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  Role of calcium signaling in Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration in a Drosophila model of Alzheimer’s disease

  Neha Gogia, Chris Y Kang, Dena M Schaeffer, Catherine Jean Yeates

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects more than five million individuals in the United States alone, where it is the sixth leading cause of death. While there is currently no cure for the disease, it is a highly investigated topic of research. The Drosophila melanogaster eye model is an excellent system to study AD, due to the highly conserved genetic machinery shared between flies and humans. We have developed a transgenic fly model of AD in which we use the GAL4/UAS system to misexpress high levels of human Aβ42 peptides in the differentiating photoreceptor neurons in the fly eye. We use this system to determine whether modulating the function of the calcium signaling pathway can modify Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration. We used RNAi to knock down six components of the calcium signaling pathway (stim-RNAi, serca-RNAi, orai-RNAi, inx2-RNAi, ip3r-RNAi, and plc 21c-RNAi) in an Aβ42 background in the eye and observed the effects in both eye antennal imaginal discs and adult eyes. Our results showed evidence that knocking down components of the calcium signaling pathway may ameliorate the neurodegeneration mediated by Aβ42. Aberrant calcium signaling has also been implicated in cancer and other neurological diseases besides AD. Our research further implicates intracellular calcium signaling in neurodegenerative disorders such as AD. Further research will determine the molecular mechanisms linking calcium signaling with Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration.

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  Role of Hippo and Ecdysone Receptor Signaling in regulation of dronc.

  Karishma Sanjay Gangwani

  The Hippo pathway is an evolutionarily conserved pathway that regulates organ size and tissue homeostasis in Drosophila and mammals. The pathway functions by regulating the nuclear availability of transcriptional cofactor Yorkie (Yki), mammalian YAP, which is regulated by the activity of a core kinase cascade comprising the serine threonine kinases Hippo (Hpo) and Warts (Wts) and their accessory proteins. Yki binds with transcription factors like Scalloped (Sd) or Homothorax (Hth) to regulate target genes involved in cell proliferation and survival. Downregulation of the Hpo pathway causes increased cell proliferation and overgrowth, whereas hyperactivation of this pathway leads to cell death due to activation of caspases. Caspase proteins are cysteine aspartic proteases which play essential roles in cellular signaling and development via apoptosis. We showed that the initiator caspase dronc (mammalian Caspase 9) is a transcriptional target of Yki. We found that loss of Hippo signaling leads to downregulation of dronc expression, whereas downregulation of Sd resulted in derepression of dronc expression. We also found that known binding partners of Sd like E2F and Tgi are also involved in regulating dronc expression. Earlier studies have shown that dronc expression is regulated by the Ecdysone receptor (EcR) signaling pathway and mapped a EcR regulatory element on dronc promoter. We found that depletion of EcR or its corepressors like Smrter caused de-repression of dronc expression. Overexpression of Taiman (Tai) a binding partner of EcR and Yki also derepressed dronc expression. We hypothesize that dronc expression is regulated by the Hippo and EcR signaling pathways. Here, we present our work on the regulation of dronc by the Hippo and EcR signaling pathways, and its implications on development.

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  Role of Hippo Signaling in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) disease using Drosophila eye model

  Neha Gogia, Abijeet Singh Mehta

  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a late-onset neurodegenerative disorder characterized by loss of cortical and spinal motor neurons with no known cure to-date. Mutations in genes including human Fused in Sarcoma (h-FUS), (caz in Drosophila), is a DNA/RNA binding protein, plays a crucial role in regulating nucleocytoplasmic RNA transport, alternative splicing and has known to be associated with causing ALS. It has been shown earlier that targeted misexpression of h-FUS or its mutants R518K and R521C (using GAL4/UAS system), in Drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a fruit fly) eye, causes accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins which enhances ALS mediated neurodegeneration. In order to 1. understand this process better, 2. search for genetic modifier of ALS and 3. to elucidate the mechanism of action by which FUS mediates neurodegeneration, we used this fruit fly eye model of ALS (as genetic machinery is conserved from fruit flies to humans) and, checked the effect of modulating the levels of Hippo (growth regulatory pathway, highly conserved) and c-Jun N-terminal Kinase (JNK) signaling in h-FUS or its mutants R518K, R521C background and checked for their resultant phenotypes in 1. larval eye-antennal imaginal discs and 2. adult fly eyes. Results from our studies confirms that, Hippo (hpo), is a newly identified genetic modifier of ALS mediated neurodegeneration, and that activation of Hippo or JNK pathway in FUS background worsens FUS mediated neurodegeneration while their in-activation significantly rescues FUS mediated neurodegeneration in fly eye. The results were confirmed by checking 1. cell death (TUNEL assay), 2. axonal targeting (functionality of photoreceptor neurons) from the retina to the brain, 3. Q-PCR, Western blot analysis, and 4. by checking how downstream targets of Hippo and JNK pathway gets regulated in these backgrounds. Our data presents a model that upregulation of FUS or its mutants, results in activation of Hippo pathway, which further activates c-Jun N-terminal Kinase (JNK) signaling and causes neurodegeneration/ photoreceptor neuronal cell death which ultimately causes ALS. This study helps in understanding the molecular genetic mechanism behind ALS associated h-FUS mediated neurodegeneration and finding effective, reliable future therapeutic targets that can modify the neurodegenerative behavior of ALS.

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  Role of Lunasin in Alzheimer’s disease

  Steven Gerard Borchers, Prajakta D Deshpande, Neha Gogia

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a common form of dementia and age related progressive neurodegenerative disorder, manifests as memory loss and reduced cognitive ability. One of the hallmarks of AD is the formation of the Amyloid-beta 42 (hereafter Aβ42) plaques, which triggers oxidative stress due to aberrant signaling and finally results in the death of neurons. However, the exact mechanism causing cell death is still not well understood. We misexpressed high levels of human Aβ42 protein in the developing fly retina, which mimics AD-like neuropathology. Recently, we found that a plant protein Lunasin can ameliorate Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration in the eye by blocking c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway. It is known that Immune deficiency (IMD) pathway, Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway, Toll receptor pathway and JNK pathway crosstalk with each other in neurodegeneration. Here we test the role of IMD and NF-κB pathway in Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration. Loss of function of Relish (Rel), a member of and NF-κB and its downstream gene- Diptericin rescues the small glazy eye phenotype. Our working model is that Lunasin might down-regulate JNK signalling pathway which in turn downregulates IMD pathway to ameliorate Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration.

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  Role of Relish/NFkB Apoptosis Pathway in Amyloid-beta 42 mediated neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease

  Steven Gerard Borchers, Prajakta D Deshpande, Neha Gogia

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD), is a neurodegenerative disease which affects mental functions of the patients. This disorder progresses with age and does not have a cure to-date. One of the reasons for the manifestation of AD is the accumulation of amyloid-beta-42 (Aβ42) proteins. In our study, we have used Drosophila as our model organism (as 75% of the genetic machinery is conserved between flies and humans), and have developed a model where when human Aβ42 is misexpressed in the differentiating eye, it triggers cell death in retinal neurons of the eye. We have identified that Lunasin (a soy-based anti-inflammatory protein), can block Aβ42 mediated cell death and thus wanted to test whether NFkB pathway (anti-inflammatory pathway, lead to translation of apoptotic proteins of jun-N Terminal Kinase, JNK pathway), helps lunasin blocking cell death. In order to test this, we developed transgenic flies which can produce human Aβ42 and Aβ42+Lunasin in Drosophila eye and checked the effect of modulating NFkB pathway in this background. Our hypothesis states that manipulating the levels of Relish (component of the Imd-NFkB pathway), could lead to activity variation in JNK pathway in Aβ42+Lunasin flies. To test our hypothesis, we used GAL4/UAS system genetic technique and misexpressed Relish and RelishRNAi in human Aβ42 and Aβ42+Lunasin background and checked for the resultant phenotypes in (1) larval eye discs and (2) adults. Our data shows that downregulation of Relish interferes with Lunasin’s ability to rescue Aβ42 phenotypes and thus leads to eye suppression phenotypes, which suggests that Imd-NFkB pathway plays a positive role in Lunasin’s ability to mitigate the neuronal cell death cause by the accumulation of Aβ42 plaques. These studies have significant bearing on the use of NFkB members as biomarkers or druggable targets and generate new insights into the mechanism by which Aβ42 mediated neurodegeneration cell death can be blocked in future.

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  Roles for cell-cell signaling in the spread of Aβ42-mediated pathology in Drosophila eye model

  Prajakta D Deshpande, Catherine Jean Yeates

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder with no cure and few effective treatments. AD causes profound cognitive deficits and memory impairments. Here we use a Drosophila model of AD to study the interactions between diseased and healthy cells to better understand the spread of the disease through the brain. Accumulation of the peptide amyloid beta into plaques is one of the characteristics of the disease. A 42 amino acid peptide, Aβ42, is a cleavage product of Amyloid Precursor Protein. Aβ42 tends to aggregate and forms oligomers, eventually making up the plaques seen in the disease. Human Aβ42 can be expressed in the developing retinal cells of fruit flies. In this study we use twin-spot MARCM (Mosaic Analysis with a Repressible Cell Marker) with the FLP/FRT system to express Aβ42. This yields animals with GFP-negative WT cells adjacent to GFP-positive Aβ42-expressing cells in a heterozygous background. We found that populations of Aβ42-expressing cells are much larger than the adjacent populations of WT cells. This suggests that cell-cell signaling between the two populations may be either interfering with the proliferation of WT cells or inducing cell death at a later stage in development. Previous research has implicated Aβ42 in the aberrant activation of pathways leading to cell death. Here we present evidence that signaling between Aβ42-expressing cells and adjacent WT cells mediates neurodegeneration.

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  School Choice

  Madison Johanna Spicuzza, Emily M Sreenan

  One recent topic of controversy in the United States is the idea of “school choice” and whether the benefits of giving families the ability to choose any type of school truly outweighs the drawbacks. Financial stratification within school choice leads to lower income families and minority groups being limited in their choices, even if a child may benefit from a different type of school or type of education specifically. This project outlines the academic benefits and drawbacks, as well as the financial implications for families desiring to utilize school choice. It also examines Montessori education as an example of one option in school choice. Specifics of this type of schooling will be identified, such as the emotional benefits of having it as a choice for many students who would thrive under the individualized environment. However, the financial costs and demographics are also included to shed light on the possible discrimination of the choice system. Using Montessori education as an example aims to demonstrate the possible controversy regarding the idea of school choice, and whether there truly is a choice for all.

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  School Funding and Extracurricular Activities

  Andrew Michael Buchanan, Maria Christine DiFranco

  This poster describes the benefits of performing arts in students’ academics, as well as school funding policies that affect the overall success of students. Differences in funding by district and state are explored and how the unequal distribution contributes to school inequality. With the performing arts often being ignored, the importance of funding students’ artistic endeavors is explored, as well as how the performing arts increases students’ academic performance. The performing arts can benefit children in multiple different ways. One way is the use of theatre inside the classroom. Studies have shown that by integrating the arts in other subjects, students’ interest in school increases, and so their performance also benefits. The arts have been shown to increase language skills and interpersonal skills, which help underprivileged kids especially since often they are behind in these rudimentary skills. These skills do not have to be learned in a classroom, however, and can be learned if students participate in the performing arts outside of school as well. These theatre experiences show benefits such as cooperative skills and can be used in any grade. They should not be ignored in early childhood classes, but more frequently have been shown to decline in schools.

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  Self-Authorship and Meaning Making Through Tattoos

  Michael Andrew Detmer

  The role of the Student Affairs professional is to help students move towards self-authorship and independence, pushing them to become their most authentic self. A part of that process comes in the form of self-expression, and tattoos can be a large part of that. The questions that this study seeks to address are: How do students make meaning of the external and internal messages they receive about tattoos? To what extent do student describe getting a tattoo as connected to their identity development? The purpose of this study to explore how students who have tattoos, or those that are contemplating getting one, use tattoos to facilitate their movement towards self-authorship (or personal independence). This study seeks to examine tattooed students, or students strongly considering getting a tattoo, and how they make meaning of the external and internal messages they receive about them and if the tattoos they have (or will get) are connected to their identity development. Findings from this study emerge from interviews with tattooed University of Dayton students about the internal and external messages they have received about tattoos in a society that still connects tattoos with a negative stigma. Early findings suggest that students see their tattoos/the process of getting a tattoo as a way to let the world know that they are an individual, and can link it to some form of their identity. Other early findings suggest that the process of getting a tattoo can be some sort of healing process. Findings from this study can be used in practice by understanding if/why a student links their tattoo(s) to their identity, and offer them a space to open up and talk about what they mean and to help break the negative social stigma that comes with tattoos.

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  Self-Authorship and Queer Students of Color

  John Lewis McGee

  Self-authorship is an important concept which allows higher education professionals to see the development of students and how students make meaning and create relationships. Higher education for years has failed to examine queer students of color, grouping them under an operative assumption, which assumes that they develop the same way students of color or queer students do. This failure to recognize the intersections of racial and sexual identities has led to the lack of literature written and exploration of queer students of color and self-authorship. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which queer students of color develop self-authorship at predominantly White Institutions. Grounded in the constructivist paradigm, using the narrative inquiry, this study describes the cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences of queer students of color in the Midwest. As this study demonstrates, intersectionality plays a critical role in how students identify, make meaning and create relationships often involving the feeling or a need to overcompensate in other aspects of life.

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  Serving the 6%: First Generation Students in a Multigenerational Campus Environment

  Ashantice De'Oun Johnson-Knox

  First generation college students (FGCS) often face hardships throughout their college experiences, from matriculation to graduation. The FGCS population is growing every year, which increases the urgent need to properly serve them. The University of Dayton is known for making their students feel at home on their campus. Although FGC students currently represent only 6% of the undergraduate student population at the University of Dayton, the university will soon be seeing an increase in this student population with the addition of Flyer Promise and the UD-Sinclair Academy. The demand for services and resources that fit the needs of these students will become increasingly urgent. By utilizing interviews with five current first-generation students, this study highlights the ways in which FGCS navigate an unfamiliar campus environment.

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  Shame on Me? Examining Impression Management and Appearance-Related Shame Across the Menstrual Cycle

  Nicole Beasley, Kala Marie Jablonski, Fiona Mairin O'Malley

  Impression management occurs most often in social interactions in which a person regulates and controls the information they share, usually to present themselves in a positive manner. The desire to make a positive impression on other people can impact the type of information a person shares with others as well as the amount of effort one puts into their physical appearance. Previous research finds that, at peak fertility, women tend to put more effort into their physical appearance than when they are at low fertility, at least in part, to appear more attractive to potential mates. However, failing to appear physically attractive or not trying to make a positive impression on potential mates by looking your best may lead to feelings of shame about one’s efforts at making a positive impression on others. The present research examines the association between fertility and appearance-related shame, and whether that association varies by impression management. It is predicted that women with higher levels of impression management will experience higher appearance-related shame at peak fertility than women lower in impression management.

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  SharkTank Deal Prediction: Dataset and Computational Model

  Thomas Sherk

  SharkTank is a television show where start-ups pitch their idea to a panel of five investors (sharks) in hopes of striking a deal in the form of equity or royalties for money and other business perks. Since its inception, SharkTank has been a center of discussion and analysis for fans, statisticians, and business people alike in hopes of cracking the code to the start-up world and figuring out the next big ‘thing’. Most of these discussions and analyses have come in the form of blogs, articles, and academic research. However, there has been a lack of complete datasets and application of computational models for further analysis. In this project, we investigate factors that play into the SharkTank deal. To this end, we first collect a new dataset, SharkTank Deal Dataset (STDD), by combining data from multiple public sources. The dataset includes descriptive features of each start-up and episode such as product category, team composition, valuation, equity offering, specific sharks that appear on that episode, and state origin. For the computational model, we propose the non-negative least square regression with regularization term to predict whether a start-up strikes a deal with a shark. We conduct experiments to demonstrate the superiority of our model over the baselines, namely, neural network, non-negative least square, ridge regression.

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  Simulation of the Impact of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles at a Signalized Intersection

  Hamad Bader Almobayedh

  The primary objective of this study is to simulate the potential impacts connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) may have on traffic flow and delay at a typical urban signalized intersection. Essentially, to use a microscopic traffic simulation software to test future CAV technology within a virtual environment, by examining different levels of CAVs with their associated behaviors across several scenarios to be simulated. This study is testing and simulating the impact of autonomous vehicles compared with conventional vehicles at the signalized intersection. Specifically, we are analyzing and comparing the operations of the signalized intersection when there are only conventional vehicles, conventional vehicles mixed with Autonomous vehicles, and when there are only Autonomous vehicles. Additionally, this study will show how Autonomous vehicles can improve and reduce traffic delay (congestion) by quantifying the extent the intersection can be improved. The most current PTV Vissim 11 software is being used for simulating different percentages of three different types of autonomous vehicles and conventional vehicles in the traffic stream at the intersection. There are three different levels of autonomous vehicles that are already installed in PTV Vissim 11, which are AV cautious, AV normal, and AV all-knowing. All these Autonomous vehicles are being tested in different scenarios in this study. Real data from an existing signalized intersection in the city of Dayton, Ohio are used in the PTV Vissim software simulation. The traffic count data being used in the Vissim network model are for morning and evening peak hours. Moreover, the existing signal timing data for the intersection are being used and signal timing was optimized using Synchro. The results attributes from Vissim outputs to be used to compare different scenarios are travel time, queue delay, queue length, stopped delay, and vehicle delay.

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  Skin Lesion Segmentation and Classification using Deep Learning and Handcrafted Features

  Redha Ali

  Skin cancer is one of cancer type that has a significant impact on society in the United States and across the world. Recently, several Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system papers have been presented. However, there is still an opportunity for further development in the accuracy of its diagnosis. In this research, we propose an algorithm for skin cancer segmentation and classification at a more treatable stage. Our current approach is computationally efficient and combines information from both deep learning and handcrafted features. Our system creates robust hybrid features that have a stronger discrimination ability than single method features. These features are used as inputs to a decision-making model that is based on a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. Our results evaluated online validation and test databases. Our score was 0.841 on the validation dataset and 0.701 on the test dataset for the classification task. We participated in the ISIC Challenge 2018, being ranked 59th for disease classification and 85th for skin lesion segmentation out of 141 methods listed on the competition leaderboard. These statistics do not include the rankings of the groups who did not qualify for the leaderboard. Also, it is important to note that many of the successful methods that were ranked highly used additional external data for training. The ISIC 2018 competition does not provide the external data that they used. We only utilized the competition which provided data for training.

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  Sleeping on "it" DOES work: Memory for pictures becomes stronger the day after learning, even with an interruption in the learning task

  Victoria Lynne Karpuszka, Sarah Phoebe Lawson, Madeline Margaret Nash, Alicia Michelle Selvey, Gabriella Louise Silone, Carolina Sofia Vazquez

  Research indicates that memories are strengthened by consolidation, the incorporation during sleep into a previously established memory network (Rasch & Born, 2008; 2013). Memories are initially unstable after encoding and sleep consolidation increases resistance to interference (Robertson, 2011). On the first day of a two-day experiment designed to examine whether an encoding task interruption and a delay in retrieval would affect later memory consolidation, participants memorized pictures of common objects (e.g., owl) presented in a slideshow. Participants were assigned to complete either an immediate recognition test that included studied and unstudied pictures (“lures”), or return the following day to complete a delayed recognition test. Some were assigned to be tested on the two consecutive days. There were three hypotheses: (a) target pictures tested for memory only on the second day would be remembered as good if not better, due to sleep consolidation, than when tested for memory only on the first day; (b) there would be serial position effects on sleep consolidation of the target pictures due to the task interruption, such that recency before interruption would be reduced while other serial position effects would be stable; (c) pictures tested on both days would be better remembered on the second day than on the first. A 3 (Test day: Day 1, Day 2 or both days) x 2 (Test stimulus: Targets and Lures) ANOVA compared correct discrimination for each condition. The interaction between stimuli and testing day was significant and strong (p = .001, η2 = .189), indicating that participants tested on Day 2 were as correct as those on Day 1 in identifying picture targets. However, although participants on Day 2 remembered more targets, they also incorrectly remembered more lures than on Day 1. Sleep consolidation has an overall effect of maintaining the strength of “real” memories over time.

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  Smelling How to Feel: The Impact of Odor on Affective Evaluation and Mood

  Michael Alexander Lee

  Olfaction, or the sense of smell, and emotion have long been recognized as closely related. Previous research has found that odors are not only capable of influencing our mood, but can also affect the way we evaluate different types stimuli that are associated with them. However, no study to date has examined how odors can influence the way we evaluate visual stimuli, nor considered the relationship between odor’s ability to influence mood as well as affective evaluation. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature. For this study, we have participants complete questionnaires about their demographic information, current mood, and the affective impact of odor for them. Then, we have them view a series of images and rate them for positive valence, negative valence, and intensity. Once they have viewed all the images, participants then relocate to another room that has been prepared with a pleasant odor, unpleasant odor, or no odor. The participants then complete another questionnaire regarding their mood following odor exposure, and they then view and rate another set of images, which contains both new images and the same images they viewed earlier. We hypothesize that participant’s reported mood state will change after being exposed to a pleasant or unpleasant odor, that their ratings of positive and negative valence for the images will change after being exposed to a pleasant or unpleasant odor, and that the change in image ratings is mediated by their change in mood due to the odor. Furthermore, due to there being a number of known sex differences in olfaction, we hypothesize that any odor’s effect on mood and image ratings will be more pronounced for female participants. This project is ongoing and we plan to have final results by Summer 2019.

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  Social Experiences and Smell

  Brooke Lois Lipnos

  Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with olfactory impairments (Suzuki et al., 2003) and high rates of social dysfunction (Hadijikhani et al., 2005). Research suggests that there is a relationship between olfactory impairments and socail dysfunction in autism (Thye et al., 2018). However, the relation between olfaction and social function in a normative adult population has yet to be studied. This two-part study aims to address this gap by investigating relations between olfaction and social function in undergraduate students. Methods: 200 participants will complete eight questionnaires about their social preferences, experiences, feeling of socail experiences and importance of smell. Additionally, participants will undergo testing of odor detection sensitivity, identification, and hedonic response to odor and complete two tasks that access decision making and social navigation. It is hypothesized that odor identification scores will be positively correlated with social function and that females will outperform their male counterparts in both olfactory and social navigation tasks. Keywords: Olfaction, Social Function, Autism

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  Social media influencers: The case of the Fyre Festival

  Emily Anne Horvath

  In 2017, Fyre Festival, perpetrated by entrepreneur and fraudster Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule took social media by storm, becoming a worldwide phenomenon in just weeks. With more than 40 thousand #FyreFestival tags and models such as Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid contributing to the promotion of the music festival, McFarland created a movement so big that there was no going back. Social media provided a platform so powerful that Fyre Festival was able to be taken to extremes. Originally intended to promote Fyre Media’s Fyre app for booking music talent, the festival soon became a weekend-long music festival on a private island with private jets, cabanas, alcohol, food, and so much more. Once they arrived, the 5,000+ festivalgoers that purchased tickets quickly took to social media to express their extreme disappointment. Coming full circle, social media provided a powerful platform to generate a movement from #FyreFestival to #FyreFraud. In this case study centered on the promotion of the Fyre Festival, the researcher explores the concept of social media influencers through the ethical lens of equity and truth telling.

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  Solids Suspension in Unbaffled Vessels Using Vertical Off-Center Agitators

  Dillon Patrick Moher

  Solids suspension via mechanical agitation has been studied extensively, with most of these studies being performed in baffled vessels. Baffling promotes axial flow that provides the desired performance with minimized capital and operating costs. While most studies focus on fully-baffled conditions, there are solids suspension studies that consider reduced baffling. An example is the work of Drewer et al. (1994) who reported advantages to using shorter baffles that do not extend to the tank base when agitating high concentration solid-liquid suspensions. Similarly, Myers et al. (2005) found that hydrofoil impellers can generate top-to-bottom motion with limited baffling, providing the opportunity to achieve solids suspension without full baffling. Baffling is not used in some applications, often motivated by the desire to promote cleanliness and avoid the potential for fouling. Very limited information is available concerning solids suspension in unbaffled vessels. In their study of solids suspension using angle-mounted agitators in unbaffled vessels, Myers et al. (2011) noted that the just-suspended speed in this configuration is typically seventy-five percent higher than with a vertically-mounted agitator in a fully-baffled vessel. Angle mounting is not always an acceptable approach, particularly for larger agitators whose weight leads to large forces on the agitator shaft and mounting structure. In these instances, vertical off-center agitator mounting may be used in an unbaffled vessel. Moving the agitator off the vessel centerline reduces swirl that leads to near solid-body rotation that often makes meeting agitation objectives challenging. Little information has been published about the performance of vertical off-center agitators in unbaffled vessels, and the study described in this presentation characterizes the effect of impeller type, size, and off-center location on the speed, torque, and power requirements for solids suspension in this configuration.

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  Spatial Analysis of the Relationship between Infant Mortality and Socioeconomic Conditions in Santa Clara, CA

  Michael Chacko

  Infant mortality is one of the most important indicators for the overall health of a community. Infant mortality is defined as number of deaths per 1000 live births of children under one year of age. The leading causes of infant mortality include premature births, birth complications, smoking/drinking of mothers while pregnant and environmental conditions. In this project, we explore the relationship between infant mortality rate and such factors as race, income, tobacco/alcohol, and maternal health in Santa Clara County, California, using data acquired from the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. With a population of around 2 million, 53% consisting of white, 3% black, 37% Asian, 25% Hispanic, and 8% living in poverty, Santa Clara is a diverse enough county to perform this study and gain insight on the community health in the area. Previous research has determined that African-American mothers experience infant mortality at a rate 44% higher than average. Lower incomes tend to correlate with higher infant mortality rates, as they do not have the resources to afford medical care. The aim of this project is to find out if these results from previous studies will hold true in Santa Clara County. The external health factors to be analyzed are the number of alcohol and tobacco retailers per square mile in Santa Clara County. Maternal health factors will be evaluated through a Vital Health Statistics dataset obtained from the County Public Health Department. Using GIS, we will also explore how such relationship varies spatially across the county. This information will be useful in gaining a deeper understanding of the rates of varying infant mortality in the county and will highlight zip codes of particular interest regarding infant mortality.

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  Spatial Assessment of Current and Future Wildfire Risk in Los Angeles County, California

  Caroline Johnstone

  As our climate continues to change, forest fires in California are expected to increase in both size and intensity. Understanding how climate change affects the risk of wildfires is vital in protecting both the land and citizens who live in the area, as well as aiding in better wildfire management. The purpose of this project was to understand current and future wildfire risk in Los Angeles County based on natural and anthropogenic influences. This project first analyzed different factors affecting wildfire risk such as: vegetation type, land use, proximity to roads, precipitation, temperature, and wind speed. Individual risk maps are created for each of the factors for a better understanding of their spatial distribution. A final risk map was generated by adding all the risk maps using tools in ArcMap. This map helps to identify areas of highest wildfire risk under current climate conditions. The next step of this project is to incorporate projected temperature and precipitation changes by the end of the century to estimate how the intensity and spatial distribution wildfire risk will change in the future. With the expected increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation, wildfire risk is going to increase. This map provides vital information to land management officials in protecting this region of California. The final step of this project was to assess how much urban area was at risk to wildfires in both current and future conditions, and how many people live within these areas. Such information is beneficial to those in wildfire resource management and land management.

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  Spatial Chains for Matching 3-Dinensional Curves

  Yucheng Li

  This work introduces a methodology for designing a chain of three-dimensional bodies to match a set of arbitrary spatial curves. Three types of spatial bodies are defined to make this match: a rigid segment, a helical segment with constant curvature and torsion but varying length, and a growth segment that maintains its shape but may be scaled to become larger or smaller. The first two body types can be used to define mechanical chains that describe the kinematics of continuum robots, a rapidly emerging area of robotics. All three body types are used for morphometric analysis involving spatial land-mark curve matching. Beyond these applications, this work will more broadly impact machine design through its significant extensions to shape-changing rigid-body mechanism theory. In fact, the methodology for the spatial mechanical chains developed herein is an extension to planar shape-changing mechanism theory.

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  Spatial Mapping with Head Mounted Display and Application

  Somaraju Kamma

  Mapping virtual objects to a real-world environment is beneficial for many educational purposes such as a virtual gym for athletic training or interactive anatomical models for prospective medical school students. For this project, we implement spatial mapping to surfaces using the Microsoft HoloLens to project a planetarium that superimposes an interactive solar system for visual educational purposes. The planetarium can be manipulated through gaze, gestures, and voice commands and enhances the understanding of large astronomical structures that are traditionally hard to visualize due to issues with scale. This development paves ways for more exciting and in-depth projects in the future that utilize a head mounted display for educational purposes.

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  Spotlight on Church Abuse

  Alexandra Rose Scherb

  Communitarian ethicists argue that social identity is formed by community relationships, emphasizing the connection between an individual and his or her community. The main argument in this study is that journalism only functions properly as part of a larger community. This study examines the investigative reporting done by the Boston Globe Spotlight on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church (printed in 2002). Discussed, in particular, is how the Globe and other major institutions in the city of Boston interact in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight. The community of Boston as a whole failed to protect its children and, in a sense, became a part of the system that abused them.