Readership Map
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About the Collection
The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) provides students with the opportunity to present their research at three annual undergraduate research symposia. This collection contains student posters.
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Characterization of USP7 substrates in the brain
Jose Itorralba, Sage Boss, Shahraiz Akbar, Hayley Baker, and Chinglan Chang
12-9-2022Loss of function lesions in Ubiquitin-specific protease (USP) 7 are associated with intellectual disability, speech delay, autism spectrum disorder, and seizures. While the deubiquitinating activity of USP7 has been characterized in cancer, its role in neurological conditions is not understood. Here, we show that USP7 can regulate the development of the brain by localizing to synaptosomes in the hippocampus and stabilizing neural-specific substrates.
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A Literature Review on Developments in Timber Design and Its Impact on Carbon Emissions
Raquel Jackson
12-9-2022Carbon dioxide emissions are a growing issue worldwide as urbanization and industrialization continues to increase (ie. Steel and concrete). Non-renewable resources limit steel and concrete production. Despite current methods to reduce greenhouse gasses, carbon emissions remain difficult to reduce from steel and concrete industries.
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The Effects of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Exports to Italy
Stephen Johnson, Ryder Hankins, and Nathan Carter
4-27-2022Italy imported 122,000 tons of soft wheat from Ukraine and 72,000 from Russia. During the current events international food and feed prices have increased by 8 to 22% causing mass shortages around the world. On top of the ethical and moral dilemmas of continuing business with Russia, insurance premiums have jumped 400% for doing business with the invading country.
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Teaching How to Recycle Through the Medium of Virtual Reality
Nathan Kassai
12-9-2022Students, especially children in elementary and middle school, have difficulty focusing and or absorbing information from their courses. The problem lies in the scarcity of hands-on/interactive elements in classrooms as most lectures contain topics most students would be interested in but are presented in a monotonous way. To properly educate and inspire students to work on improving their academic knowledge, alternative educational mediums must be sought. Such mediums like Virtual and Augmented Reality allow students to interact with virtual objects to learn more about a wide variety of subjects, hence increasing their engagement and enjoyment in any particular topic. The educational platform used for this research allowed students to engage and participate in activities that allowed them to learn more about a particular subject, in this case, recycling. Results showed that those who used this platform had retained information better than those who used traditional classroom methods to learn by comparing test scores between the two groups. Such platforms should be integrated into classrooms to enhance students’ learning experience. For this research project, an Oculus Quest HMD was used to place students in a virtual environment. However, this HMD was priced around $300-$400 and many other HMD’s on the market are priced in the thousands. Despite this drawback, other mediums exist to educate students such as Augmented Reality (AR) since these types of applications can run on any smartphone. Future research entails exploring the medium of AR and determining what types of educational applications can come from it.
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The Role of Interference in Short-Term Forgetting
Monserrat Leal-Arcos, Gabriel Hull, Francisco Sanchez, Rhiannon N. Soriano Smith, and William B. Ridgway
4-27-2022Two explanations have been proposed to explain forgetting: decay (forgetting occurs as a function of time) and interference (mental activity can impinge on the consolidation of a recently acquired memory). Wickelgren (1974) proposed a model of forgetting which suggests that forgetting is a function of both decay and interference, best expressed as a power-exponential function. The present research will be the first to directly examine whether Wickelgren's model accurately predicts the observed effects of these two components on forgetting. This research will further the study of human memory by improving current models, and helping to resolve the debate surrounding decay and interference.
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Recognition Memory for Auditory and Visual Objects
Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Kevin Mohawk, and Laura Werner
4-27-2022Visual object memory is superior to auditory object memory. Our past research showed that auditory memory was less sensitive to divide attention during study, which may be attributable to representational differences between auditory memory and visual memory.
In the present study, we attempted to equate auditory and visual memory representations in order to adequately investigate the impact of dividing attention on recognition memory.
Recognition memory is thought to rely on two distinct processes, recollection and familiarity. Recollection involves the retrieval of precise qualitative detail and is the most sensitive to dividing attention.
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Investigating the impact of dividing attention on auditory and visual object memory
Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Laura L.S. Werner, Kevin D. Mohawk, and Maggie McMullin
12-9-2022Recently, we found that dividing attention reduced recollection and familiarity for visual objects, but a different pattern emerged for auditory object memory: auditory object recollection was not affected by dividing attention. This could be attributable to differing levels of baseline performance with visual memory far exceeding auditory memory. Thus, we attempted to equate baseline performance in both modalities in order to adequately investigate the previous findings.
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You Never Walk Alone: How BTS Supports ARMY Mental Health and Well-Being
Melissa Le
4-27-2022BTS is a seven-membered South Korean boyband with a fandom named "ARMY." Music is generally associated with increased mental health, but not all types of music genres have been studied yet. With the current rise of Korean popular music (K-pop), it is important to understand what makes this genre popular and why fans claim it has improved their mental health. As BTS is currently the most popular K-pop group globally, they provide a unique look at how their music can help fans with depression and anxiety.
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Biochar Hydrophilicity Characterization by a Smartphone-Based Apparatus: Design, Construction, and Measurement Calibration
Emma Letourneau and Suraj Pochampally
4-27-2022Water contact angles are used to determine hydrophilicity, which is a material's attraction to water. A water contact angle of greater than 90 degrees indicates a hydrophobic material that repels water, whereas a contact angle of less than 90 degrees indicates a hydrophilic material [Fig. 1]. Water contact angles are measured through a goniometer, which can cost between $2000 to $10,000.
Biochar is a porous carbon material created from biological waste products, that is pyrolyzed (i.e. burned) in a low-oxygen, high heat environment. Biochar can be used to remove contaminants from water and remediate soil while reusing waste, making it an excellent environmentally-friendly material. The biochar feedstock type and pyrolysis temperature impacts the resulting biochar's material properties, including hydrophilicity.
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Identification of lipid species: potential biomarkers for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma
Kit Yee Leung and KayLee Freitas
4-27-2022Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer. HCC is associated with cirrhosis. Poor survival rate of HCC is due to diagnosis of HCC at late stage.
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Are They Satisfied Enough to Go Above and Beyond?
Alexandra Lungu
12-9-2022Drawing on self-determination theory, this study examines the relationship between paradoxical leadership and service employees' work behaviors.
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Palm Oil and Exported Deforestation
Anja Marcusiu and Alexis Osorio
4-27-2022Palm oil is used in our everyday lives through: Beautify/hygiene products; Bioenergy; Food. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 85% of the world's palm oil production, making them the largest exporters. Because palm oil is a highly productive crop and is in high demand, how do companies integrate sustainability to limit deforestation and preserve biodiversity?
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Forgetting in Item Recognition and Pattern Separation
Mateo Marquez and Rhiannon Soriano Smith
4-27-2022Forgetting is commonly defined as the inability to access information that was once successfully encoded and could be retrieved with a cue, but now leads to memory failure (Frankland et al. 2013).
Memory representations based in the hippocampus engage in pattern separation and are more prone to decay than interference (Sadeh & Pertrzov, 2020).
Extra-hippocampal representations are more prone to interference than decay (Hardt et al. 2013).
Pattern Separation refers to keeping memory representations distinct from one another.
Is there more decay in pattern separation and more interference in item recognition?
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School Standard
Adrian Montenegro
12-9-2022Neglecting the importance of student education only serves to decrease the morale amongst students. These new implementations are only reminders of the danger present in today’s schools. Unfortunately, communities are never the same after a tragedy, impacting generations to come. Why are students still being punished after the tragedies.
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Nuclear Power Plant in Las Vegas
Ryan W. Murray
12-9-2022This research focuses on the impact of a “Nuclear Power Plant in Las Vegas” or ‘NPP in LV’ for short. Nuclear power is clean, has no greenhouse gas emissions, and has a moderate cost of kilowatt hours. Las Vegas, or more specifically Clark County uses Gas power plants to produce a majority of their electricity. My project will show what a nuclear plant could do if built in the city of Las Vegas. What is a Nuclear power plant? The EIA’s definition is “A nuclear power plant uses the heat that a nuclear reactor produces to turn water into steam, which then drives turbine generators that generate electricity” (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2020). Currently the U.S. uses two types of nuclear reactors, either Boiling-water or Pressurized-water nuclear reactors. The most used currently is the Pressurized-water reactor. EIA explains “A steam generator is a giant cylinder filled with non radioactive water (or clean water). Inside the giant water-filled cylinder are thousands of tubes filled with the hot radioactive water from the reactor core that eventually bring the clean water to a boil and turn it into steam. The radioactive water flows back to the reactor core to be reheated, and once reheated, returns to the steam generator” (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2020). The main advantage of the pressurized water reactor is that it will only contaminate a fixed amount of water which is constantly reused inside the system.
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Malice Within Meanness in Psychopathy Predicts Unrestricted Sociosexuality
Michal Newhouse-Van Vlerin
12-9-2022This study examines the relationship between the Meanness in Psychopathy-Self Report Short Form (MiP-SR-SF) and the Sociosexuality Orientation Inventory-Revised (SOI-R). It links the fields of personality and sexual functioning.
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U.S./Russia Export Relationship
Adam Nishino, Mohammad Saad Bin Shahzad, Yonathan Assefa, and Trel Lakindanum
4-27-2022Russia and the United States have a long history of trading as early as 1913. Over the years, Russia has become a notable player in US imports. By using the United States Census database and the Office of the United States Trade Representative database. In short, our research will discuss the trade relationship between Russia and the United States over the last century, through history and data analytics, and its effects on trade and politics to the rest of the world.
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Climate Change Hope Scale: Factor Analysis in an Adult Sample
Gemma Ortega, Steven J. Glover, Jesse Tabaczynksi, and Orei Z. Odents
4-27-2022Willpower - how much individuals believe that set goals can be met. Waypower - the extent to which individuals can think of strategies for accomplishing those goals.
The Climate Change Hope Scale (CCHS; Li & Monroe, 2017) was designed to measure three aspects of hope: 1. Personal sphere willpower and waypower (WP) 2. Collective sphere willpower and waypower (CW) 3. Lack of willpower and waypower (LW).
A three-factor model fits the CCHS among adolescents. The purpose of our study was to determine if the three-factor model fits the CCHS in adults.
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The Effect of Sleep and Emotion on Pattern Separation
Alanna N. Osmanski and Laisha Sanchez Espitia
12-9-2022Slow wave sleep has been considered an important aspect of memory consolidation, most commonly through a model known as active systems consolidation. Newly encoded memories are repeatedly activated, driven by slow oscillations that occur in the neocortex. A widely accepted view is that emotional memories are preferentially consolidated during sleep making them easily obtainable for retrieval. However, recent meta-analyses of sleep, emotion, and memory have suggested that this effect may not be as robust as we once thought. A relatively new way to investigate sleep and emotional effects on memory is with a pattern separation task called the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST). The current study examined pattern separation and item recognition using an emotional variation of the MST consisting of negative and neutral images.
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Antibiotic Production of Facultative Anaerobic Bacteria from Soil Isolates
Cierra Paaaina-Daquioag and Debra Kerr
12-9-2022In nature, antibiotics are produced by organisms to deter and possibly communicate with other organisms. The use of antibiotics to treat infections revolutionized medicine, but bacteria and fungal pathogens become resistant due to the overuse of these medications. A potential solution is to search for novel antibiotics produced by soil bacteria. Bacteria gene expression patterns, including antibiotic production, are different under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The objective of this research project was to identify soil bacteria that produce antibiotics that inhibit the growth of benign relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. A secondary objective was to adapt the results for a microbiology course-based research experience in the School of Life Sciences.
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Synthesis of Modified Walnut Shell Biochar and Material Characterization in Ground Water Treatment
Maaike Parajes and Suraj Pochampally
4-27-2022Biochar (BC) is a carbon-rich material synthesized from the pyrolysis of biomasses and developed to remove soil and wastewater contaminants. The pyrolysis process involves thermally decomposing the organic materials in the absence of oxygen. Biochar has the potential to be an eco-friendly and effective adsorbent for heavy metals and toxic organic compounds. An adsorbent is a material that attracts other substances on its surface, chemically and physically. Walnut shells were chosen for the biochar modification to improve the surface morphology, pore structure, and adsorption capability.
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Exporting U.S. Cosmetics to China's Lower-Tier Cities
Kaitlynn Quach and Audrey Stephanie
4-27-2022What is the cosmetics market like in China's lower-tier cities for U.S. brands? In order to create market entry strategies, China has city-tier classifications that are commonly used in business. Classifications are based on GDP, political administration, and population. In 2020, Chinese consumers spent more than ¥340.0 Billion RMB ($53.46 Billion) on cosmetic products. This number increases from year to year and is especially affected by globalization. The United States is one of the top exporters of cosmetics brands.
Although popular, United States cosmetics brands face strong competition in China's first-tier cities. First-tier cities are considered the largest and wealthiest cities in China. Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are some of the most well known first-tier cities.
On the other side, China's lower-tier cities are less populated and have a smaller GDP. With the growth of lower-tier cities in China such as Guilin and Hulin, there may be more opportunities to gain awareness, market share, and loyal customers long-term.
This research explores the benefits of exporting U.S. cosmetics brands to lower-tier cities in China. All personal care products are referred to as cosmetics.
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The Meta-Mood Experience: Exploring the One-, Three-, and Four-Factor Models of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale
Zain N. Raja, Jerald J. Novero, Susan E. Gutierrez, Orei Z. Odents, and Fitsum A. Ayele
4-27-2022The meta-mood experience involves "thinking about mood, examining the relation between mood and thoughts, maintaining good moods, and altering bad moods" (Mayer & Gaschke, 1988). Meta-mood can help individuals have a better grasp of what they are feeling at different times.
The 30-item Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS; Salovey et al., 1995) measures the extent to which people attend to, distinguish among, and regulate their mood and emotions.
Salovey et al. (1995) found three factors (Emotional Attention, Clarity, and Repair), while Palmer et al. (2003) found evidence for a fourth but left it unnamed.
We named the fourth factor in our study Emotional Susceptibility because this factor looks at how easily influenced the participants are in regard to their mood and emotions.
Censoring occurs when the value of a variable is only partially known (Gijbels, 2010). If there are a significant number of people that are scoring 1 on an item, there could be left-censoring. This is because low scores on the item fail to reflect low levels of the dimension that is being measured.
Our study aimed to determine whether the one-factor, three-factor, or four-factor models fits the data the best when we assumed that participants may have censored values on some of the TMMS items.
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Musicality, Misophonia Sensitivity, and Responsiveness to Misophonia Videos
Alexis Rice, Jennifer Hsu, Kaela Omengan, and Sivan Barashy
12-9-2022Misophonia sensitivity as measured by the A-MISO-S predicts emotional responses to misophonia trigger videos, but musical sophistication (Gold MSI scores) did not. A measure of real-time responses to videos can capture a meaningful aspect of misophonic experience in the general population. Future research should investigate whether more direct measures of musicality such as perceptual tasks will show a relationship between musicality and misophonic reactions.
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Misophonia Sensitivity is Related to Enhanced Responsiveness to Misophonia, ASMR and Musical Frisson
Alexis Rice, Kiara O'Keefe, Kacey Chang, Sivan Barashy, Solena Mednicoff, and Destiny Gonzales
4-27-2022Misophonia: a condition in which specific everyday sounds (e.g., chewing, breathing) trigger an atypical, negative emotional response.
ASMR: a sensory phenomenon triggered by stimuli that induce a state of relaxation, positive feelings, and tinging sensations that spread from the head to the rest of the body.
Musical frisson: typically characterized by positive affect and strong physiological reactions, such as shivering, goosebumps, and teary-eyes in response to highly pleasurable music.