimulus did work, and that all fish perceive cover as a ‘safe’ environment. However, offspring reared in a covered environment spend more time under cover, both under baseline conditions and after the predator attack. Offspring reared in a covered environment tend to be smaller than those reared in a bare environment. There was no difference in body condition and survival in bare environments tended to be lower than survival in covered environments.