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

  Amanda N. Thieneman

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

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

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

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

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  Substance Use and Crime Rates

  Nancy Russell

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

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  Success of Trans and Black Directors in Theater

  Jadin Shaw

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

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

  Mary Claire Atkinson

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

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  Teaching Students with Down Syndrome

  Margaret O. Ghislandi

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

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  “Teaching to the Test” and its Impact on Students

  Clare Murrin

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

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  Text to Image Synthesis via Mask Anchor Points and Aesthetic Assessment

  Samah Saeed A. Baraheem

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

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

  Anthony Luis Hernandez

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

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

  Ben H. Remke

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

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  The Connections Between Art and Development in Children and Young Adults

  Gabriela Maria Gomez Gomez

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

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  The Discrete and Continuous Fourier Transform

  Michael Kim Moreno

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

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  The Echoes of the Beaten

  Tyler Peter Lebegue

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

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

  Katherine Elizabeth Perri, Elexa R. White

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

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  The Effect of COVID-19 on Speech Language Pathology

  Eileen E. Ellis

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

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

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

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

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  The Effect of Job Stress on Police Officer Performance

  Brady Charles Wadl

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

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  The Effect of Parental Incarceration on Adult Children

  Alexus K. Barber

  Mass incarceration has affected many families in America. In recent years, we have increased awareness on issues within the system. On the other hand, it is important to also understand how mass incarceration has shifted the ways in which a family functions. The purpose of this research is to explore some of the effects of parental incarceration on adult children. The research will include primary data gathered from in-depth interviews conducted via Zoom. The findings are discussed within the context of existing literature.

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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.

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  The emotional impacts on students with standardized testing

  Alasandra C. Toliopoulos

  In this paper I will be looking at the emotional effects on students during the standardized testing process. Also, the anxiety students feel when taking standardized tests is impacted from constant pressures to have high achievement. The anxieties that students feel through the testing process can cause students to focus on learning for the test rather than retaining the material for the future. In addition to the way information is presented to students in a testing focused format rather than being ingrained into students’ minds which has an impact on students' mental health.

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  The Fight for Citizenship: Human Rights in Canadian and American Immigration Law

  Nadia E. Karaba, Rose Philbin, Katherine Shryock

  Our presentation is about the struggles to achieve citizenship in the United States. We portray this through multiple interviews with people who have immigrated to the United State but have had difficulty in obtaining citizenship. We argue to make citizenship easier to obtain, especially for those who have lived and worked in the US for a long time. We also compare and contrast the United States immigration laws to other immigration laws seen on the world stage, specifically utilizing Canada as our main example. Other ways how we compare and contrast is by using case studies in said respective actors in order to portray their laws and policies. In this project, our interview(s) center around the fight for citizenship in an environment that does not allow for easy access to it. Additionally, we present further research into the subject and how it relates to the UDHR. We demonstrate how our topic is supported by the UDHR and ways that the UDHR should be updated in order to support this issue.