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  Antimicrobial Activity of Soil Isolates

  Sam Lee Neanover, Erica Marie Rinehart

  Antibiotics have historically been used for the treatment of bacterial infections and diseases, but the rise of antibiotic resistance has rendered many antibiotics ineffective against resistant bacteria. To combat these antibiotic resistant mechanisms, there is a demand for research in the development and production of new antibiotics. Antibiotics are either synthetically produced or isolated from bacteria displaying antimicrobial properties. Antimicrobial properties are observed in the environment as bacteria attempt to increase their fitness and eliminate competition for resources. As part of the Small World Initiative, this research aims to isolate bacteria from soil samples and screen for antimicrobial activity. Antimicrobial activity is detected by zones of inhibitions against Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium, common antibiotic resistant pathogens. These zones of inhibition indicate if these pathogens are susceptible to antimicrobial activity. Bacteria that exhibit activity will be further screened for identification by Gram staining, catalase testing, and other biochemical tests. Identifying bacteria displaying antimicrobial activity is important for addressing the antibiotic resistance crisis and contributing toward the development of new antibiotics.

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  Appalachian Subcultures

  Elyse Berg, Kaehle B Crockford, Leah W DeAloia, Mercedes Mercedes Franklin, Aaron T Goode, Elizabeth Grace Michalenko, Abigail Blatt Minzler, Julius Maingi Muthusi, Maggie Mary Ward, Jeffrey Michael Zroskie

  Most people unfamiliar with Appalachian culture perceive the Appalachian population as a homogeneous entity, one lacking in diversity and reflective of backwoods stereotypes. Oftentimes, when people think of the Appalachian region or Appalachian culture, the image of the hillbilly comes to mind. Pop culture, through films like Deliverance and reality TV shows like Buckwild and Moonshiners, has helped perpetuate the notion that the Appalachian region is populated solely by uneducated and untamed Caucasians. However, true Appalachia is made up of a diverse and complex range of subcultures. Spanning an area from New York to Alabama, the Appalachian region is home to a plethora of vibrant communities, each of which has its own unique and colorful history. Appalachia is an amalgamation of cultural and racial identities. Among these are Native Americans, the Scotch-Irish, and Affrilachians, to name but a few. Our poster presentation seeks to demonstrate the diversity of Appalachia through statistical and literary evidence that embodies the experience of these marginalized groups popular media has neglected to represent accurately or fairly.

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  A Review & Analysis of Private Equity Investment Strategies: A Closer Look at the Leveraged Buyout Model

  Russell Douglas Woehrmyer

  A hypothetical leveraged buyout will be presented on Pearson PLC, a London-based company that provides education courseware and services to all ages. To complement the leveraged buyout model, I will also build three other valuation methodologies-comparable company analysis, precedent transactions analysis, and a discounted cash flow analysis-which are utilized by investment banks when trying to find a valuation range for their client. Lastly, the leveraged buyout model will be analyzed through an economic cycle, with the intent to display how internal rates of returns vary during different times in an economic cycle.

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  A Smart Beta Concentrated Portfolio Model for the Information Technology Sector: An Empirical Analysis, 2009-2017

  Jacob James Willmann

  Smart beta models are essentially factor weighting models with a focus on fundamental based stock weights (FBSW). A growing number of investment managers are now using them to generate increased alpha over their performance benchmarks. In this study I use a two factor weighting model for 10 and 20 stock concentrated portfolios in the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector ETF (XLK). I use sales growth and relative price change as my weighting factors and test two hypotheses: (1) FBSW models will outperform the broad market (S&P 500) over long periods of time and (2) FBSW models will outperform their sector counterpart over long periods of time. The period of analysis is 2009-2017.

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  Assessment of Dietary-Related Environmental/Community Factors within Twin Towers

  Erica Helene Abbarno, Rachael Harmon, Lauren Marie Murray

  The Twin Towers neighborhood is a low-income, food insecure community located within Highway 35, Wayne Ave, and Wyoming St. The purpose of this was to assess the various dietary-related environmental and community factors that have impacted the overall health and food access of the Twin Towers community. Some of our objectives of this assessment were to obtain primary and secondary data regarding food and nutrition program participation, safe food and meal availability, safe water availability, and food and nutrition-related supplies availability. Overall, the primary data suggested that a majority of participants walk to get food supplies and obtain their food supplies from Kroger, but some participants also obtain food supplies from Ray’s Food Market. Most participants obtain food from these places due to its location close to home. The data also indicated that all participants own a refrigerator, and a majority of participants own a microwave, hot plate burner, and a crockpot. Also, a majority of participants eat food at home but not at a high frequency. The secondary data suggest low ownership of vehicles, a slight decrease in food and nutrition program participation, a slight decrease in annual median income of Montgomery households, high rates of poverty, high safe water availability, and low levels of accessible healthy food providers. Due to these findings, we recommend addressing the barriers to obtaining healthy food available within the Twin Towers environment.

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  Assessment of Tensegrity-Based Aircraft Wings Capable of Morphing

  Austin Shelley Mills

  This research involves a computational assessment of the strength and rigidity of tensegrity systems configured as aircraft wings, and comparison to conventional wing structures. Tensegrity systems consist of a series of compressed struts connected by tensioned cables that place the system in a self-equilibrium state. With all components being loaded axially, a tensegrity system has a potentially large strength-to-weight ratio. Further, tensegrity systems are able to alter their shape by changing the length of the cables or struts, presenting the ability to function as morphing aircraft wings. Aircraft with wings that are able to alter their sweep, span, chord, and camber are particularly attractive for their ability change between high maneuverability to high lift to low drag configurations. Current work focuses on tensegrity wing topology optimization formulations.

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  Asset Size, Asset Growth, and Stock Returns; an Empirical Analysis, 2008-2017

  John Martin Harmon

  In this study, I consider two important strategic investment issues: (1) firms size matters and (2) asset growth is a predictor of returns in the cross section. Empirically, I test two hypotheses: (1) Small firms outperform larger firms over long periods of time and (2) firms with the highest asset growth rates underperform firms with low asset growth rates over long periods of time. Both of the above hypotheses have been tested in previous academic studies but not for the period 2008-2017. This period includes a major economic and market recession in 2008 followed by a major market expansion continuing through 2017. With this bull market, however, market returns are uneven, with a flatter trading range year in 2011 and a down market year in 2015. As a result, I will also be able to see the effects of return variability on the asset size and asset growth portfolios. Following the approach taken by Eugene Fama and James Macbeth1, I compare the performance of large size firms to small size firms over the period 2008-2017. Using the 500 stocks included in the S&P 500 index as my sample universe. I develop portfolios of stocks based on asset size and use two investment strategies to make the performance comparisons: (1) Buy and Hold and (2) Rebalance (annually). To test the 2nd hypothesis, I follow the approach used by Michael Cooper et. al.2 and calculate asset growth rates for all S&P 500 stocks on a yearly basis from 2008-2017. Firms are sorted by asset growth rates, high to low, and placed in portfolios of 50 stocks each. The highest growth rate portfolio and the lowest growth rate portfolio returns are then compared on an annual and cumulative basis using buy and hold and portfolio rebalancing strategies. Return comparisons are also made against SPY, the S&P 500 SPDR ETF. Finally, using the information ratio, risk adjusted returns will be calculated for the asset size and growth portfolios to determine which portfolio models have the best risk-return outcomes.

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  Associations between Normative and Pathological Personality Traits and Hedonic Judgment of Odor Vary by Sex

  Sahar Kaouk, Michael Alexander Lee, Brooke Lois Lipnos

  Background and Purpose: Normative personality traits (Larsson et al., 2000; Pause et al., 1998; Shepherd et al., 2017) and sex (Brand & Millot, 2010) appear to be related to odor detection sensitivity, identification, and hedonic judgment. However, sex differences in associations between olfaction and normative and pathological personality traits have not yet been studied. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether associations between select normative and pathological personality traits and olfactory function vary by sex. Subjects: 134 University students (Male N=63; Female N=71) participated in the study for course credit. Materials and Methods: Participants completed the PID-5 (Kruger et al., 2012) and the NEO-PI-3 (Costa & McCrae, 2010). Odor detection sensitivity, identification, and hedonic response (pleasantness and unpleasantness) were assessed using Sniffin’ Sticks (Hummel et al., 1997). Multiple linear regression analyses were performed separately for each measure, and stratified by sex, to examine associates between eight NEO-PI-3 and eight PID-5 facets hypothesized to be related to olfaction. Results: Regarding NEO-PI-3 facets in females, Depression (β=.431, p=.010) and Fantasy (β=-.341, p=.024) predicted odor pleasantness ratings while vulnerability predicted odor identification (β=-.477, p=.002); in males, olfaction was not related to any NEO-PI-3 facets. For the PID-5 facets, Restricted Affectivity predicted odor pleasantness ratings in males (β=-.366, p=.037), whereas in females, Depressivity (β=.454, p=.005) predicted odor pleasantness ratings. In males, Anhedonia (β=-.737, p=.004), Depressivity (β=.672, p=.006), Restricted Affectivity (β=.542, p=.001) and Suspiciousness (β=.302, p=.047) predicted odor unpleasantness ratings, while Anhedonia (β=.443, p=.013) and Depressivity (β=-.397, p=.015) predicted odor unpleasantness ratings in females. Conclusions: Most notably, associations between odor unpleasantness ratings and PID-5 anhedonia and depression differed by sex; less anhedonia and more depression predicted higher odor unpleasantness in males while the converse was found in females. Implications of these findings on personality assessment research will be discussed.

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  A Study on Integrating International Students into the Campus Community at UD

  Natalie A Weikert

  The goal of my thesis is to understand what the University of Dayton currently does for the integration of international students, identify potential gaps in these practices and create an original way that UD can offer advantages that would increase the opportunities for students at the university.

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  Automated Player and Field Tracking

  Ruixu Liu

  Tracking players in the designated field and tracking the field lines are significant challenges, especially during various gaming events like football or soccer. Players may occlude one another which confuses many tracking algorithms. There are also scale changes and camera movements that occur, which can also confuse trackers. Along with these challenges, real-time analysis with limited hardware support reduces the capability of using some state of the art tracking algorithms. We present an optimized field tracker based on the line segment detection (LSD) and an intelligent player tracking system based on features and motion estimation in real-time.

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  Bats of the University of Dayton

  Celia Montemurri

  A total of 14 bat species have been found in the great state of Ohio. These species differ greatly, however, in their preferred diet and habitat. The University of Dayton’s campus represents a highly-developed area consisting of various large buildings, a suburban neighborhood, and some highly managed green spaces. Old River Park consists of riparian, grassy, and forest habitat. Both locations contain habitats often exploited by bats during daytime hours. These include, but are not limited to, trees, alive and dead, small openings in structures, and bridges. The range of these habitats offers an opportunity to assess differences in bat communities based on habitat preference. Using an Echometer Touch 2 Pro and an iPhone, the presence of the 14 bat species of Ohio was assessed on the main campus of the University of Dayton, as well as UD’s Environmental Research Area at Old River Park.

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  Biases in the Classroom

  Matthew J Frabutt, Lanny Glenn Sparks, Anna Catherine Wolfe

  Students are subject to the consequences of a variety of biases present in the classroom based on their genders, personality styles, or academic abilities reflected in their grades. The first inequality present in the classroom can be observed through the different ways teachers treat male and female students. The types of attention teachers give to students, as well as their beliefs in students’ academic capabilities, differ depending on whether the student is male or female. Whether they be conscious or unconscious, these biases have a profound effect on widening the academic achievement gap between girls and boys. Teachers may also be biased in the ways in which they interact with extroverted and introverted students. Teachers and the educational system celebrate and cater to the needs of extroverted students rather than to introverts. The quieter students in the classroom may be perceived as “disengaged” or as students who hold negative attitudes about learning. Yet, although their personalities may not outright display it, the introverted students can prove to have the brightest minds or sharpest attention spans, and teachers must not fail to engage these students and give them adequate acknowledgement. Lastly, teachers may show a bias toward students who possess a higher academic aptitude rather than at-risk or lower performing students. This bias allows for the “smart” kids to excel further and the “dumb” kids to fall further behind. This shows a bias in the classroom because a student’s true capabilities may not be able to be properly expressed in the current grading system.

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  Bitbox Solutions

  Devon Woodward Florczak

  This project involves harvesting the waste heat from computers and re-using it for heat or electricity in some capacity. Currently we are focusing on developing a product that houses cryptocurrency mining machines, and will attempt to create other solutions for other industries once an initial product is designed.

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  Bombellii's Imaginary Numbers

  Bobby Joseph Mumma

  Looking into the history of imaginary numbers and how they were developed by Rafael Bombelli to solve cubic equations.

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  Breaking Down Barriers to Sustainable Eating at the University of Dayton

  Lauren Marie Murray

  Greenhouse gases are the driving force behind climate change with 20-30% of greenhouse gases contributed by the Western diet. Research suggests a decrease in environmental impact from food production with an overall US dietary reduction in meat and dairy and an increase of fruit, vegetable, and grains. The objectives of this study were to determine the greenhouse gas emissions of foods served in the dining halls at a mid-sized private university and to develop and implement an educational intervention aimed at behavior change. The transportation and production emissions of foods in a dining hall were determined through Clean Metrics Food Carbon Emissions Calculator. The information was translated into educational materials using a color-coded ranking system to demonstrate individual food emissions. The materials included posters, table tents and labels and were displayed for three months in a campus dining hall. Finally, a thematic analysis was employed to examine the impact of the intervention on students. Overall, consistent with existing research, animal products such as beef and lamb were found to have the highest emissions whereas plant-based products such as mushrooms and cucumbers were found to have the lowest emissions per pound of product. Themes extracted from the evaluation of the educational intervention included increased awareness and knowledge about sustainable eating but little impact on actual behavior was reported. However, this research has been utilized to create an educational program for the creation of a completely plant-based dining station in Virginia West Kettering dining hall.

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  Building a More Competent Reach Out Volunteer Through Improved Training Methods

  Jordan James Koczenasz, Taylor Nicole Vernot

  As a free clinic for the uninsured, Reach Out of Montgomery County operates primarily through the action of volunteers in order to serve patients in a low-cost manner. In 2017, volunteers at Reach Out logged 9,585 hours in service of the uninsured (2017 Annual Report 3). In order for the clinic to run efficiently, volunteers should be confident in their ability to triage, take vitals, and document all information. However, there is no concrete training plan currently put into place, so new volunteers are often thrown into the clinic setting and expected to learn as they go. This method creates a volunteer with an inconsistent and often incomplete knowledge of how the clinic operates and may lead to certain aspects of the patient’s visit that are overlooked or taken care of incorrectly. It is our goal to better prepare incoming volunteers for the expectations of the clinic so they can maintain a high quality of care for the patients. We will do this by promoting a system where new volunteers shadow an experienced individual to learn the proper techniques of triaging and taking vitals. We will also supplement this by creating a laminated resource sheet volunteers can keep with them for quick access to any of the information or techniques they have learned. This poster will summarize the training method and the techniques the volunteers will learn along with laying out the resource sheet we will be designing for Reach Out’s use.

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  Changes in the Piezoelectric Response of Reactive Magnetron Sputtered Aluminum Nitride at Different Sputter Powers

  Rachel L Adams

  Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a low-loss piezoelectric material that is commonly used in surface acoustic wave and bulk acoustic wave-based filters for radio frequency communication applications. For this material to be incorporated into devices, a more thorough understanding of the effects of different deposition parameters on the crystallinity and piezoelectric coefficient is needed. In this study, all the AlN films were deposited using reactive controllably unbalanced magnetron sputtering onto (0001)-orientated sapphire substrates. X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the crystallinity and atomic force microscopy was used to investigate the surface morphology of the films. Piezoelectric force microscopy was done to measure the piezoelectric coefficient of the films. The effects of changing the sputter power during the deposition on the crystallinity, surface morphology and piezoelectric coefficient will be presented.

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  Characterization of L-DOPA Containing Organic Matrix Proteins in the Eastern Oyster Crassostrea virginica

  Anna Kathleen Benton

  The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, forms shell through the process of layer by layer construction. There are two components of shell: the hard layer made of calcium carbonate and the soft layer made of organic matrix. This project focuses on a specific class of proteins found in the organic layer that contain a unique amino acid, L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA). This class of proteins is of interest because of the crosslinking capabilities of L-DOPA. L-DOPA can adhesively bind to calcium carbonate and cohesively bind to other amino acids as confirmed by the study of L-DOPA-containing Mytilus edulis foot proteins. L-DOPA can be used as a biomarker for these proteins and can be assayed or tracked using the ARNOW assay, a catechol stain, on adductor muscle tissue. Market quality oysters were shucked, and tissue samples were collected from the adductor muscle. Proteins were extracted by homogenizing the tissue, soaking the tissue in 0.7% perchloric acid solution, precipitating proteins with cold acetone, and resuspension in 5% acetic acid. Once the initial extraction was complete, the protein solution was concentrated using ultrafiltration under inert gas to prepare the solution to be run on a high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). After HPLC separation, proteins are further characterized using acid-urea polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The AAA-Direct Amino Acid Analysis System was then used to determine the percentage concentrations of the amino acids present in the purified proteins. Purified protein with high L-DOPA content will be sequenced using a commercial vendor. Once the sequence is obtained, proteins will be modeled using ChemDraw, Chem3D, and Gaussian-9 software. Modeling using published sequences of putative shell formation proteins has revealed the occurrence of specific folding domains that may play a role in adhesive and cohesive binding of those proteins. We anticipate finding similar tertiary structure in proteins isolated and characterized from Crassostrea virginica.

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  Characterization of Novel Phosphorus-Based Flame Retardants in Epoxy Resins

  Mustafa Mukhtar

  This poster summarizes the results of a series of ongoing experimental investigations into the curing reactions between a novel phosphorus flame retardant (FR) and epoxy resin. Epoxy resins are used in society in a wide variety of industrial applications including aerospace, infrastructure, transportation, electronic, marine, and sporting goods industries. The novel flame retardant was synthesized and provided by UD Chemistry Department faculty. The FR includes both primary and/or secondary amine functional groups which allow it to potentially react with the epoxy resin through covalent bonding. Previous work involved examination of several similar flame retardants which showed good results in terms of curing behavior and flammability properties. Despite these results, scale-up of the formulations from small scale (~ 1 gram) to a larger scale (10s of grams) led to unexpected results, for example, the generation of gas bubbles during cure which was not observed in the initial small scale studies. In response, a series of experimental mixing formulations and curing conditions were investigated to provide further insight. Curing conditions were characterized by various physical and thermal properties using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). In the current study, we will try to overcome some of these problems that were experienced in the previous study in order to make controlled samples for further flammability testing.

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  Child Temperament as a Moderator for the Outcomes of Corporal Punishment: A Sibling Comparison Analysis

  Kirsten Lee Anderson

  The use of corporal punishment (CP) as a disciplinary strategy is a highly controversial topic among the scientific community and general public alike (Gershoff, 2013). Although there is extensive research examining the outcomes associated with the use of CP, limitations in methodology have made it difficult for researchers to make definitive claims about the outcomes of CP (Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002; Ferguson, 2013; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005). For example, past studies have not examined the outcomes of CP within the context of individual differences among children. The purpose of this study was to understand if temperament, that is, early appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation (Rothbart & Bates, 1998) moderates the outcomes of CP. Specifically, we sought to answer the following questions: (1) do children who receive CP exhibit higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors compared to children who do not receive CP? (2) among children who receive CP, do children with difficult temperaments show greater increases in internalizing and externalizing behavior problems compared to children with moderate temperaments? Analyses were conducted using multilevel growth curve modeling in order to compare siblings who have different disciplinary histories and temperaments while accommodating non-independence of data points. The results and implications of this study are discussed.

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  Clothing garment swapping via pose estimation and thin plate splines

  Ganesh Mudduluru

  Online apparel shopping has huge commercial advantages and convenience contrasted with the traditional shopping but lacks the ability to physically inspect or try on the clothes. To solve this problem, we are working on a virtual try-on technology which has attracted a lot of interest recently by delivering product information similar to that obtained from direct product examination. It allows users to experience themselves wearing diverse garments without efforts of changing them physically. The traditional way of achieving this is by building a 3d model using computer graphics and render the output images. But these approaches require a lot of manual labor or expensive devices to gather necessary information for building 3D models and large computations. In this project, we first perform pose estimation to detect the body joints and these body joints help us identify the corresponding clothing garments. Then, based on the clothing garments, we do body morphing via thin plate splines transformation. We later port the clothing garments from the source to the target human. We conduct different experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our work.

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  College Campus Cyberbullying

  Brandi N Smith

  Cyberbullying within the college-age group may determine whether the behavior moves forward into adulthood. By analyzing statistical trends and reviews of published research, I examine what cyberbullying is and how it affects student/faculty victims and perpetrators. Finally, the project seeks to understand the nature of cyberbullying and ways to provide policy recommendations designed to improve the overall problem.

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  College Selection Process: Does Faith of an Institution Influence the Decision-Making?

  Anna R Parks

  The University of Dayton is one of three Marianist universities in the country. This quantitative survey-based study explores whether or not there is a correlation between the religious affiliation of an institution and the college decision-making process. The purpose of this study is twofold: (a) to determine the common factors that go into the college search process and how important they are to students and (b) to evaluate the influence that the Marianist traditions at the University of Dayton had on students when determining a university to attend. The findings of this survey provide knowledge for how the institution can best recruit students and share what they find to be most important in the college search process with them about the University of Dayton.

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  Combating Antibiotic Resistance Using Plant Derived Compounds

  Emily Marie Jones

  Bacteria have steadily developed defenses against antibiotics since the world’s first fleet of antibacterial drugs was introduced. One strategy that bacteria can use to become multi-drug resistant involves the overexpression of large, membrane-embedded efflux pumps, such as the AcrAB-TolC pump found in Escherichia coli (E. coli) and other Gram-negative bacteria. This large efflux pump gives the bacterium the capability of transporting a wide variety of compounds out of the cell, including antibiotics that we use to combat bacterial infections. The overexpression of these bacterial efflux pumps renders our antibiotics ineffective. I have determined that Yerba Mate extract causes accumulation of a fluorescent dye in live bacterial cells and might, therefore, also cause accumulation of clinically relevant antibiotics. I will test the Yerba Mate extract for efflux pump inhibition in the presence of antibiotics and fractionate the crude extract to identify the active compounds that could be inhibiting the efflux pump. This research could open up a new avenue in the treatment of multi-drug resistant bacterial infections.

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  Combating Multidrug Resistance in Bacteria by Inhibition of Efflux Pumps

  Donny Edward McKenna

  Since the discovery of antibiotics, many otherwise deadly infections have been rendered mere inconveniences. Unfortunately, as antibiotic use has increased over the course of the last century, bacteria have been given more and more opportunities to adapt. Antibiotic resistance allows bacteria to survive in the presence of antibiotics, thus continuing the infection and rendering treatment useless. Bacteria have developed many different mechanisms that confer resistance, among these is overexpression of E. coli’s AcrAB-TolC efflux pump in the cell membrane. The efflux pump, necessary for expulsion of wastes and toxins from the intracellular space, is present in all E. coli cells, however it is present in much larger numbers in resistant cells. This increase in expression allows E. coli to pump out toxins at a much higher rate, thus preventing the antibiotic from accumulating within the cell to reach a therapeutic dosage. An inhibitor of AcrAB-TolC would decrease the rate of efflux and allow accumulation of antibiotics. In order to discover inhibitors, edible plants were obtained and extracts were created and tested in an ethidium bromide-based efflux assay. Green tea extract was found to have significant inhibitory activity. HPLC was used to separate the components of the green tea extract to aid in identification of the active compound. NMR analysis of the active fraction was consistent with a type of aromatic molecule known as a catechin.