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  The Impact of Nitric Oxide on the Growth and Proliferation of Listeria monocytogenes

  Mackenzie Taylor Martin

  Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a foodborne, pathogenic bacterium that causes the illness listeriosis. The pathogenesis of L. monocytogenes can be impacted through the alteration of many different substances, pathways, and conditions. Varying nitric oxide levels have a well-documented impact on the spread of L. monocytogenes. Nitric oxide molecules are present in many cells and participate in diverse cellular functions, notably playing a significant role in the body’s immune response. Through the support of the Dean’s Summer Fellowship, students in Dr. Sun’s research lab investigated, summarized, and discussed current scientific literature related to the pathogenesis of L. monocytogenes. This presentation will detail the discussions related to the impact of nitric oxide on L. monocytogenes pathogenesis. Upon review of the literature, it is evident that the presence of nitric oxide results in enhanced L. monocytogenes infection. Nitric oxide production has been shown to be associated with enhanced bacterial infection of macrophages, protection against bactericidal mechanisms, and increased bacterial escape of L. monocytogenes. Furthermore, studies suggest that activation of the Nf-kB pathway, which is closely related to nitric oxide production, also enhances L. monocytogenes infection. An understanding of the impact of nitric oxide on L. monocytogenes infection has important clinical implications in developing therapies to mitigate infection as well as relevant research significance in the understanding of other complex pathways, such as the Nf-kB pathway.

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  The International and Intercultural Leadership Certificate: Becoming a Global Leader

  Julia Ann Ziemelis

  There are many articles, networks, summits and even foundations all based around the concept of becoming a global leader, but what does this mean? How does one become a global leader? Upon my first year at the University of Dayton, I knew I hoped to add an aspect to my degree to show my passion, care and appreciation for other cultures. I wanted to understand injustices occurring in our world today and broaden my ways of thought. I strived to learn more about what it means to be an intercultural leader. In this presentation, I will discuss the experiences that made adding the International and Intercultural Leadership Certificate to my degree so impactful and help shape me into a global leader.

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  The Laplace Operator on a Plane

  Meredith Ann McFarland

  The goal of this presentation is to show some properties of functions, defined on open domains of the Euclidean plane, that are solutions to particular partial differential equations which involve the Laplace operator. One important example is harmonic functions, which are solutions of the Laplace equation. The behavior of these functions, on bounded domains, encompass some interesting properties that are instrumental in several applications in physics and engineering.

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  The Living Wage and Human Rights Studies

  Faith Mary Gill, Melissa F. Moore, Emily Grace Puebla

  For this assignment, our team project will be taking on the topic of living wages. We will be taking on the goals from the UN that cover Decent Work and Economic Growth, as getting paid a living wage comes with what would be qualified as "decent work". A living wage would also help support economic growth. We would also aim to address Goal 10: Reduced inequalities, Everyone getting paid a living wage will help support the separation of inequality among social classes. One of the main questions we will hope to address is, “Does everyone at UD have a living wage / how many hours would a student have to work to pay for tuition." Our team's research focus will be on the University of Dayton. We will do research on different types of faculty and if they earn a living wage. Research is important because it gives us the information we need to come to a conclusion. Without research we would not know the answers to our questions and therefore could not advance our knowledge on the issues at hand. Research is a tool to achieve the set forward UN goals. We also will try and develop a better understanding of how much a student would have to work at given wages to pay off their tuition. We will utilize the university archives, online information, and our interview to gather information for our project. We will summarize this information in a podcast.

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  The Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse: theory, applications, and a generalization

  Benjamin C. Wilson

  The Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse is the more widely known generalization of the inverse of a matrix, and has applications in many areas including least squares. We present its definition, some of its properties and its connection with left and right inverses. We also discuss two different methods for computing the pseudo-inverse. Finally, we show its applications to the standard least-squares problems and propose a generalization of the pseudo-inverse using a general dot product on ℝ^n.

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  The Multi-Sensory Design of a Synesthete's Everyday Experience

  Madeline Murphy Spicer

  Perception, which can be defined as becoming aware of occurrences in the world through the senses, is different for every person (Merriam-Webster). My thesis deals with perception in the form of a condition called synesthesia and the communication of this condition using graphic design. Synesthesia is a condition that involves the involuntary crossing of the senses, resulting in multi-sensory experiences every time a synesthete absorbs the world and visible language. Utilizing the field of graphic design, I created several projects to communicate my three goals of conducting research on synesthesia, sharing what I experience every day, and educating others about synesthesia. I used the inspiration of many important sources about synesthesia to create a graphic design-centered action plan that included: a book I created, entitled Storybook of Synesthetic Discovery; research posters; and a visual song that utilize my visual perception of the world as a synesthete.

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  The Perception of Being Stalked and its Emotional Impact

  Samantha L. Lonsinger

  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, each year an estimated 14 in every 1,000 persons age 18 or older fell victim to stalking (Stalking). The impact that stalking can have on an individual has the potential to lead to a variety of mental health issues (Kilpatrick & Acierno, 2003). Victims of crimes such as stalking can experience extreme trauma which is one of the causes of depression. The mental health of victims needs to be studied so that effective counseling programs can be implemented across the globe. This project looks into the question, how does one’s perception of being a stalking victim impact their emotions? The hypothesis is that those who perceive the actions of others to be stalking will have a negative emotional response. The secondary data analyzed was pulled from the National Crime Victimization Survey: Stalking Victimization Supplement, 2006. The sample was a stratified multistage cluster sample that included 78,741participants. The correlation tests showed that whites are more emotionally impacted by the perception of stalking than non-whites and women were more emotionally impacted when they perceived that they had been stalked than men. More research is needed to develop a better understanding of the relationship between stalking and emotions.

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  The Potential Benefits of Sustainable Aviation Fuels with High Thermal Stability

  Lily Carolyn Behnke

  Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF’s) have proven to be a near term solution to minimizing net anthropogenic gas emissions produced by the aviation sector. While SAFs have the potential to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, their adoption is currently limited in part by the approval process (ASTM D4054) of developing fuels. Total energy content and thermal stability metrics of a potential SAF can add value and performance benefits. The metric of thermal-oxidative stability within the approval process measures the ability of a fuel to absorb heat without producing undesirable deposits. These coke deposits cause increased spread in exhaust gas temperature around the circumference of the combustor which in turn causes increased combustor emissions that negatively impacts turbine efficiency, and drives up CO2 emissions and fuel cost. Therefore, understanding the thermal stability metrics for SAF candidates is essential to reducing coking related airline maintenance costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and illuminating the full benefit of SAFs.

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  The Reduction of Stress in College Students Through Interactions with Pets

  Hanna Dwyer Stier

  This study focused on reduction of stress through different interactions between students and pets. Participants consisted of 31 females and 3 males from an Introduction to Psychology course. The amount of time participants interacted with the pet (5, 10, or 15 minutes) through activities such as feeding, talking, and playing served as predictors of stress reduction as measured with SVAS. The SVAS has participants indicate their current stress level before and after interacting with the pet by adjusting a marker between 0 (Not stressed at all) and 100 (The most stress imaginable). Post-intervention stress was subtracted from pre-intervention stress as an indicator of stress reduction. The results do not support the prediction that interacting with the pet through feeding reduces stress than interacting with the pet through talking which should reduce stress less than interacting with the pet through playing. Low statistical power due to a low sample size occurred as a limitation, leaving only a one in four chance for finding statistically significant results. For future research, the study can be conducted with a larger sample size. Keywords: interaction, stress

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  The Resident Assistant Role and Future Employability

  Carrie Arnold

  Undergraduate students experience learning in a number of ways both in and outside of the classroom, but research has failed to explore the specific employability skills gained by resident assistants through their role and the impact that these skills have on future employment. In response, this project sought to address the following questions: (1) What are the transferrable skills gained from being a resident assistant that are used in the workplace, (2) How have these transferrable skills aided in the advancement of previous RA’s careers? The researcher conducted interviews with five former resident assistants who have been graduated for at least five years. Results demonstrate several common employability skills gained through the resident assistant experience as well as specific instances where these skills are used to both gain and sustain employment. This study has implications for helping resident assistants understand how to best leverage their experience in order to secure gainful employment in the future.

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  The Rise of Online Protesting Following The Killing of George Floyd: A Content Analysis of Tweets Relating to George Floyd and Police Brutality

  Caroline Rose Nevius

  The overall purpose of this study is to explore the emergence of online protesting relating to police brutality and the themes that develop through it. I am concentrating on the death of George Floyd and how that event of police brutality has affected social media users. The research is designed to analyze the content of various tweets taken from Twitter with the hashtag #GeorgeFloyd and examine different issues and trends that appear in these tweets. Tweets were gathered from the month of June 2020, a month after the killing of Floyd, and more tweets were gathered in the month of October 2020. Systematic sampling was used to collect the tweets and inductive coding was used to determine the themes that emerged. Results indicate that social media is an important platform for sharing news, online protesting, and using social media to pay tribute to victims of police violence. The study gives evidence on how influential hashtags can be for protesting as well as forming collective identities.

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  Thermal Energy Production and Heat Exchange between an Electrochemical Cell and Its Surroundings

  Shane Kosir

  Thermal energy production in an electrochemical cell must be controlled to avoid its excessive heating and rupture due to the cell internal pressure rise; especially if the cell electrolyte is a solution of a salt in a liquid solvent. The scheme, used to develop the theoretical formulation presented in this work to predict cell temperature during its discharge, incorporates both the reversible production of thermal energy due to changes in enthalpy of the reactive system and the irreversible production of thermal energy due to cell voltage losses associated with the species transport in the cell electrolyte, electrode components, current collectors, and the electrochemical reactions involving charge transfer at the electrolyte-electrode interfaces. The developed theoretical formulation predicts the cell temperature as a function of time during the cell discharge period under adiabatic and nonadiabatic conditions for a given cell discharge current and its initial temperature. The computed cell temperature versus time data for an ideal (i.e., model) button cell are presented in the form of plots for some discharge currents and are discussed in the light of cell component thermal stability and its safe discharge operation.

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  The Role of Micronutrients in Parkinson’s Disease

  Madalynn J. Eads, Rachael Harmon, Hannah G. Waters

  Parkinson’s Disease is defined as the progressive neurodegenerative disorder that primarily affects dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. Micronutrients, such as Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, and Zinc, have been found to help delay the onset of Parkinson’s-related symptoms. Therefore, the purpose of this presentation is to explore the relationship between various micronutrients and the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s Disease. A concept map technique will be utilized to demonstrate the specific mechanism of action for each micronutrient and the interaction across micronutrients in Parkinson’s Disease.

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  The Thermo-Optic Coefficient of Photo-thermo-refractive Glass for Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

  Zayne Mitchell Parsons

  Photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass is used to fabricate volume Bragg gratings. The gratings are formed by exposing PTR glass to UV light interference patterns and then annealing the glass. This produces a grating by locally modulating the refractive index. The diffraction efficiency of these gratings is dependent on the refractive index modulation amplitude. We report the refractive indices of unprocessed and processed PTR glass at wavelengths from 0.4 to 4.6 microns and discuss their uses in specifying VBGs for laser beam combining.

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  The University of Dayton Mock Trial Program

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

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

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

  Ann Donnelly Johnson, Tiernan Cottrell Lindy, John Edward Tachin

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

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

  Ann Donnelly Johnson, Tiernan Cottrell Lindy, John Edward Tachin

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

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

  John Carter Herzog

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

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  Topology Optimization Frame Interpreter

  Braeden Jay Windham

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

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

  Joseph G. Beckett

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

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  Two Measures of Non-Planarity of Graphs

  Chucheng Yu

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

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  Uncovering the Role of the Central Nervous System in Salamander Regeneration

  Ben Klocke, Augustine J. Miller, Jason Andrew Tornes

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

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  Understanding the Self-Authorship Capacities and Experiences of IACT Students

  Quincy Essinger

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

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  Underwater Document Recognition

  Jaimin Nitesh Shah

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

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

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

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