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The Effects of Large vs Small Wave Stimuli on the Swim Distance of African Clawed Toads (Xenopus laevis)
Tatiana Ally, Katarina Tomac, Adam Syed, Jackson Casteel, and Kristy Tachji
The aquatic amphibian, African Clawed toads, also named Xenopus laevis, have been used to conduct experiments to analyze their sensory system. Toads use their lateral line system to detect water movement on the surface of the water to locate and catch their prey. This experiment analyzes the toad’s sensory system and the effectiveness of large and small wave stimuli on the toads’ ability to detect and swim to their prey. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether the swim distance of African Clawed toads is longer with large wave stimuli or small wave stimuli. Toads were put in an octagonal, glass-bottom aquarium where experiments were conducted using plastic rods and a motor to create wave stimuli. All experiments were recorded on video and analyzed by each frame to find similar trends in the data. The toad’s swim distance was found by using a Delphi program to digitize the stimulus origin, initial, and final positions of the toads during testing. Statistical analyses for the data was calculated using Stat graphics.
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Electrophysiology of Repetition Priming for Pseudowords and Words
Ashley Banks and Megan Farrell
Listeners typically recognize words they have heard recently more efficiently than words they have not heard recently; this is known as a repetition priming effect. When looking at Event Related Potentials (ERPs), which are the averaged encephalographic brain responses to a class of stimuli, it has been demonstrated that the repetition priming effect is observed in both early and late ERP time windows (Massol, Grainger, Midgley, & Holcomb, 2012). ERPs in early time windows (~150-300ms) are thought to reflect auditory sensory processing (Woodman, 2010) (Massol et al., 2012) (Coch & Mitra, 2010), while ERPs in late time windows (~400-700ms) are more sensitive to access of stored lexical representations (Kutas & Dale, 1997). We hypothesize that the repetition of pseudowords will primarily be reflected in early time windows (indicating only auditory sensory processing), while repetition of real words will occur in both early and late time windows. While we have yet to complete the study and obtain ERP data, preliminary data from 10 participants who participated in the visual norming piloting of stimuli has shown that averaged reaction times (RT) for pseudowords (RT=672.63ms) were significantly greater that reaction times for their corresponding low frequency words (RT= 612.96ms). The low frequency range for words was increased from 0-2 to 2-3 (Log SUBTLEX Frequency) in order to create a stronger set of stimuli.
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The Effects of Personality on Dyadic Discussions of Dating Violence
Kayla Barillas
Dating violence in the United States is a prevalent topic of discussion that has recently accumulated a heavy amount of discussion both from influential leaders as well as the general public, especially in regard to the MeToo Movement. Dating violence has significantly impacted the way we study intimate young adult relationships. Personality traits affect every aspect of daily behavior and responses to situations individuals experience throughout their lifetime, including the way partners in a relationship behave and respond. Using McCrae and Costa’s Five Factor Model of Personality, the “Big Five” traits that were examined are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. By analyzing the results of a personality inventory, four traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, were hypothesized to show correlated data to responses on dyadic dating vignettes. After the study was completed, only Extraversion and Openness showed significant results. Through the use of this study, the effect that personality has on young adult relationships can be better understood. In addition, this study may be beneficial to the development of new measuring techniques.
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Therapies Used to Treat School-Aged Victims of Sexual Abuse
Ariel Bell
There has been a rapid increase in sexual abuse against school-aged children in recent years. These crimes are detrimental to school-aged children and frequently result in damaging effects bio-psychosocially. When the effects of sexual abuse are not addressed with effective treatments, the issues may manifest throughout the child’s lifespan, into late adulthood, and beyond. This can lead to risky behavior as an adult and mental illnesses. Identifying effective therapies used to treat school-aged victims of sexual assault can be useful in moderating and mediating the consequences of sexual abuse and decrease the likelihood of the effects manifesting into adulthood. The objective of the present inquiry is to evaluate the most commonly used evidence-based therapies to treat school-aged victims of sexual assault. A meta-analysis will review 15 articles for therapies by frequency and categories: trauma-focused cognitive behavioral, play, and art. Preliminary results seem to indicate artistic forms of therapy are most frequently used to treat this population. The final results are currently pending.
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First Generation Students and the Influence of Support Resources
Nautica Bell
First generation college students who enter in to a 4 year university will not all make it through those 4 years because of lack of support or not having the proper skills that are needed to be successful. The purpose of this study is to focus on undergraduate students and executive functioning skills in correlation to first generation students versus non-first generation students. The question investigated is: Does a non-first generation student have better executive functioning skills than first generation students? Does having support from friends, family, professional advisors, and professors make a difference in a college student getting through school successfully? It is hoped that this study will inform researchers and others about how there is a difference between first generation students and non-first generation students in correlation to executive functioning skills. The correlation of emotional and academic support to first generation students will also be analyzed and hopefully understood. For this study we asked students to take a demographic survey and 2 self-reports/assessments, Brief-A and ATMS for executive functioning skills. After analyzing all data and variables, we found that there was no correlation or significant findings to executive functioning skills and being a first generation college student. We did find some variables that stood out such as the correlation of first generation students and the emotional and academic support that they receive. Results showed that the most emotional support was received from family and friends/peers and academic support was received more from professional advisors and professors.
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The Contributing Factors of the Retention of Math Corps Cleveland Participants
Saiida Bowie-Little
The Math Corps at Cleveland State University provides children with a sense of family and peer development, high standards and expectations, and challenging mathematics that incorporates cooperation as a skill of strength. The Math Corps at Cleveland State University Summer Camp has been operating for 7 years and has seen a return of participants, where participants are people who have applied, been accepted, and attend the program (in any role that Math Corps at Cleveland State University offers). This paper serves as an investigation of why participants have returned (or not) to Math Corps at Cleveland State University over the course of the Summer Camp operation.
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The Role of Future Time Perspective and Role Identity in Work Behaviors
Kiara Gray
Socioemotional Selectivity theory developed by Carstensen, Isaacowitz, and Charles (1999) has established that the way time is perceived (as expansive and full of opportunities or limited and full of limitations) influences the way an individual behaves. This is known as future time perspective. There is very little research applying this concept to job performance. Therefore, the present study analyzed the impact of future time perspective on the engagement in counterproductive work behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors with respect to an individual’s role identity. We found that a focus on limitations at work and at home are both positively related to CWB, but not related at all to OCB
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How Various Forms of Microaggressions Impact Identity Development
Ashley Guilford
Microaggressions a subtle form of racism that can be seen as insults towards a certain group. They include comments based on racial assumptions about criminality, intelligence, and even minimization or denial of the racialized experiences of people of color (Lewis, Mendenhall, Harwood, & Huntt, 2016). Microaggressions also occur based on other aspects of identity such as gender, disability, and sexual orientation (Lewis et. al., 2016). The purpose of this study is to understand members of marginalized groups experiences of microaggressions and how this may impact self-esteem, mental health, and body image satisfaction. The study will include an online survey which will ask about these experiences, as well as racial identity and body image satisfaction. Participants will also be asked for their demographic information.
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Variability and Stability of Gait in Stoke Survivors
Jemima Kennedy and Hala Osman
Individuals who have survived a stroke have unstable gait due to poor balance control which jeopardizes the safety of that individual. We analyzed the stability and variability of gait before and after exercise- interventions for individuals who have survived stroke to determine the effect of these interventions on the individual as well as any correlation between measured and perceived stability. 9 randomly assigned participants participated in three exercise interventions: (a) clinical physical therapy, (b) reactive slipping, and (c) video gaming. Kinematics of the participant were obtained using motion analysis and a treadmill equipped with force plates. There was an overall correlation between measured and perceived stability of gait. Exercise- interventions did not greatly improve perceived or measured stability of gait. Improvement of variability of gait varied between participants.
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Optimization of Isolation of O-Linked Glycopeptides
Juwan Lee, Earnest James, and Victoria Rich
Mucin type O-glycosylation is a common modification of proteins in higher organisms found on cell surfaces and secreted proteins. O-glycosylation is important in a variety of biological processes from development, the control of serum phosphate levels, and playing role in vascular and heart diseases and cancer. A family of 20 transferases (GalNAc-Ts) initiate mucin type O-glycosylation in humans by adding the sugar GalNAc onto Ser or Thr residues on targeted proteins. Since several diseases and cancers are specifically linked to the expression of individual GalNAc-T isoforms, there is a need to fully understand and characterize their specificities and determine what their protein targets are. The GalNAc-Ts contain a lectin domain and a catalytic domain that our lab has shown are involved in what their protein targets are. Therefore, each GalNAc-T has its own unique combination of specificities that recognizes peptide sequence and prior remote and neighboring GalNAc substrate glycosylation. There is a poor understanding of what sites glycosylated in vivo tissues and what transferase isoform(s) performs the glycosylation. This is difficult due to the heterogeneous nature of the O-linked glycans due to glycan chain elongation. In addition, the elongated glycans interfere with nearby protease sites, making it difficult to isolate O-linked glycopeptides. Together, these aspects make it difficult to obtain it and analyze sites of O-glycosylation in tissues. The Gerken Lab has developed a chemical approach using mild trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMSA) that can trim the extended O-linked glycans to the GalNAc residue. This approach eliminates glycan heterogeneity, permits better protease cleavage by trypsin and allows efficient glycopeptide isolation by lectin chromatography and in addition, greater ease of mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. My work was involved in helping to optimize the TFMSA, Trypsinolysis and lectin isolation steps. This involved performing lectin based Western blotting of the TFMSA reaction time course, demonstrating the inactivation of trypsin after sample digestion and to demonstrate the GalNAc-glycopeptide binding capacity of the lectin columns. My work on the TFMSA reaction time course gave inconclusive results thus more work needs to be done here. My study of the trypsin inactivation by heat was successful and my binding studies of the lectin column demonstrated that one of the columns had been partially inactivated. In addition, I began the processing of heart and muscle tissues from mice. Overall, these studies will be useful for the development of analytical approaches for determining sites of O-glycosylation in multiple tissues and will eventually be very useful in understanding what steps are O-glycosylated and which GalNAc-T isoforms are involved.
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The Role of STEM Faculty in Supporting African American Females in Their Courses
Briana Nichols
African American women, and student of color, are disproportionately underrepresented in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in recent years. The completion rate of undergraduate studies among African American women must be increased to address this inconsistency in the STEM fields. This study will address the role faculty play in helping to improve graduation rates among African American women in the STEM fields. This methodology will utilize a survey in four parts: (a.) faculty Demographics at a large Urban University; (b) faculty Teaching Strategies and Pedagogical beliefs; (c) Teaching Behavior; and (d) faculty-student interaction and success rate. The results will focus on the completion rate among African American women in the STEM fields. Results are currently pending.
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Random Linear Network Coding Simulations
R.J. Pereira-Castillo
Network coding is a widely studied theoretical networking scheme with the potential for improving digital communications. The scheme allows a network node to combine information from multiple edges onto a single edge. Message symbols are represented as elements in a finite field of the form 2n. In a broadcast scenario, network coding achieves information transmission rates at the network's mincut max-flow bound. This potential for improving network efficiency has motivated researchers to consider the practical implications of the scheme.
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How Does Knocking Down Specific Genes Cause Dysregulation in Metabolic Pathways?
Jasline S. Rosario
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is an arrhythmia that can cause stroke, heart failure and several other complications. The purpose of this research is to see how knocking down specific genes can cause dysregulation in metabolic pathways in the mitochondria. Oxidative stress on the mitochondria aids in the development of Atrial Fibrillation. A technique called gene knockdown is essential because we can manipulate and reduce genes in favor of what we are trying to find. [We use this technique in C2C12 myotubes because they relate to the way a human’s system works.] This needs to be done because if we can knockdown a certain gene, it could possibly aid in the prevention of atrial fibrillation and reduce the number of cases in patients. *
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The Quality of Online Sex and Health Information for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth
Maranda Santoya
Sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) are exploring the internet and social media to answer questions about sex and health information. It is important to determine whether the information provided on online resources provides necessary and proper sex education for SGMY. The present content analysis will explore the online resources that SGMY use to learn about sexual health information and the opinions of SGMY on the quality and accuracy of the sources. Three semi-structured, in-person focus groups were conducted with 17 youth (aged 14-19) who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, or queer/questioning. The transcripts were coded and analyzed using an inductive approach. Common themes were identified across youth narratives. Analysis indicates that much of the information SGMY explore has been educational and relevant when searching for sexual health information; however, the youth mention that not all of the information is realistic, safe, or inclusive to their needs. Results indicate the need to create easily accessible and accurate resources on the internet for SGMY. To provide quality services to SGMY, social workers must be educated on the opportunities and risks of online resources and be able to connect youth to accurate and applicable online sex and health resources.
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An Examination of the Relationship between Humiliation and Social Participation
Whitney Tyree
This study examines the relationship between humiliating experiences in both childhood and adulthood and social restriction level as an adult. Participants completed a two-part, web-based survey that included adapted versions of the Humiliation Inventory and the Participation Scale as well as demographic questions. Non-binary persons were found to have a significantly higher restriction level than men or women. Statistical analysis also indicated a strong positive correlation between humiliation and social restriction. The possible life-altering effect of being humiliated, particularly as a child, undergirds the need for dignity-based school policies that prevent humiliation from occurring in the school environment
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