Undergraduate Research Posters 2018

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  Assessing the Social, Emotional, and Mental Health Needs in Urban Schools to Support Academic Achievement

  Nicholas Petty and Sade Vega

  The ability for students in K-12 academic settings to learn can be significantly impacted by their overall social, emotional, and mental health needs. Needs assessments must be conducted to better determine and understand the social, emotional and mental health needs of students in academic settings. Using a survey-based approach, this study examined the social, emotional and mental health needs of high school age students in an urban school setting. Survey design and item development was informed by prior research. The results of this study showed discrepancies between what students identified ... Read More

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  The Harmful Effects of the Strong Black Women Ideal: A Mediation Model

  Tyler Musial

  The Strong Black Woman (SBW) ideal depicts someone who is nurturing, self-reliant, hides their emotions, and strong willed (Nelson, Cardemil, & Adeoye, 2016). This ideal is associated with psychological distress, low self-esteem, and chronic health conditions (Thomas, Witherspoon, & Speight, 2004). We hypothesized a serial mediation model wherein SBW would be associated with maladaptive perfectionism (MP), which would be associated with low self-compassion, in turn leading to negative psychological outcomes (depression, anxiety, and loneliness). Two hundred and thirtyseven female African American undergraduate students participated in the online survey. Results from ... Read More

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  Evaluating Three Methods for Recruiting Student Feedback in the College Classroom

  Marissa Burrell and Melissa Montague

  Abstract not provided

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  How can content management systems be customized for better user experience?

  Mikayla Colston

  PLAAY (Participation in Leisure Allowing Access for everYone) on the Move is a program promoting independence, mobility, and access for young children with sensory and mobility impairments. As PLAAY on the Move emerged from the preexisting GoBabyGo program at Cleveland State University, a collaborative program, showcasing research and educating the community about the services provided, became a necessity. Conducting primary research as well as secondary research helps determine the best content management system (CMS) to fulfill the needs of the program. Additionally, user testing and surveys about the website, created ... Read More

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  Bubble Suit Animation

  Austin DiLorenzo and Brock James Fahringer

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  The Impacts of Trauma Exposure and Differential Access to Medical Services on the Incarceration Experience

  Laura Wimberley and Shelby Smith

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  Archaeological Investigations at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex

  Michael Dodrill and Bridget Coyne

  Geophysical and archaeological investigations were conducted this past summer at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex located in the Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. Our investigations have not only revealed when the earthworks were created and by which prehistoric culture group, but we also have uncovered data to suggest how they were constructed and for what possible purpose they may have served. In addition, we conducted extensive archival research at several local historical societies and museums looking for previously unpublished information about this site’s initial discovery in the mid-1800s ... Read More

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  Oral Histories: Out of the Archive and Into the Classroom

  Patrick Basista

  Social Studies educators argue that primary sources are the preferred method of introducing material to students, as opposed to textbooks. By using this method, teachers aid students in developing critical thinking skills by studying sources to reach their own nuanced historical conclusions. Primary sources such as oral histories provide an aural, intimate, and a richly detailed way for students to engage with the past. The purpose of this research was to provide high-quality teaching materials aligned to Ohio Department of Education standards, and that utilize audio clips of interviews conducted ... Read More

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  RAS Expanded: Visual and Tactile Cueing for Individuals with Gait Disorders

  Leah Reinhart

  Based on the investigations of cognitive function and the processing of music, a system of techniques for music therapy called Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) was developed by Dr. Michael Thaut. Thaut (2014) defines NMT as “the therapeutic application of music to cognitive, sensory, and motor dysfunctions due to neurologic disease of the human nervous system” (p. 1). This project proposes further study of one of the NMT techniques: Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS), which addresses sensorimotor rehabilitation. RAS is supported by extensive research in laboratory settings, resulting in improved gait and ... Read More

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  Trumped: How Donald J. Trump Defied the Odds and Won the Presidency

  Nick Mintern, Chad Wright, and Joe Massaroni

  Against all odds, Donald J. Trump shocked the world when he won the 2016 presidential election and became the 45th President of the United States. Few foresaw such a victory for the Republicans; it was widely believed among political scientists, election analysts, media pundits, and reportedly even Trump himself that victory would ultimately go to the Democratic party. So how and why did he win? We examine the multitude of factors that contributed to his electoral victory, including his iconic “Make America Great Again” campaign, how his policies resonated with ... Read More

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  How Does Current Sex Education Perpetuate Rape Culture

  Alec DeBoard and Alyssa Williams

  Rape culture as it is used within this analysis refers to the general trend as a society to normalize the occurrence of sexual violence and can encompass behaviors such as acceptance and perpetuation of common rape myths, “slut-shaming”, and victimblaming. These behaviors are taught from a young age, mostly through the media or socialization. However, through examining sixteen sex education textbooks, certain themes seem to highlight the notion that children are exposed to rape culture through school systems. The aspects explored include discussions of consent (or lack thereof), forced stigma ... Read More

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  Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Urban Andes

  Brenda Castaneda Yupanqui

  In Peru, there are 3 million people whose primary language is the indigenous Quechua. Further, in the provinces where it is most prominent, the language enjoys co-official status with Spanish and is a symbol of cultural and ethnic identity that has deep roots. Despite the vitality of indigenous languages on the decline worldwide, especially in urban settings, Quechua has remained strong in Peru. Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) is a language-planning model that has been criticized for attempting to normalize Quechua from a purely Spanish-speaking context in its application, stripping the ... Read More

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  Influence of stimulus amplitude on African Clawed Frogs' choices between two stimuli

  Geetha Somarouthu, Austin Shaffer, and Joseph Taraba

  African clawed frogs locate prey using their lateral line systems to sense water movements the prey make. We’ve previously studied how the frogs choose between two stimuli; their choice is influenced by several factors including most importantly which stimulus is more rostral (i.e. more in front of them) and which is closer, which also means it arrives first with a larger amplitude. Here, we test whether stimulus amplitude affects choice. We generated surface waves by dipping two rods of different sizes into the water. Rods make waves both entering and ... Read More

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  The Use of Retinoic Acid to Promote Atrial and Ventricular “like” cells to Aid in Atrial Fibrillation Research

  Nautica McCully

  Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the irregular contraction of the atria, which are the top chambers of the heart. AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, affecting nearly 2.3 million people in the United States, common among people 40 and older. When AF is present the electrical signals that control this process is unbalance. Without proper diagnoses and treatment AF can be a life-treating condition. The use of human cellderived cardiomyocytes will allow the study of cells involvement in atrial fibrillation development. The addition of retinoic acid during a 30-day time ... Read More

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  Roles of H3v in Trypanosoma brucei

  Sandra Haswani

  African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, a protozoan that affects the central nervous system. This unicellular eukaryote can be transmitted to mammals by the bite of a tsetse fly. T. brucei evades the host’s adaptive immune response by carrying out antigenic variation of its protective coat of Variant Surface Glycoprotein which allows the infection to persist and be further transmitted. T. brucei lacks the sequence-specific transcription factors found in other eukaryotes, thus chromatin structures at PTU (polycistronic transcription units) boundaries are thought to play ... Read More

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  Circadian clock proteins CRYs are involved in control of diet dependent Acot expression

  Marc Edwards, Allan Poe, and Kuldeep Makwana

  Circadian clocks are evolutionarily conserved molecular timekeeping systems that generate rhythms in physiology and behavior in almost all living organisms and synchronize them with external environment. Living organisms have multiple circadian clocks which control numerous physiological functions. The light entrained circadian clock involves a transcriptional-translational feedback loop which regulates locomotor activity and metabolic processes and coordinates them with daily rhythms. The food entrainable oscillator (FEO) clock also generates near 24 hour circadian rhythmicity by driving food anticipatory behavior in mice. Mice entrained on 12:12hr light-dark cycle have been shown in ... Read More

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  Effect of Feeding Regimens of YAP Signaling

  Xhuliana Fafaj and Nikkhil Velingkaar

  Many mammalian physiological and behavioral aspects show 24-hour circadian rhythms such as metabolism, sleep-wake cycle, body temperature and blood pressure. These 24 hour rhythms are regulated by circadian clocks, which are internal timekeeping systems located in every body cell and tissue, and synchronize these rhythms with the external environment. At the molecular level, CLOCK and BMAL1 are core clock genes involved in transcription-translation feedback loop which in turn regulate biological processes and coordinate them with daily rhythms. Circadian clock has been demonstrated to regulate cell cycle, cell proliferation and differentiation, ... Read More

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  Screen for interacting factors for Trypanosoma brucei telomere protein RAP1

  Annelise Radzin and Elizabeth Beran

  Trypanosoma brucei is a protozoan parasite that causes human African Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in people and nagana in cattle, both of which are fatal without treatment. This parasite is injected into the host through the bite of the tsetse fly and is able to evade the host’s immune response due to changes in its major surface antigen, variant surface glycoproteins (VSGs). This constant switching prevents the host from making a single antibody that can recognize the antigen and eliminate the parasite. VSG expression sites have been found to be near ... Read More

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  Quantifying the ability of common invasive shrubs to acquire and use water, to tolerate drought, and compete with native plants within Holden Arboretum, Ohio

  Sean Fenton and Brooke Sietz

  There is very little data on the interaction between native and invasive shrubs in Eastern North America. There are a number of traits that make the establishment and impact of shrubs different than other species. Early emergence of leaves and varying rates of photosynthesis play a significant role. How plants use water, and how plants are influenced by drought have not been studied thoroughly. This is important for a better understanding of how plants will respond to the alteration of precipitation regimes that occur from climate change. Research has been ... Read More

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  Weed communities in urban agriculture

  Joshua Ryan

  Urban agriculture has been increasing all over the United States, especially in shrinking cities such as Cleveland, where increases in vacant land have brought opportunities for farming. There has also been a more interest in sustainable farming, as more people prefer locally sourced and organic food. However, like rural agriculture, urban agriculture also faces the problem of weed management, especially when growing organically eliminates some control options such as chemical means. As there is little to no research available on urban agricultural weeds, this research aims to identify and examine ... Read More

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  Expression and purification of full-length recombinant Plasmodium falciparum PfMC-2TM Maurer’s cleft protein

  Alberto R. Williams-Medina and Kush Addepalli

  Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum remains the most virulent form of malaria, resulting in 216 million cases and 445,000 deaths globally. Invasion of red blood cells by P. falciparum leads to the formation of membranous structures known as Maurer’s clefts (MC). Virulence markers of P. falciparum such as PfEMP1 are transported across the MC to the surface of the infected red blood cell. Insight into the formation and function of the MC will be important for the discovery of new vaccine and drug candidates. The PfMC-2TM is encoded by a ... Read More

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  Simulation of abiotic hurricane effects on lotic meiofauna abundance and composition

  Jamil Wilson

  Freshwater meiofauna are essential in our understanding of freshwater biomes. Their previous lack of attention in literature have sparked many to undergo research about their overall composition and distribution relative to many of the factors on which they depend. While more of these investigations have surfaced, few have looked at community adaptably or lack thereof when confronted with drastic changes to their environment. Therefore, this study observed what kinds of possible changes that can take place in these populations after the lingering effects of an enormous natural disaster. It is ... Read More

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  A Targeted Genetic Screen to Identify Meiotic Cohesin Regulators

  Urja Patel, Emilia Kalutskaya, Alexis Brown, and Ali Ahsan

  During oogenesis in animals deficient for REC-8, a cohesin subunit required for sister chromatids cohesin (SCC), Co recombination fails and sister chromatids segregate away from one another prematurely in meiosis I. Consequently, zygotes inherit two copies of each chromosome. Chromosome segregation in meiosis II fails and the progeny of rec-8 mutant mothers usually survive as viable polyploids. In contrast, homologs segregate randomly during meiosis I in oocytes produced by spo-11 mutants, which lack the transesterase required for crossover recombination. This results in aneuploidy, and nearly all the embryos die. We ... Read More

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  Meiotic Drive in C. elegans: A Violation of Mendel's Second Law

  Alexis Brown, Emilia Kalutskaya, Urja Patel, and Taylor R. Schilling

  Under normal conditions, alleles segregate randomly during meiosis so that each one has an equal chance of being passed onto the next generation. However, in some cases, a given allele is more likely to be passed on, along with any nearby alleles. These cases are said to exhibit meiotic drive. Meiotic drive allows biased segregation of particular alleles instead of independent assortment. This process is significant because it can drive evolution by altering the genetic makeup of a population. Such a case exists in C. elegans, in which the offspring ... Read More

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  Toward the Crystallization of an Archaeal Dihydrorotase

  Haley Newman and Ryan Godin

  Dihydroorotase catalyzes the conversion of N-carbamoyl-L-aspartate to Ldihydroorotate in the de novo biosynthesis of pyrimidines. M. jannaschii is an archaeon that thrives in extreme environments such as the hypothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans in which both temperature and pressure are extremely high. It can serve as a model organism for research purposes. This experiment is a first step toward elucidating the structure of this enzyme in M. jannaschii. Our summer research started using a partially purified enzyme preparation from previous experiments. We further purified the enzyme primarily ... Read More