Undergraduate Research Posters 2013

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  Live Cell Imaging on Titanium Surfaces: Comparison of Image Processing Technique

  Teisha Mullins, Surendra N. Tewari, and Joanne M. Belovich

  Titanium is a viable material for prosthetic implants due to its biocompatible surface which facilitates cell adhesion. In this study, titanium discs are used as a substrate for mesenchymal stem cells which have been genetically altered with Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). Due to the reflective properties of the titanium discs, standard light microscopy could not be used for cell growth analysis. Thus, a fluorescent microscope and camera were used to record periodic images of live cell growth. Trial images were analyzed for a variety of properties including cell proliferation, growth, ... Read More

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  Conquerors from the East: An Engaged Learning Experience in Historical Geography

  Adena Muskin and Stephen Cory

  Our goal was to develop an application that would enable students to use the Map Walk to “walk” through the history of the Mongol conquests and Mongol empires during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As students follow the development of the Mongol empires, they will be able to access additional background information on thirty sites that were critical to the establishment and growth of these empires. In order to achieve this goal, Adena read several books on the history of the Mongols and selected thirty sites from Central Asia, Eastern ... Read More

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  Examination of the Environmental Health of an Impacted Watershed using Freshwater Mussels as an Indicator Organism

  Paul Orefice, Bob Krebs Ph.D., and Matthew T. Begley

  Environmental health of Northeast Ohio watersheds have been at the forefront of local conservation efforts since June 22, 1969, when the Cuyahoga River caught fire due to surface pollution. Numerous studies reflected the declining aquatic diversity, and one of the hardest hit groups appeared to be Ohio’s freshwater mussels. Mussels are a diverse group of aquatic invertebrates that not only are an important part of an aquatic ecosystem, but they are excellent indicators of good water quality. Additionally, mussels rely on clean water for reproduction, as larvae can be more ... Read More

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  Case Transition Format Does Not Affect Lexical Decision Performance

  Risa F. Orlosky, Kathryn G. Van Gunten, Megan Cerbin, and Albert F. Smith

  Reading MIXed caSE ITEms is harder than reading UPPERCASE or lowercase items, but whether the type of case transition in mixed-case items affects performance is unknown. We investigated whether the type of case transition (e.g. PLAnt vs. plaNT) impacts lexical decision performance—deciding whether a letter string is a word. Abstract letter identification models propose that due to perceptual learning, we should process uppercase-to-lowercase items better than lowercase-to-uppercase ones. Eleven students participated in a lexical decision experiment consisting of twelve 32-trial blocks. In six blocks, the type of case change was ... Read More

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  The Influence of Land-Cover/Land-Use on the Quality of Inland Lakes Located in Cuyahoga County, Ohio

  Justin Ostry and Julie Wolin Ph.D.

  The purpose of this research was to determine the extent of the effects of land-use/land cover on water quality, ecological integrity, and hydrology present within surrounding water bodies. The methods used to determine land-use/land cover types include physical habitat assessment of the riparian zone and banks, human influence characterizations, and satellite imagery and historical map analysis. The expected results to this investigation are that overall lake quality partially depends on the size and condition of the land-use/land cover types surrounding the water body. Highly vegetated buffer zones are expected to ... Read More

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  Investigating Gendered Health, Reproduction, and Biosociality Among Senegalese Men: a Methodological Comparison

  Richard T. Powis III and Barbara G. Hoffman Ph.D.

  The study of health, identity, and agency within the field of Medical Anthropology has a solid history stretching back at least half a century to Goffman’s 1963 work on stigma (Whyte 2009). Reproductive anthropology claims to investigate the behavior, conceptualizations, and values of particular communities with respect to sex and reproduction, but in fact, the focus has been almost exclusively on the women of these communities. This pilot study focused instead on the male residents of Dakar, Senegal, which occupies an intersection of French, Wolof, and Islamic cultures with their ... Read More

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  Audio-Visual Translation in International Film: Mediating Factors in Audience Responses

  Kara Rader and Kimberly Neuendorf Ph.D.

  An exhaustive review of the literature about audio-visual translation finds that a number of studies have looked at problems facing translators, including translating spoken word to written word and translating cultural references. We tested differences in audience responses to two versions (subtitled and dubbed) of the same film. The dependent variables investigated were enjoyment, presence, and comprehension. Two groups of participants were shown the first thirty minutes of the film Life is Beautiful; one group was shown the subtitled version and the other was shown the dubbed version. Based on ... Read More

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  Sound and The Moving Image:Critical Characteristics for Spectator Response

  Kara Rader, Rafeeq I. Roberts, Matt Egizii, and Jeffery Allen

  The prevailing wisdom in the film and video production industries is that audio information outweighs visual information when it comes to spectator responses, but there are few empirical studies to support this claim. In previous research, four critical characteristics of sound have been identified: (1) Music, (2) visual/sound contradictions (defined as sound that is inconsistent with audience expectations based on visual information), (3) multi-channel sound, and (4) sound quality. Building on our previous research into music and film, we have found that many researchers have looked into the question of ... Read More

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  Catalytic Gasification as a Waste Management and In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Alternative

  Stephen A. Reeves, Shreya Adhikari, Joshua Cmar, and Jorge E. Gatica Ph.D.

  The efficient use of material sent into space is a concern for all missions. Catalytic reactions can be used to convert polymer (plastic) waste into combustion products. These gases can be compressed or vented to vacuum which reduces or eliminates storage space needs for the trash. In addition, secondary reactions can further convert products to methane which can be used as a fuel source, and hydrogen which is a common rocket propellant. Using a Gas Chromatography machine, the composition of affluent gas following experimental catalytic reactions can be measured. This ... Read More

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  Protecting Security and Privacy of Smartphones/Tablets

  Nick Ruffing, Lulu Terrill, and Ye Zhu

  As the smartphone/tablet industry continues to grow, so does the concern of possible malicious attacks and privacy. Statistics show that there are over 1.08 billion smartphone/tablet users in the world today and 91.4 million of them are in USA. Currently Android devices have the largest market shares. Other major competitors are Apple’s iPhone/iPad, Windows phones/tablets, and Blackberry smartphones. In this project, we plan to identify the possible security and privacy attacks to the smartphones/tablets. The obvious benefit of this study is to raise awareness among smartphone/tablet users of the potential ... Read More

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  Comparing Two Driving Simulation Practice Scenarios for Steering and Speed Control

  Nancy Seck and Jacqueline Jenkins Ph.D. , PEng.

  A driving simulation experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness and relative efficiencies of two practice scenarios. In Scenario 1, participants followed the posted speed limits, which ranged from 30 to 65 mph, and made 50 lane changes. In Scenario 2, participants drove at 50 mph, increased their speed as they were comfortable to do so, and made 20 lane changes. Each scenario used pylons to indicate the desired travel lanes and lane changes. The lateral position at the pylons and the travel times between pylons were used to define ... Read More

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  Controlling the Size and Shape of Polypeptide Colloidal Particles: Characterization by Light Scattering

  Hannah E. Shuman, Grace Gaeckle, Nolan B. Holland Ph.D., and Kiril A. Streletzky Ph.D.

  Temperature-dependent polymer surfactants have been developed by connecting three elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) chains to a charged protein domain (foldon), forming a three-armed star polymer. At low temperatures, the polymer is soluble, while at higher temperatures, the ELP phase separates into a hydrophilic head group and hydrophobic tails, forming micelles. These particles have potential applications in drug delivery, as they are both small and biocompatible. The behavior of mixtures of the three-armed star ELP (E20-Foldon) and H-40 linear ELP chains was analyzed under different salt and protein concentrations, as well as ... Read More

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  Exercise Tutor: A System for In-home Therapeutic Exercise Guidance

  Philip Simon, Brandon Sommers, Ann Reinthal, and Nigamanth Sridhar

  The Exercise Tutor (ET) is a system that uses a Kinect camera motion sensor in conjunction with a number of wearable inertial sensors to monitor home exercise performance. Its purpose is to decrease healthcare costs while concurrently improving clinical outcomes. A clinician programs this system with the particular exercise(s) that a client is to perform, along with several critical parameters for its correct and safe completion. The client then takes the system home and exercises using the ET, which keeps track of the regularity and quantity as well as quality ... Read More

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  An American Sign Language Translation System Based on Kinect

  Vitaliy Sinyuk, Sam Yokoyama, Kelsey Bujdos, and Wenbing Zhao

  In this project, students have attempted to implement a computer-vision based translation system for American Sign Language (ASL). A set of ASL signs, including “Hello”, “How are you”, “Good”, “Thank you”, “Yes”, “What”, “Blue”, “Noise”, and “Tall”, were recorded via a computer program using the Kinect sensor. The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) was used as the machine learning classifier to recognize ASL signs. The HMM classifier was implemented in C# and trained using the recorded data. Unfortunately, the experimental results were disappointing. The accuracy of ASL sign recognition is not ... Read More

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  Novel methods to study genes with multiple functions

  Brendan Skrtic and Aaron Severson Ph.D.

  To establish a method for conditional disruption of protein function in Caenorhabditis elegans, we are implementing system in which a degron tag is added to a protein of interest. Under certain conditions the tagged protein is recognized by a ubiquitin ligase that catalyzes polyubiquitination of the tag and degradation of the protein. Degron tags are commonly used in yeast and cultured cells. However, the standard degrons cannot be used in C. elegans because the restrictive conditions are lethal to worms. Recently, an Auxin Inducible Degron (AID) has been shown to ... Read More

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  Validating TbRAP1-Interacting Candidates

  Fan Wu, Adaobi Davidson, and Bibo Li Ph.D.

  Telomeres are specialized protein-DNA complexes located at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. They act as caps on the ends of chromosomes to preserve DNA from degradation and rearrangements and are therefore essential for genome stability. Trypanosoma brucei, a protozoan parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle, evades the host immune responses by regularly switching its surface antigen, Variant Surface Glycoproteins (VSG). VSGs are expressed exclusively from regions adjacent to telomeres. Hence, understanding the VSG regulation by the telomere complex would help in developing means to eliminate ... Read More

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  Female Labor Force Participation and Economic Development in Developing Countries: Case Study of Turkey

  Salih Yasun and Aycan Koksal

  In this research project, we explore the factors that influence women's labor force participation(WLFP) in developing regions through a case study of Turkey. Several researchers claim that WLFP exhibits a U-shape during the process of economic development. U-shaped hypothesis proposed that WLFP decreases in the early stages of industrialization, and increases again once women acquire skills and education needed to find jobs in non-agricultural sectors. Through regression analysis we found that U-shaped pattern exists for Turkey's different regions. This also proved that there are large differences in economic development of ... Read More