Follow

• 

  Ketamine treatment induces sex-specific synaptogenic effects in the medial prefrontal cortex of stress-naïve C57BL/6J mice

  Emily M Flaherty, Joseph N Mauch, Sara S Mohamed, Joseph E Saurine, Connor F Thelen

  Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric disease that impacts more than 350 million individuals worldwide. A neurobiological characteristic of MDD, the atrophy of spines, most often presents itself in brain regions implicated in stress response (e.g., prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). Directly combating these neural deficits, the novel rapid-acting antidepressant drug ketamine has been shown to induce its therapeutic effects by enhancing synaptogenesis and dendritic spine formation in the male rodent brain. Despite the wealth of knowledge on the neurobiological effects of ketamine in the male brain, the effects of this drug in females are not well characterized. Published and preliminary data from our group and others indicate that female mice are behaviorally more reactive to the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine. However, the innate mechanisms underlying the female sensitivity to this rapid-acting antidepressant drug still remain elusive. A modified Golgi-Cox neurohistological staining technique was used to determine whether increases in dendritic spine density in the PFC were associated with the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine in stress-naïve female mice. It was found that a single dose of ketamine (10mg/kg) elicited a synaptogenic response in the medial prefrontal cortex of male but not female mice at three days post-injection. These findings support the notion that different brain regions and/or molecular pathways are implicated in the female antidepressant response to ketamine, and highlight the need for further studies focusing on the sex-specific neuromolecular alterations following ketamine administration.

• 

  Lift, Run, and/or Stretch: The Decision Making Process of Exercise Choice and Duration

  Jeffrey M Kingery

  Campus recreation environments have been shown to promote physical health and wellbeing for students, yielding great benefits such as higher levels of belongingness and overall academic success, and thus creating a greater likelihood to be retained at the university if utilized. However, there are various types of exercises one can choose to do within a campus recreation environment, including strength (resistance), cardio, and stretching (flexibility) activities. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the decision making process of exercise choice and duration amongst strength, cardio, and stretching activities as experienced by seven full-time undergraduate students who have visited the RecPlex at the University of Dayton at least 15 times over the course of one semester and who self-identify as men and women. Little information is known about the decision making process of exercise choice and duration among college students, specifically within campus recreation and higher education environments. Previous institutional assessment data has shown various differences in exercise choices and durations amongst undergraduate men and women. A greater understanding of these choices can inform those who work various health and wellness professions to design strategies fitted to enhance success and promote greater overall health and wellbeing for students to balance strength, cardio, and flexibility activities within their exercise routines.

• 

  Light Induced Color Changes in the Purple Protein Bacteriorhodopsin

  Carlie J McGrath

  This research provides new insights into the mechanisms associated with light-induced color changes in the bacteriorhodopsin (BR)-containing halobacterial purple membrane (PM). BR is a purple, 26kDa transmembrane protein which is structurally similar to the human visual proteins rhodopsin and iodopsin. This research focuses on the influences of light scattering and spectral distortions induced by the solvent in which PM is suspended. Varying volume ratios of water and glycerol were used as the solvent for PM samples. A ratio of 60% glycerol:40% water produced spectra with the least scattering, as demonstrated by a low absorbance region (300-420 nm) in the UV-visible absorption spectra and equal intensities of the positive and negative bands in the circular dichroism (CD) spectra. Suspensions of native PM, calcium saturated purple membrane (CSPM) and cation free blue membrane (CFBM) were irradiated with intense 532 nanometer (nm) laser pulses or the 254 nm line from a mercury lamp. During irradiation the absorption and CD spectra were monitored; the spectral changes observed in pure water and glycerol:water suspensions were similar, but faster in pure water. PM, CSPM, and CFBM each produced a UV product with λmax ~360 nm; each species experienced unique changes in the CD spectra as well. With both the laser and the lamp, the absorption spectra of both PM and CSPM “crossed over” (i.e., the long wavelength edge of the main absorption band shifted bathochromically) during the early stages of irradiation; this “crossing over” was absent in CFBM. PM also underwent a later bathochromic shift of its absorption λmax with a concomitant purple-to-blue color change—but only with the laser. With both light sources CSPM and CFBM underwent a color loss but no color change. The structural and mechanistic implications of these spectral changes are detailed below.

• 

  Listeria monocytogenes Oxygen Consumption

  Andy J Deak

  Listeria monocytogenes is a human pathogen responsible for foodborne illnesses with a high mortality rate. Similarly to many other enteric pathogens, it is a facultative anaerobe capable of growing under anoxic conditions such as some food packaging and our intestinal lumen. Therefore, to better understand how Listeria responds to fluctuating oxygen levels during transmission and infection, we measured oxygen consumption rate of Listeria grown under different conditions. Bacteria were grown overnight to stationary phase in BHI media aerobically or anaerobically and back diluted into fresh BHI for 2 hours to reach mid-log phase. The optical density of all cultures was measured and used to normalize oxygen consumption rate. The bacteria was centrifuged, washed, and resuspended into a concentrated suspension. The oxygen level was measured with the use of an oxygen probe inside an anaerobic chamber. The oxygen level of blank BHI media was measured and subtracted from the final oxygen rate. The results showed that anaerobically-grown mid-log phase bacteria has the fastest rate of oxygen consumption, followed by the aerobically-grown mid-log phase, then the anaerobically-grown and the aerobically-grown stationary phase bacteria. To test the role of electron transport chain in oxygen consumption rate, we treated the sample with the uncoupler CCCP during oxygen concentration measurement. Interestingly, the presence of CCCP did not significantly alter oxygen consumption rate, a result suggesting the presence of another oxygen consumption pathway other than the electron transport chain. The acutely toxic salt anion sodium azide will be tested next to determine if the cytochrome oxidase is involved in oxygen consumption. In summary, our results indicate a significantly different oxygen consumption potential between aerobically and anaerobically grown Listeria that may contribute to its transmission through environments with fluctuating oxygen levels.

• 

  Local Difference Sign-Magnitude Transform of Edge/Corner Features for Robust Face Recognition

  Almabrok Essa Essa

  In this research, a new appearance based feature descriptor, named Local Difference Sign-Magnitude Transform (LDSMT) is developed for robust face recognition, which efficiently summarizes the local structure of face images. LDSMT is a nonparametric descriptor that utilizes a combined edge/corner detection strategy. We obtain the information about corners and edges of the face image using the Frei and Chen edge detector, then for each pixel position there are two local differences to describe the relationship of pixels to their local neighborhood. The first one is using the sign (positive or negative) of the difference between the values of the central pixel and the neighboring pixel. The second one is using the magnitude of the difference between the central pixel and the neighboring pixel. Then a histogram is built for each component from each edge and corner map respectively. Finally, we concatenate these histograms together to form the final LDSMT feature vector. The performance evaluation of the proposed LDSMT algorithm is conducted on several publicly available databases and observed promising recognition rates.

• 

  Love at the Intersection: Supporting the Faith Development of LGB Students of Faith at the University of Dayton.

  Matthew D Little

  Both student affairs professionals and college students are recognizing the value of faith development (Braskamp, 2007). However, Love, Bock, Jannarone, and Richardson (2005) cautioned that for LGBT students, this can be a painful topic given organized religion’s anti-LGBT history. Despite this, they noted that a growing number value their faith practices and need developmental support. Unfortunately, Dahl and Galliher (2012) observed that minimal research has been published on the faith development of this population and the external factors that influence it. They insisted that “it is incumbent on researchers to gain an increased understanding of the experiences and development trajectories of LGBTQ individuals within religious contexts” (p. 219). Heeding their call, this qualitative study sought to determine which forms of support LGB students of faith at the University of Dayton (UD) described as most beneficial to their faith development. Utilizing a phenomenological approach, the research focused on interviews with seven undergraduate students who identified as both Catholic/Christian and lesbian, gay, or bisexual. These students discussed their experiences as LGB Christians on UD’s campus, the forms of support in faith development they found most beneficial, and other supportive efforts they still sought as LGB people of faith. Common themes found in their interviews included the benefits of unconditional acceptance/love offered by campus professionals, the value of solitude and time for reflection in contemplating their intersecting identities, the positive impact of the example of Christians throughout history who have both remained faithful to the Church and yet disagreed with aspects of its teaching, and the need for role models who reflect both strong faith and an open LGB identity.

• 

  Low Birthweight and How Mother’s Status Influences It

  Xueyan Bai

  This research project investigates the impact of various factors on the risk of low birth weight. A Logistic regression model will be used to identify those factors that impact the probability of low birth weight (smaller than 2500 grams) baby. The related factors include mother’s age, mother’s weight, smoking status during pregnancy and several others. Basically, those factors are related to mother’s life habits and personal status.

• 

  Magnesium Catalyzed Synthesis of Organophosphates

  Emily K Granger, Cori K Young

  Synthetic strategies for the construction of phosphorus centered organophoshorus molecules are underdeveloped compared to their carbon-centered cousins. Though the methods for the construction of organophosphate triesters and their derivatives are somewhat limited, they nevertheless have recently found great utility in the pharmaceutical industry. Given that phosphates are commonly used by nature as powerful tools for the regulation of life processes, it is no surprise to find them as key components in many pharmaceuticals.6 It is easy to find phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in reactions that control various aspects of metabolism through phosphate esters or their derivatives. This type of chemistry offers profound control with biomolecules such as proteins (especially kinases), carbohydrates, nucleotides (DNA and RNA), and steroids. As such it is a process that, when controlled, can treat many different types of human ailments such as cancer, contagious diseases like Hepatitis C, AIDS, and the flu

• 

  Making a Difference: Experiences of Students who Participate in Community Engagement within Urban Neighborhoods

  Allyssa Allen

  As institutions begin to create opportunities for multiculturalism programming on and off campus, undergraduate students have the opportunity to become socially active leaders. Higher education institutions create spaces for students to develop their identities, redefine values and beliefs, and make mistakes. However, as there is an increase in generations enrolling with intersecting identities, they are becoming more prominent and complex to understand (Zuniga, Williams, & Berger, 2005).The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of students who attend a predominantly white institution and participate in community engagement within urban neighborhoods. Using qualitative interviews with six participants of the Youth Economic Self-Sufficiency program at the University of Dayton, the study explored how human experiences can increase cultural understanding and if these interactions influence vocational goals. Themes emerging from the data are personal development and identity, self-awareness, the power of privilege, cultural understanding, and student’s openness to diversity.

• 

  Marco Economic Activity And Stock Price Movements: A Closer Look At The Covariation Between Total Non-Farm Employment Plus Goods Sector Employment And S&P 500 Stock Prices, 2009-2016.

  Tyler B Cronin, Leah M Haverkos

  Employment growth is considered a key measure of macroeconomic activity. Rational expectation theory, therefore, would expect a positive linkage between employment growth and the price movement of common stocks. In this study, we examine the relationship between non-farm employment and the goods sector employment growth and price movements in Consumer Staples (XLP) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY) stocks. Using regression analysis, we regress employment growth on the top ten stocks in each of the above sectors (i.e. XLP and XLY). We test the hypothesis that the B coefficients in the regressions are > 0 and statistically significant at the 95% confidence level (T>2).

• 

  Media Law: Current Issues in Libel & Privacy

  Mason Alexander Dipalma, Melissa Paige Finnegan, Emma E Pierpont, Annette M Taylor

  Melissa Finnegan examines libel cases in Ohio and New York courts that have been brought against the press for social media postings and how the law has been evolving in the last decade to deal with the new media landscape. Mason Di Palma examines the libel case brought by Aleksej Gubarev, CEO of XBT Holding, a Luxembourg-based web hosting company, against BuzzFeed for publishing a dossier that alleges compromising information about President Trump. Gubarev was named in the document and alleged that his company helped Russian intelligence services in its hacking operations. DiPalma determines whether Gubarev has a case based on libel law in Florida. Emma Pierpont investigates the rights of the press and public to film on-duty police officers in states within the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Analyzing cases since 2006, Pierpont determines how courts balance rights of privacy and free press, as well as the public interest in transparency in matters of public concern.

• 

  Media Law: Limits on Newsgathering

  Margaret M Bukowski, Emma G Creekbaum, Annette M Taylor, Cari M Zahn

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently removed animal inspection reports from its website, stating that it did so to protect the privacy of people and institutions. Emma Creekbaum analyzes Freedom of Information Act cases from the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to determine how the court is resolving conflicts between individual’s privacy rights and the public’s interest in public disclosure of activity by government agencies such as the USDA. Cari Zahn explores restrictive orders, also known as gag orders, issued against the press in the District of Columbia within the last decade and identifies the circumstances under which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has found such orders to be constitutional. Margaret Bukowski examines California’s anti-paparazzi laws and whether the state’s 2010 Assembly Bill 2479, which was designed to curtail reckless driving by paparazzi seeking to photograph celebrities, could survive a constitutional challenge in appeals court.

• 

  Media Law: Press Access to Courts and Court Documents

  Caroline M Flahive, Colleen G Peregrin, Kathryn E Speed, Annette M Taylor

  Although the U.S. Supreme Court in Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989), upheld press rights to publish truthful information lawfully obtained from court records, the press is often challenged when it reveals the identities of crime victims. Caroline Flahive’s paper explores the ongoing conflict between rights of public and press to access government records and the privacy rights of crime victims. Kathryn Speed examines journalists’ rights to access juvenile courts and information concerning juvenile offenders through 10 years of case law in 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers states in the western U.S. Colleen Peregrin investigates the press’s right to be present during military Article 32 hearings and whether this violates the defendant’s right to a fair trial, as the military suggested in the case ABC Inc. vs Powell, 47 M.J. 363 (1997). The paper explores cases in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and U.S. Court of Military Appeals, as well as U.S. Supreme Court cases on open courts.

• 

  Media Law: Shield Laws Protecting Journalists

  Clare J Gallagher, Annette M Taylor, Jada M Woods

• 

  MEMRISTOR-BASED NEURAL LEARNING FOR ADAPTIVE CONTROL SYSTEMS

  Baminahennadige Rasitha Fernando

  Control algorithms are used in almost all mechanical and electrical systems for controlling movements and activities. This includes robots, automobiles, aircrafts, industrial machines, and power systems. For mobile systems, the use of complex control algorithms – in particular adaptive control algorithms – would allow for much more refined performance. Unfortunately, these complex control algorithms are highly computationally intensive, requiring the use of high powered computers. This makes their use in mobile platforms (especially robots) almost impossible. This is achieved by using a completely new class of computing circuits developed at the University of Dayton over the last several years. This paper presents the developed novel compute circuits and systems that allow adaptive control algorithms to be implemented at high speeds and several orders of magnitude lower power than traditional computers using nanoscale devices known as the memristor. Keywords– Adaptive Controls, Low power architecture; Memristor crossbars; Deep neural network

• 

  Migratory waterfowl use of the Great Miami River channel in a heavily urbanized zone

  GROUP Amanda Elizabeth Angelucci, Jessica T Carbonaro, Elise M Erhart, Hannah M Scharf, Emmett J Sheehan

  Even though the Great Miami River is highly urbanized where it runs through the heart of the city of Dayton, it is still used by many migratory and resident waterfowl. This study examines four miles of one of the most urbanized sections of the Great Miami River, spanning from the confluence of the Great Miami River with the Mad River, downstream to the Tait Station low dam. We expect to determine areas which attract the greatest numbers and species diversity of waterfowl. For our preliminary phase of the project, we hiked the entire channel on different days during the migratory season and waterfowl were counted, identified, and occasionally photographed at each tenth of a river mile interval. We recorded key environmental features that may play a role in waterfowl distribution and abundance. For the next phase of the project, we plan to quantify our assessments of the physical habitat with precise measurements of environmental features including water depth, water velocity, predominant substrate types, and presence and size of riffles, runs, and pools. In addition, we will measure characteristics of the levees including characteristics of the riparian zone and land use on the floodplain outside of the levee walls. By identifying and characterizing areas which are the most and least attractive to waterfowl, portions of the Miami River can be managed to encourage greater numbers and diversity of both the migrating and resident waterfowl.

• 

  MIMO Adaptive Control with ϵ-modification and On-line Singularity Avoidance Method for Hyper-Redundant Robotic Arm

  Xingsheng Xu

  In this paper, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) direct adaptive torque controller is presented that uses a conventional fuzzy system with ϵ-modification to provide the end-effector tracking of a reference path for a 9-DOF hyper-redundant manipulator. Also, an on-line task modification method (OTMM) is applied to achieve singularity avoidance for the hyper-redundant arm at the velocity level. It is illustrated via simulations that ϵ-modification provides an on-line estimation of the unknown system dynamics boundaries for adaptive control and the OTMM avoids the singularity on-line and waives offline singularity avoidance path planning and the effort to check whether the singularity is escapable for the hyper-redundant manipulator.

• 

  Mindfulness for More: Piloting a Mindfulness Program for Underserved Populations

  Chelsey N Parker

  Interventions engaging individuals in mindfulness practices and activities are being used to improve a variety of physical and mental ailments in many different populations. The body of research on mindfulness is rapidly growing. However, there is a notable lack of research regarding the utilization of mindfulness-based interventions among some of the most stressed populations such as those with insecure housing. The proposed study will pilot a new mindfulness program in two gateway facilities utilized by men and women with insufficient housing. Although the focus of the proposed research is on the development of the program, a small N’s design will be used to measure the change for each participant on pre- and post-tests, analyzing within-subject group variance on a state-based measurement of anxiety. The goal of the proposed research is to determine whether it is feasible for a mindfulness intervention to be implemented into a residence shelter.

• 

  Mirror-Augmented Solar Irradiance using meteorological data for applications

  Davis A Urena

  Mirror augmentation for increased irradiance on tilted surfaces has been studied in previous literature using illumination and ray tracing software. These simulations are not based on typical meteorological data, and hence do not capture the weather-driven variation in solar radiation. This limits their applicability for predicting performance of real mirror augmented applications. This project describes algorithms for predicting mirror augmented solar radiation using readily available meteorological data. The algorithms have been incorporated into software to calculate the irradiance distribution on a tilted surface with mirror augmentation. The code is validated through comparisons with published ray tracing and experimental results. The code is used to perform parametric analyses that explore the effect on performance of mirror length, width, angle and other effects.

• 

  Mixed-initiative Human-Computer Dialogs through Natural Language

  Joshua W Buck

  Specification and implementation of flexible human-computer dialogs is challenging because of the complexity involved in rendering the dialog responsive to a vast number of varied paths through which users might desire to complete the dialog. To address this problem, we developed a toolkit for modeling and implementing task-based, mixed-initiative dialogs based on metaphors from lambda calculus. Our toolkit can automatically operationalize a dialog that involves a given number of prompts and/or sub-dialogs, given a high-level dialog specification of it. Our current research entails incorporating the use of natural language to make the flexibility in communicating user utterances commensurate with that in dialog completion paths.

• 

  Mixed metal Prussian blue analogues as working electrodes for rechargeable batteries

  Madeline L Mackey, Mark G Nielsen

  A facile method was used to synthesize six different mixed metal Prussian blue analogues, specifically hexacyanoferrate and hexacyanocobaltate. Two of the mixed metal hexacyanoferrates are currently being tested and the information on its electrochemical properties is unable to be disclosed. Because of this, only one mixture, nickel cobalt hexacyanoferrate (NiCoHCF), was tested in a three-electrode battery cell with cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanic cycling (GC). NiCoHCF was also examined under SEM. The purpose of the experiment is to create a high-energy storage and rechargeable battery in order to provide an environmentally friendly, high abundance, and low cost alternative to the lithium ion battery.

• 

  Modeling Satellite to Planet Fly-by

  Joshua M Lynch

  The purpose of this project will be to simulate a satellite performing a planetary fly-by. The problem will be modeled in python using a two body simulation. Computation will be performed using numerical methods. Expected result is for satellite total energy to be higher, or decreased depending on approach (leading edge vs trailing edge fly-by). Resulting velocity and energy changes will be compared to the analytical solution.

• 

  Modeling the Performance of Information Technology Stocks over the Period 2006-2016: A Case Study in Fundamentals Portfolio Weighting

  Sallie R Deyoung

  A growing number of investment firms are using fundamentals based weighting for the stocks in their mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s). In this study, I use the profitability metric, Return on Equity (ROE), as my stock weighting factor and model the returns to stocks in the Information Technology Sector ETF (XLK). I also use a concentrated portfolio approach with two portfolios: 10 stocks and 20 stocks as my test prototypes. I test two hypotheses: (1) The ROE weighted Portfolios will outperform XLK and (2) the ROE weighted portfolio will outperform the S&P 500 Index (SPY).

• 

  Motion-Induced Blindness: Where Does the Yellow Dot Go?

  Sara E Wetter

  Motion Induced Blindness (MIB) is a phenomenon of visual disappearance or perceptual illusions observed in the lab, in which stationary visual stimuli, or targets, disappear as if erased in front of an observer's eyes when masked with a moving background. The current study sought to investigate this optical illusion by investigating two competing theories of motion induced blindness – attention (target blindness is due to a lack of attention) vs scotoma / perceptual filling-in (target blindness is due to the visual system misinterpreting the target as a damaged part of the retina [scotoma] and the area is perceptually filled-in with the surround). Results on attention theory revealed less motion-induced blindness, contrary to past research. Scotoma / perceptual filling-in theory did not appear to have an effect on motion-induced blindness. Results will be discussed further and possible explanations for findings will be discussed.

• 

  Multiracial in a Monoracial World: Identity Integration Among Multiracial College Students

  Amberly J Santana

  Students with multiracial identity are an emergent population in higher education. This research uses interviews with eight multiracial undergraduate students to explore how identity integration impacts the way multiracial students navigate monoracial campuses academically and socially. The objectives of this research are 1) to explore the academic and social experiences of multiracial students at a predominantly White institution and 2) to determine the impact of multiracial identity integration on student outcomes related to sense of belonging, resiliency, and self-image. The findings of this study increase our understanding of how identity development relates to positive student outcomes in order that student affairs professionals can support multiracial students in more tailored ways.