Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

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  Effect of Accelerometer Based Feedback on Paretic Upper Extremity Amount of Use and Quality of Movement: A Case Study

  Mishgan Abdullah, Nathan Pohl, and Amber Kuehn

  Purpose/Hypothesis: To determine the effects of accelerometer based feedback on clinical measures of paretic upper extremity (UE) recovery in people post-stroke and examine the relationship between these changes and paretic UE amount of use (AOU) measured by an accelerometer. Subjects: 7 people chronic post-stroke (5 males, 2 females; aged 62.03 ± 11.33 years) with an Upper Extremity Fugl-Meyer score range of 10-63 were included for this poster. Materials/Methods: Subjects wore wrist accelerometers for 3 weeks in the home. Clinical measures (Motor Activity Log, Stroke Impact Scale, Chedoke Arm and Hand ... Read More

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  Novel regulation of the pro-apoptotic protein PUMA in response to hypoxia

  Mareem Ali and Brianna Boslett

  Ischemic injury in skeletal muscle caused by hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions occurs in response to vascular and musculoskeletal traumas, diseases and following reconstructive surgeries. Hypoxia induces apoptotic cell death. We have reported that the protein PUMA plays a critical role in the apoptosis of myoblasts in response to culture in differentiation media as well as exposure to DNA damaging chemotherapeutic agents. We have also determined that the transcription factor MyoD, known to control the differentiation process, also plays a role in these apoptotic processes by directly increasing the expression of ... Read More

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  Lead optimization of tubulin inhibitor for cancer treatment

  Morgan Ashcraft

  Tubulin-containing structures are important for many important cellular functions, including chromosome segregation during cell division, development and maintenance of cell shape, cell motility, and distribution of molecules on cell membranes. The rapid growth of cancer cells makes them very sensitive to the disruption of tubulin polymerization/depolymerization. Taxol (paclitaxel), a tubulin inhibitor approved by the FDA in 1992 for cancer treatment, is one of the most powerful chemotherapeutic agents. However, the low water solubility and drug resistance limits its clinical application. Various effort in drug discovery field focuses on more water ... Read More

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  Preliminary Investigation of the Role of Open Bigrams in Word Perception: Is There a Benefit to Having Flankers That Consist of Letters in the Word?

  Maryam Assar, Kristyn Oravec, Hannah Princic, and Amy Palinski

  Most investigators of word identification agree that information is processed through a hierarchical system in which units at progressively higher levels respond to features, letters, letter combinations (e.g., pairs, or bigrams), and possibly words. Grainger et al. (2014) found support for the role of adjacent-letter bigrams in an experiment in which participants saw target strings flanked by bigrams, such as BI BIRD RD and CE BIVS NT, and judged whether the targets were words. They found, for words, that flanking bigrams facilitated performance when the flanking bigrams contained letters from ... Read More

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  Parallel Selection Algorithms on GPUs: Implementation and Performance Comparison

  Darius Bakunas-Milanowski

  The computing power of current Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) has increased rapidly over the years. They offer much more computational power than recent CPUs by providing a vast number of simple, data parallel, multithreaded cores. In this project, we focused on the study of different variations of parallel selection algorithms on the current generation of NVIDIA GPUs. That is, given a massively large array of elements, we were interested in how we could use a GPU to efficiently select those elements that meet certain criteria and then store them into ... Read More

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  Power Electronics Design for a Transfemoral Prosthesis

  Taylor Barto

  Prosthetic legs do not always properly emulate a human leg. However, recent advances have allowed prostheses to include motors and brakes in order to closely mimic the performance of human legs. Unfortunately, motorized prostheses are often inefficient, which results in a dependence on batteries. This project aims to use energy regeneration methods to increase the operating time of motorized prostheses. Regeneration occurs when the leg requires braking; instead of using an energy-wasting braking mechanism, energy flows through an electronic circuit into a bank of supercapacitors. The energy can also flow ... Read More

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  Hungarian Heritage Speakers in the Greater Cleveland Area

  Kaela Bierce, Viladate Chaialee, Alexandra Coates, and Rachel Daley

  The present study focuses on the language speakers whose first language has been degraded by continuous exposure to a new, dominant language. The specific goal is to ascertain the cultural elements of the Cleveland Hungarian community and how this culture impacts language ability of the heritage Hungarian speakers. We reveal language preservation processes and the effect of living in a country with a different dominant language, in this case English, on the minority heritage language. We constructed a survey of cultural and linguistic items that include the participants’ connection to ... Read More

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  Balance training application of a systematic framework for clinical decision making in therapeutic gaming for older adults

  Brian Boccieri

  Falling is a major health concern for older adults. Balance is crucial in order to prevent falls. For balance to be functional an individual must be able to maintain balance while focusing on other tasks. For example, an individual must focus on more than just staying upright during walking while drinking a mug of coffee, or during standing while washing dishes. There are a countless number of daily activities that challenge balance. One of the problems with current clinical balance rehabilitation is that the training is often completed using isolated ... Read More

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  Investigating Rhoptry Gene Conservation between Plasmodium yoelii and Plasmodium falciparum using the Polymerase Chain Reaction for DNA Amplification

  Brooke Burkhalter

  In order to obtain a tangible basis for vaccine targets, it is crucial to understand the role of proteins at the site of invasion. In previous study, 27 novel rhoptry proteins were identified by MudPIT analysis and immunoelectron microscopy. In this investigation, the conservation of rhoptry genes between Plasmodium yoelii and Plasmodium falciparum was assessed. From the previously identified rhoptry genes, 14 were investigated with the orthologues/paralogues of the Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium yoelii, Plasmodium chabaudi, and Plasmodium berghei. Also, primers designed for the 14 Plasmodium yoelli rhoptry genes were used ... Read More

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  Invasive Species Facilitation in Bioswales and Rain Gardens in Greater Cleveland

  Brittany Dalton

  Stormwater management features such as bioretention systems and rain gardens provide valuable ecosystem services. They are ecologically engineered to counteract surrounding urban land use practices. However, new stormwater management features may also create an environment for invasive plant species. Invasive plants can affect ecosystem services, and have devastating economic impacts. This study was conducted to determine connections between surrounding land use and maintenance practices in stormwater management features throughout Greater Cleveland and the presence of invasive plant species. Initial site visits were conducted for 164 bioretention systems and rain gardens ... Read More

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  Development of a GC-MS Method for Investigation Mouse Plasma Amino Acid Levels and their Significance to the Circadian Clock

  Kylin Emhoff

  An extraction procedure and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was developed for quantitation of plasma amino acids. The experimental workflow included extraction of amino acids from plasma, followed by derivatization protocol for GC-MS compatibility. Automated Mass spectral Deconvolution and Identification System (AMDIS) and laboratory developed library was used for compound identification. Levels of plasma amino acids were calculated based on one point calibration with non-physiological amino acid L-norvaline as internal standard. The assay was applied to obtain and monitor levels of plasma amino acids to study the effect of ... Read More

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  Safe Movement Practices by STNAs for Residents in Nursing Homes

  Christine Fortuna

  Previous research reports that with compliance, safe movement programs and policies play a large roll in reducing worker injury and safe patient handling. The purpose for our research is to better understand the daily safe movement practices of State Tested Nursing Assistants as it relates to the safe handling and transferring of patients. We used Qualtric software to electronically survey 14 STNAs from Jenning’s Center for Older Adults Upper Level Neighborhood. The survey consisted of 7 forced choice questions and 19 open ended or follow up questions. The scope of ... Read More

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  Stormwater Management and Residents Perceptions

  Mark Gatesman

  Stormwater runoff is a major problem in many residential municipalities. Rain water washes pollutants and chemicals off of streets, driveways and lawns. Stormwater management practices help filter out harmful particles before they enter into our water ways. The goal of this project was to assess green infrastructure stormwater practices throughout Cuyahoga County. We assessed 165 sites in over 10 cities in Cuyahoga County. We examined bioswales, bioretention basins, and rain gardens. Sites were visited in late May through early June and revisited in mid-July to early August. We compared spring ... Read More

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  The effect of depression symptoms on the cardiac autonomic response to positive mood induction

  Elizabeth Golias, Khadeja Najjar, and Brock Bodenbender

  Depression is characterized by a reduced capacity to experience pleasure (hedonic capacity). A growing literature suggests that hedonic capacity is supported by the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) branches of the autonomic nervous system. Both branches may work in a reciprocal fashion, or in tandem, reflecting co-activation of the SNS and PNS. While reduced PNS and increased SNS activity are associated with happy states among healthy individuals, preliminary findings suggest that depressed persons evidence blunted physiologic responses across a variety of emotion inducing stimuli. Much of this work, however, has ... Read More

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  Archaeological Investigations in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park: Highlights of the 2015 CSU FieldSchool

  Dave Goodwater

  Since 2008, CSU’s Department of Anthropology has been conducting an annual summer archaeological fieldschool in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As our excavations have become more extensive and more complex, there’s been a real need to chronicle and produce a high-quality professional documentary of our summer’s field research. Not only is this video going to be showcased in our annual Ohio Archaeology Symposium in October, but we also will be using portions of this video for both visual instruction in the classroom and for public outreach. We often say that ... Read More

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  Privacy-Aware Computer-Vision Based Human Motion Tracking

  Connor Gordon and Abou-Bakar Fofana

  Computer-vision based human motion tracking has undergone intensive research for the past several decades. As exemplified by Microsoft Kinect, inexpensive portable computer-vision based motion sensors can now be used to accurately track human motions in many application domains, particularly in the healthcare area, such as rehabilitation exercises, fall detection, and safe patient handling. However, such computer-vision based technology is rarely used in venues such as hospitals and nursing homes, primarily due to privacy concerns. Even if a patient or a health caregiver has consented to being monitored, the vision-based motion ... Read More

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  Learning to Drive a Simulator: Impact of Prolonged Practice

  Eyal Greenhouse and Samah Soki

  Most driving simulation experiments begin with a practice scenario, to allow participants to learn how to interact with the driving simulator. During practice, driving performance improves such that consistent steering and speed control is exhibited. It is unclear however, whether driver performance will degrade with prolonged practice, and whether the fidelity of the simulator contributes to this degradation. Therefore, a driving simulation experiment was conducted to examine the performance of drivers over one hour of driving, using two different simulators: DriveSafety RS-100 and RS- 600 models. The RS-100 is made ... Read More

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  Synthesis of optimal polymeric microgels and their characterization with light scattering

  Christan Gunder and Daria Kulyk

  Polymeric microgels were synthesized in by chemically crosslinking hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) chains with each other in aqueous solutions of sodium hydroxide at temperatures above the low solution critical temperature (LCST) of HPC. In order to create a narrower size distribution of HPC microgels, surfactant (dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide, DTAB) was added. It was found that, LCST of the solution moved from ~40C up to 80C with an increase in DTAB concentration from 0 to 12 g/l. Formed microgels were be characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Microgel solutions synthesized so far resulted in ... Read More

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  Robotics Training: Fundamentals of Robot Assembly and Programming

  Mike Iannicca and Brandon Rutledge

  Smartphones have become the central communication and computing devices in our daily life because of their nearly ubiquitous Internet access through various communication capabilities such as WiFi, 3G, or even 4G networks, their user-friendly interfaces supporting touch and gesture based input, and their numerous applications and games. Operating system (OS) detection, the first step to launch security attacks on a target smartphone, enables an adversary to tailor attacks by exploiting the known vulnerabilities of the target system. We investigate OS identification against smartphones that use encrypted traffic. We evaluate the ... Read More

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  Processing Conditions for Ultrastable Surfactant-Free Nanoparticle Stabilized Foams

  Willian Ivancic and Richard Schmitt

  Foams, which are mixtures of gas and either a liquid or solid, are important to many applications, from consumer products to industrial processes. Stabilizing the liquid/gas interface against coalescence is key to the performance of foams. Typically, molecular surfactants (surface active agents) are used for interfacial stability, but adsorption/desorption of surfactant can diminish foam performance. We investigated the use of solid nanoparticles, rather than surfactants, as stabilizers. Fumed silica nanoparticles of varying surface chemistry, ranging from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, were suspended at 1% (w/w) and agitated in solutions of water ... Read More

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  Dynamics of an optically trapped particle

  Flaherty Justin

  Particles trapped in a laser experience a linear restoring force that keeps them centered in the trap and will undergo restricted Brownian motion. The Brownian motion causes a change in the scattered laser light. The scattered light is projected onto a Quadrant Photodiode and can be used to obtain the Mean Squared Displacement of the particle, as well as the linear spring constant of the laser trap. The spring constant can be used to obtain the force applied by the laser trap, which is in the realm of piconewtons.

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  Distribution of Sphaeriid Clams in Lake Erie Twenty-five Years After Invasion of Dreissena

  Michael Keller

  Clams in the family Sphaeriidae are widespread native mollusk species that are often overlooked. The distribution of these organisms in Lake Erie has not been examined in the 25 years since the initial invasion of the zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha. Carr and Hiltunen identified 10 species of Sphaeriidae in Western Lake Erie in 1961, of which Pisidium casertanum, P. compressum, P. nitidum, Sphaerium corneum, and S. striatinum and Musculium transversum, contributed 89.7% of all fingernail and pea clams sampled and were considered common. Four other species were reported as rare. ... Read More

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  Ultra-high resolution simulations of the atmospheric boundary layer across the shores of Lake Erie

  Stephen Kennedy

  An accurate assessment of wind speeds at various heights and locations is important in the deployment of wind turbines. This study focuses on assessing wind speeds and their trends across the shores of the Lake Erie by unsteady, three dimensional, Large Eddy Simulations (LES) with a horizontal resolution of 50m. In a previous study the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) was used for the same region with a coarser resolution of 3km. It did not consistently predict the wind speeds, especially for a well- known nocturnal phenomenon—the Low Level Jet. ... Read More

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  The Profitability of Plagiarism: A Look at University Plagiarism Policies Across the Country

  Emily Kiesel and Christen Obojski

  Like health care, higher education is one of the relatively few areas where for-profit, public, and nonprofit organizations directly compete with one another. This creates a robust policy debate about the role of for-profits in the delivery of educational services, and provides a window to study widely believed but mostly untested views about differing institutional behaviors in different sectors. Prior literature has found mixed results about student outcomes from for-profit colleges, and existing data on educational quality across sectors have yet to be identified. In this study, we coded various ... Read More

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  Mechanism of action by which 5-NIdR acts as a therapeutic agent against brain cancer

  Seol Kim and Jung-Suk Choi

  Approximately 10,000 people in the United States are diagnosed annually with a brain tumor. In addition, the prognosis for brain cancer patients is poor as these cancers have low survival rates of less than 10%. One important chemotherapeutic agent used to treat brain cancer is temozolomide, an alkylating agent that causes cell death by damaging DNA. In this project, we tested the ability of a specific non-natural nucleoside developed in our lab, designated 5-NIdR, to increase the efficacy of temozolomide against brain cancer. Animal studies using xenograft mice were performed ... Read More