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  Statistically Equivalent Serial Chain Modeling with Kinect and Wii Balance Board

  Ali Almandeel

  Identifying the center of mass location provides a significant aid in controlling the balance of humanoid robots. Additionally, in humans this location is an essential parameter in postural control and is critical in assessing rehabilitation. Anthropometric tables have been complied for this identification but their accuracy is readily questioned. This research presents an estimation technique that uses the statically equivalent serial chain (SESC), a representation of any multilink branched chain whose end-effector locates the center of mass. In order to construct the SESC for center of mass prediction, a Kinect and Wii balance board are used. The Kinect provides joint location information while the Wii balance board provides the center of pressure. The utility of the presented method as compared to other common methods is that the center of pressure, and hence, the Wii balance board, is no longer needed after the SESC is constructed.

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  Students Who Serve: A Study of Undergraduate Students' Experiences in Community Services

  Lindsay Elrod, Elizabeth Fogle-Young, Savio Franco, Edel Jesse, Brent Kondritz, Heidi McGrew, Cody McMillen, Dan Trunk

  Undergraduate students who participated in sustained community service through the Fitz Center for Leadership in Community were volunteer informants in a qualitative exploration of the meaning they make from being engaged in the Dayton community. The research team (five women and four men who were professor and eight doctoral students in educational leadership) were generously granted access to students associated with the Fitz Center. We were drawn to study “students who serve” because of our interest in student sub-cultures as well as the center’s model of sustained community engagement. Fourteen students were interviewed on or near campus. Unstructured open-ended interviews (Spradley, 1979) were approximately 30-45 minutes in length. The team adopted what Saldana (2009) calls structural coding from the work of MacQueen, McLellan-Lemal, Bartholow, & Milstein (2008). Based on the purpose of the study, a three-part structure to coding was designed: the background of students who serve, students’ experiences in service, and the meaning they constructed. “Meaning” was our goal, i.e., how students made meaning from community engagement and the nature of that meaning. Preliminary findings suggest that the students had background experiences with service, many of which derived from their Catholic high schools. They experienced service at diverse sites in the Dayton community, playing multiple roles (from tutor, to explorer, to leader, to fundraiser). Their experiences challenged their schedules, and their attempts to achieve a sense of balance in managing time. In their voices we heard the centrality of relationships as the core meaning of their experiences. Their community engagement expanded not only their knowledge and thinking, but also their struggles with understanding diversity and the roots of social injustice. Sustained engagement in the city deeply influenced what many students envisioned as their potential life’s work.

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  Supporting a Local Thrift Shop to Help the Tenants of Good Shepherd Ministries

  David Bowen, Christian Melson

  The Good Shepard Ministries is a Miami Valley organization that assists in the recovery of former drug addicts and their successful re-entry into society. The ministry is funded by community donations of gently-used items and food. As members of the Social Justice Service Club, our service project is organizing a UD community donation drive to assist this ministry. Our plan is to set up donation bins in the Kettering Union, the RecPlex, and the freshman and sophomore dorms. Donated items will be collected and sorted through on a weekly basis and then transported to The Good Shepard Ministries for distribution or resale. Suggested donations include gently-used clothes, electronics, furniture, and food. Our strategic marketing plan includes: creating flyers that identify our club mission and goals; the donation mission and goals; identifying the donation drop-off points; and, informing the community of the types of donations we are seeking. We are recruiting UD Resident Coordinators and Resident Assistants to make sure that UD residents are aware of the ministry’s program and our campaign. We plan on creating a Facebook page and a Twitter account to maximize the social media for our group cause and to widen our donation base. Strategically, the best time for donations and collections is when students leave the UD campus for summer break. That is when our work will begin. Our goal is multi-faceted: we want to raise awareness of the mission of The Good Shepard Ministries; we want to promote social justice for the former addicts not only on the UD campus but throughout the Greater Miami Valley Region; and, to attract potential Social Justice Club members. We designed this service project to reflect the Marianist ideals of lead, learn, and serve.

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  The Acute Effect of a Sensory Integration Therapy Intervention on Postural Stability and Gaze Patterns of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Feasibility Trial

  Senia Smoot

  The research of objective of this feasibility study is to determine whether posturography and gaze tracking could be used to measure the effect of a common SI intervention. The hypothesis tested is that subjects will demonstrate changes in postural stability and socially relevant gaze fixations post-intervention.

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  The Acute Effects of Aerobic and Resistance Exercise on Cardiovascular Function and Arterial Stiffness

  Hayleigh Raiff

  This study investigated how long the cardiovascular effects of aerobic and resistance exercise propagate after completion of exercise in healthy males. Cardiovascular function was closely monitored to observe changes in arterial stiffness before exercise and during recovery. Parameters used to monitor vascular function include central and peripheral blood pressure, heart rate, velocity of blood flow, and blood biomarkers of vascular function. The study required participants to complete an aerobic, resistance and control exposure. Measures of the parameters were taken at rest and at specified intervals after completion of each protocol. These measurements were analyzed to determine the acute effects of each exposure on the blood vessels’ functioning, how long these effects last and how the vascular responses differed between the exercise modalities. This experiment served as a pilot study in developing exercise protocol for patients with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD).

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  The Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale: A Further Examination of Validity and the Application to Service-Learning and Engaged Scholarship

  Gail Susdorf

  As a University Psychology student shaped by the University of Dayton’s mission to “link learning and scholarship with leadership and service” the critical link among these components must be explored in order to move forward as a civically responsible graduate. The purpose of this project is to provide a necessary reflection upon graduation about the effectiveness a University education could potentially have within the greater community context. In doing so this study will examine the validity of the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale, a psychometric instrument used to measure the theoretical construct of self-efficacy, in a University of Dayton Psychology course centered on service-learning in a local homeless shelter. The results will then be discussed in relation to the importance of service-learning, engaged scholarship and the purpose of universities to foster the development of civic minded graduates.

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  The Effect of Input Parameters on Detrended Fluctuation Analysis of Postural Control Data

  Melissa Taylor

  Biological variability is critical for healthy function and is present in all types of physiological movements. Variability exists on a spectrum in which the optimal amount falls between two extremes: a lack of variability indicating rigidity and limited adaptability and excessive variability indicating instability and random, uncontrolled motion. It is believed that nonlinear analyses provide insight into variability that can help predict future movements based on current movements. Detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) is a widely used nonlinear analysis tool for postural control research. A limitation of DFA is that the results are heavily dependent on input parameters (data length, window size, and scaling region) used to determine the scaling exponent α; however, the input parameters are selected by the researcher and little published guidance exists to aid in their selection. The aim of this research is to examine the effects of changing input parameters on DFA of postural control data and to determine best practices for their selection in order to improve the consistency of the analysis and ensure that important effects in postural control data are not lost or skewed. MATLAB will be used to create theoretical chaotic and white noise time series with random initial conditions and known α values, and center of pressure sway measures will be taken for healthy adults using a balance plate. The theoretical and experimental data will be subjected to DFA where data length, window size, and scaling region will be varied independently. The value of α will be determined for all combinations of input parameters and the effects of varying these parameters will be explored. Statistical significance (p<0.05) of any of the main effects or interactions will indicate the extent to which α is dependent on the input parameters, allowing suggested guidelines for future researchers to be determined.

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  The Effect of Temperature on Self-Reported Isolation

  Mary Holtzhauser

  Embodied cognition is the idea that the human body influences thoughts and vice versa; physical heat should cause a decrease in loneliness (“social coldness”) reports while physical coolness should cause an increase. Answering questions on an impersonal computer should increase loneliness reports relative to answering questions on paper. So far, 67 of a planned 150 undergraduate students have participated, completing the UCLA loneliness scale and evaluation questionnaire after holding a heated or cooled therapeutic pack. Preliminary results revealed a main effect of questionnaire type, no main effect of pack temperature and no interaction of questionnaire and pack temperature. If embodied cognition correctly identifies the relationship between physical and social warmth, then people who are more depressed (feel socially cold) may exhibit more physical warmth-seeking behaviors than those who are less depressed. Undergraduate students scoring either higher or lower on a standardized measure of depression will be invited to complete a questionnaire identifying heat-seeking behaviors. Data is still being collected at this time.

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  The Glass Walls Project: Sharing Science and Engineering in 3D

  William Sember

  The Glass Walls Project is the brainchild of Dr. Peter Powers. It is a computer application for visualizing scientific and engineering laboratories, logging experiments, and networking the process. This presentation is a demo program focused on the 3-dimensional visualization and exploration of laboratories.

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  The Impact of Exogenous Macro Economic Events on Flyer Fund Stock and Sector Returns

  Eric Flanigan

  A number of academic studies have shown that markets can be "shocked" by macro economic events. A sudden rise in inflation, interest rates, oil prices, just to name a few, can have a material effect on stock prices. In the study we use Bloomberg's Market Factor Model to determine the impact on stock and sector returns for the U.D. Flyer Fund. The Market Factor Model can identify response functions i.e. Betas between S&P 500 stocks and an exogenous variable like interest rates. We will study the impact of rising market volatility (VIX), rising interest rates (10 Yr T-Note) and oil prices on Flyer Fund stocks and S&P 500 sectors. Since the Flyer Fund sector weights are usually different from the S&P 500 sector weights, we can determine if the Flyer Fund sector allocation strategy creates alpha. Moreover because the impact on individual stocks can be compared to the sector impacts, we can also determine whether our stock selection strategy creates alpha. It is hoped the study will help to improve the weightings of sectors and the selection of stocks in the UD Flyer Fund.

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  The Impact of Social Awareness, Empathy, and Confidence on Blindness to Change in Facial Emotions

  Joseph R. Pauszek, Alyx Ballenger, Kaitlin H. Gallup, Mark R. Brown, Peter A. Oduwole, Jeremy Schwob, Zac Vidic, Michael Wright

  Change blindness (CB) is an inability to detect changes in a visual stimulus. For example, Simons & Chabris (1999) used videotaped scenes depicting a gorilla walking across the screen, typically unnoticed by observers. The present research investigated blindness to changes in facial indications of emotion. Previous studies have shown that gradual changes of facial emotion produce substantive levels of CB when assessed by verbal report (David et al., 2006). It has also been noted that observers express high levels of confidence in their ability and accuracy to detect a change in a stimulus if it were to take place, even though they consistently fail to detect changes (Blackmore et al., 1995). The present research replicates these results and examines the relationship between empathy (sensitivity to others’ emotions), social awareness (cognizance of what is needed by others in a social situation), and CB. Experiment 1, using subjective reports of change detection, verified the three hypotheses of interest in this research: first, gradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video were detected more frequently than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., the color of a shirt), and more often by participants who were more socially aware and empathic; and, second, more overconfidence in their ability to detect change was expressed, a priori, by participants who were least accurate in detecting changes in emotion. The use of eye-tracking equipment in a second experiment is expected to provide physiological verification for these results. Specifically, it is expected that gradual changes in the facial emotion of an actor in a video will attract more gaze and fixation, and be detected more frequently, than gradual changes in a neutral stimulus (e.g., the color of a shirt).

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  The Reverse Mission: A Service Immersion in El Salvador

  Riley C. Weber

  The organization Christians for Peace in El Salvador, or CRISPAZ, hosted myself and ten other University of Dayton students for one week in January. Throughout this week my peers and I experienced the daily routines of those living in the fast-paced atmosphere of San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador, as well as the town of San Jose Los Flores, a small agricultural village with dirt roads and one large church at the center. Representatives from CRISPAZ sat down with us on the first night in El Salvador to discuss the purpose of the mission trip. They explained that while we were there we would not participate in what people consider traditional service. We would not be serving food, raising money, or building homes, but instead, we would spend our time in meetings with different organizations in order to gain the knowledge necessary to spread awareness about the issues in El Salvador and the current state of Latin America. Our duties in El Salvador included being attentive listeners, empathizing with the stories of the people we met, and absorbing as much information as possible. The representatives from CRISPAZ referred to this as a “reverse mission” in which our service began when we returned to the United States. We had the privilege of hearing personal witnesses of civil war soldiers, mothers of missing immigrants, and many other people who have spent their lives advocating for human rights causes but have not had their voices heard. This presentation will address the issues of labor, gender, and immigration rights in Latin America as well as my personal experiences of culture shock concerning the violence and poverty present in El Salvador.

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  The Role of Nitrogen Vacancy in Optical Transitions in GaN

  Malik Malone

  Nominally undoped n-type Gallium Nitride (GaN) layers grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on silicon substrates were studied. Thermal Admittance Spectroscopy (TAS) and Optical Admittance Spectroscopy (OAS) techniques were used to characterize these layers. Using Thermal Admittance Spectroscopy (TAS), a defect level was observed at Ec – 0.051 eV and this defect is correlated with the nitrogen vacancy (Nv) in GaN. The samples were illuminated with a monochromatic light with wavelengths (λ) ranging from 200 nm to 450 nm. The OAS spectrum was measured at different temperatures and with different excitation light intensities. The spectrum shows a maximum photoconductance (G) peak at λ = 365nm (E = 3.40eV). This peak is attributed to transitions from the valence band to the donor level at Ec – 0.051 eV. The analysis of the results shows that the saturation level (Gm) of the photoconductance is a function of both light intensity and temperature. The photoconductance decay, after illumination has been terminated, is adequately described by a stretched exponential function. This photoconductance decay is attributed to the thermal emissions of photo-excited carriers from the donor level to the conduction band.

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  The Themes of Catholic Social Teaching Integrated into the Work of UD's Center for Catholic Education's (CCE) Urban Child Development Resource Center (UCDRC)

  Julie A. Iuliano

  Schools today are challenged to meet the mental health concerns of students due to an emphasis on academic testing and a lack of communication within schools to identify and treat the needs of the students. The needs of the student travel beyond the classroom into the non-academic barriers to learning. The University of Dayton’s Urban Child Development Resource Center (UCDRC), works in five local schools in the Dayton area and strives to help students cope with these non-academic barriers to learning. This study focuses on three of the Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching as stated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Call to Family, Community, and Participation; Option for the Poor and Venerable; Life and Dignity of the Human Person; and how UCDRC implements these three themes into its program.

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  Thou Shall Not: The Impact of Faith on Female Students' Decision to Engage in Risky Behaviors

  Heather Vlack

  Alcohol abuse and other risky behaviors, such as illegal drug use and unplanned sex, are not uncommon on college campuses. Peers often influence these behaviors and students continue to believe involvement in them is connected to their college experience where students examine life’s meaning and purpose (Dodd, Glassman, Arthur, Webb & Miller, 2010). Therefore, an understanding of this relationship is needed. Qualitative, one-on-one interviews were conducted with eight female undergraduate students. Participants were all actively involved in a faith-based student organization on campus. Findings revealed students’ tendency to avoid risky behaviors due to their desire to honor their spiritual beliefs. Family, spiritual mentors and other members of their faith communities play a significant role in their decision-making process.

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  Tissi

  Anna Demmitt

  My thesis is a collection of short stories. The stories depict the lives of four children living in South Sudan trying to survive the genocide. One young girl has been brutally raped. A young boy is taking on the responsibility of raising his younger siblings. The third story shows a young boy who has been kidnapped and forced to be a child soldier. The fourth story is a story of hope. These stories are designed to show the chaos of genocide, and the difference that even a little assistance could make to the lives of the people in South Sudan.

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  Truncation Error for a Finite Difference Scheme for the Black-Scholes Model

  Lawrence M. Kondowe

  Finite difference methods are simplest and oldest methods among all the numerical techniques to approximate the solution of partial differential equations (PDEs). The derivatives in the partial differential equation are approximated by finite difference formulas. The error between the numerical solution and the exact solution is determined by the error between a differential operator to a difference operator. This error is called the discretization error or truncation error. The term truncation error reflects the fact that a finite part of a Taylor series is used in the approximation. In this work we will analyze the truncation error for a finite difference scheme for the Black Scholes PDE for the valuation of an option.

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  Unfamiliar Territory: A Phenomological Study of International Students Enrolled in a Large Urban Community College

  Laurie L. Malone

  International students are choosing community colleges for reasons of affordability, easy access, and as a good place to start their education, especially if English is their second language. There is a deficiency of research surrounding this student population despite an increase in enrollment. With little representation of the ICCS in current literature and with institutions recognizing their value more than ever, an understanding of their experience is needed. This qualitative study sought to explore and understand the shared experience of the international college student enrolled in a large Midwestern urban community college. The method of data collection included personal interviews with international students currently enrolled in a large urban community college and faculty and staff practicing at that same institution. Interviews were examined for common themes and compared and contrasted with existing research and literature. The study answer questions like why international students chose to attend community college, where ICCS’ get support and information, and what are the barriers that challenge their success. Fresh information surrounding social integration was revealed, illuminating a disparity between faculty/staff perception and the ICCS experience. The findings may be of interest to professionals who work in the community college setting directly with international students and/or with students and staff who interact with ICCS.

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  Upper Grade Level Literacy: Instructional Strategies for Struggling Readers

  Claire M. Shaw

  Education research has shown that a quarter of eighth-grade students perform below basic reading proficiency. Despite this, reading instruction often ceases after eighth grade while text structure and content area language become more difficult. This research project focuses on studying strategies used for struggling readers in seventh through twelfth grade and includes a case study of a struggling reader in order to identify some of the characteristics and needs of struggling readers. This research synthesizes ideas from previous studies, analyzes teacher interviews for literacy instruction strategies, and, in the case study, uses observation, primary source study, and reading assessments.

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  Visibility Improvement Through Hyperspectral Band Integration

  Paheding Sidike, Yakov Diskin, Saibabu Arigela

  The science of hyperspectral remote sensing is based on taking a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum and breaking it into numerous bands for theoretical analysis and computations. The combination of all wavelengths in a given spatial area builds complete spectral signatures for each specific material in the scene. Based on the spectral signature obtained from hyperspectral imagery, one can detect and identify objects more precisely compared to using only three bands information provided by a RGB camera. Hyperspectral sensors can also assist in automatic target detection in noisy backgrounds since objects vary uniquely from the natural background in absorbing and reflecting radiation at different wavelengths. In many cases, the objects that the human eye fails to capture can be differentiated and identified based on the unique hyperspectral signature. Unfortunately, the spatial resolution for hyperspectral sensors is still extremely coarse compared to modern high definition camera. Thus, we present a visibility improvement technique that will increase the spatial resolution of the captured hyperspectral image and improve the image contrast. In the proposed algorithm, the image spatial resolution is increased by integrating intensity information from multiple related spectral bands. Leveraging our prior expertise with single image super-resolution on RGB imagery, we exploit the band information of the hyperspectral image and develop an adaptive contrast enhancement technique to construct a high spatial resolution image. Specifically, the enhancement algorithm selects the pixel-wise intensities to maximize the pixel’s neighborhood contrast. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique, we use the Resonon Pika II hyperspectral camera, which provides 240 spectral channels that ranges from 400-900nm with 2.1nm spectral resolution, to capture real-life images and test the visibility improvement methodology in a variety of environments such as low illumination or over-exposure regions. The proposed technique aids in real-world applications such as object detection, recognition, and tracking.

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  Visual and Motor Information in the Rubber Hand Illusion

  Jessica L. James, Lindsey C. Meter

  The body schema, one’s sense of body part ownership, position and location, is informed by visual, proprioceptive, and tactile information. Under normal circumstances, these sources of information are consistent with one another in providing an accurate awareness of one’s own body. The rubber hand illusion (RHI), however, illustrates the flexibility of the body schema by creating conflict between visual and tactile information. In the RHI, when individuals watch the stimulation of a rubber hand while simultaneously feeling the stimulation of their own unseen hand, they often report feeling the touch on the rubber hand (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998). The current study builds upon this phenomenon by investigating the contribution of visual and kinesthetic information to the body schema. Two experiments employed the RHI to create a sense of ownership of a robot hand. In the first experiment, a toy robot hand was positioned in front of each participant, while the participant’s right hand was positioned inside a box where it could not be seen. On each trial, participants viewed the robot hand being stroked with a paintbrush while simultaneously feeling the stroking of their own unseen hand. After several moments, participants were asked to close their eyes and point with the left hand to the location in which they believed their unseen fingertips to be located. In the second experiment, we asked participants to flex the fingers on their unseen hand while viewing the robot hand flex its fingers in the same way. In both experiments we predicted that participants would judge their hand to be closer to the location of the robot hand than to the unseen hand’s actual location. These results suggest that the body schema incorporates prosthetic limbs when visual and movement information about the prosthetic are consistent with the body’s own movements.

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  Wanted: Bromances: Impacts of Hegemonic Masculinity on the Relationships of Sophomore Men

  Zach Hooten

  Hegemonic masculinity is constructed in a way that pressures men into certain behaviors and mindsets. Traditional genders roles emphasized in hegemonic masculinity call for alcohol and drug abuse, unprotected sex, and other prohibited behavior (Edwards & Jones, 2009). There is a significant lack of research aimed specifically on the sophomore year experience for college students (Gardner et al., 2010). Hegemonic masculinity (Arxer, 2011) and its foundations give way to how men translate the pressures of masculinity into relationships. The research for this study revolved around the success of sophomore students and hegemonic masculinity. The study attempted to gain a new perspective into the real issues of sophomore men. Findings will assist higher education professionals in designing support systems for sophomore men.

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  We're Here to Help: Accessing the Needs of Transfer Students.

  Dynea Pope

  The need to assist transfer students is particularly important because transfer students enter into new institutions with unique needs, perspectives, and experiences compared to non-transfer students. Many orientation programs do not address the needs of transfer students and focus on freshman students. Little is known about the correlation between transfer students and orientation attendance. Therefore, this study aimed to identify transfer student needs, increase their attendance of orientation programs, and to provide effective programming for them. Participants were asked questions regarding barriers to program attendance and institutional support. This qualitative study focused on eight undergraduate students at a private, midsized, religious affiliated institution that transferred during the 2013-2014 academic year. Students were interviewed and responded to a series of questions regarding reason for transfer, previous orientation experience, and recent orientation experience. The results provide student affairs professionals with future implications for designing orientation programs that directly address transfer student needs and ways to increase their participation.

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  When are Positive Views of Myself Harmful? An Experimental Test of Interactive effects of Self-Enhancement, Stress Severity, and Context Controllability on Mental Health

  Hanna M. Schultz

  A wide array of research has shown that people tend to view themselves in a positively biased manner, known as self-enhancement. Some findings show that self-enhancement promotes positive mental health, while others reveal that self-enhancement can be harmful to mental health. Recent research suggests that self-enhancement’s impact on mental health during negative experiences depends on context controllability and stress severity. It also suggests that one’s motivation to address the negative experience affects the mental outcomes manifested from self-enhancement. The main objectives of the present study are to a) experimentally examine how self-enhancement, stress severity, and context controllability interact to affect mental health, b) identify the role of motivation in determining mental health outcomes through self-enhancement, and c) examine if physiological reactivity to stress changes depending on one’s degree of expressing self-enhancement. Undergraduate students completed questionnaires pertaining to self-enhancement, mental health, and motivation. The participants also experienced stress by being told they will present a speech to a panel of judges who will evaluate their speech and performance. They were told the judges are either warm and kind (low stress) or cold and harsh (high stress), and tend to evaluate the performance based either on the quality of the speech (high control) or on their own personal views (low control). Physiological measures of heart rate and blood pressure were taken before and after the participants were introduced to the speech task. This study provides an understanding as to how stress severity and context controllability interact with self-enhancement to predict mental health, and how motivation affects the interaction. Additionally, it contributes to answering the question of when self-enhancement is helpful, and when it is harmful, for mental health.

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  Who Needs Friends…I'm a Leader!: Peer Support's Effect on Student Leadership

  Justin Cox

  The relationship between student’s leadership development and the role in which peer support enhances it, creates a phenomenon which is experienced at the University of Dayton. The concept of Propinquity explains peer support as a catalyst within a student’s leadership development and provides insight for their various leadership skills and competencies. This research looks at University Dayton students' leadership competencies and strength of peer support through quantitative analyses of an online survey. Results offer insights for college professional staff and administrators in leadership programming.