2005 Posters
Poster Abstracts
Hiyam Ahmad, Dr. Paul Kirchman
A comparison of the effects of
manganese and copper-zinc superoxide dismutases on Saccharomyces cerevisiae growth
and survival
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Paul Kirchman
Aging is defined by some
as the exponentially increasing possibility of death with the age of the
organism. The free radical theory of aging states that oxygen radicals created
by the cell during energy metabolism are harmful and cause damage that leads
to cell death. This study compares the effect of superoxide dismutase on yeast
growth and survival. Superoxide dismutase is an enzyme that catalyzes the
first step of the reaction that converts superoxide oxygen radicals into water
and hydrogen peroxide. Saccharomyces cerevisiae has two genes that code
for different forms of superoxide dismutase enzymes, SOD1 and SOD2.
Strains with either SOD1 or SOD2 deletions were compared with a
wildtype strain. A double mutant was created in which SOD2 was deleted
from an SOD1- strain. A growth analysis was
performed with each mutant on glucose and glycerol media.
Emily Allard
Listeners’ Perceptions of Speech
And Language Disorders
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Dale
F. Williams, Dr. Julie Earles
For years, studies have
been conducted to assess public attitudes toward individuals with
communication disorders. For the most part, these studies have examined
individual disorders. In addition, examiners did not generally take into
account differences within their subject samples and those that did presented
mixed results with respect to how subject variables such as gender and
geographic location impact perceptions. The purpose of this study was to
assess attitudes toward a broad range of communication disorders and to
determine whether these attitudes were affected by within-subject variables.
This study supports previous research concluding that the public may still
hold negative stereotypes towards individuals with communication disorders. In
addition, the results indicate that there are differences in how the various
disorders were perceived. No evidence was found that these perceptions were
affected by subject age, gender, personal contact with anyone presenting a
communicative disorder, or whether subjects had lived in urban or rural
settings.
Rebecca Balter
The Five-Factor Model and
Contemporary Attitudes Towards Marginalized Groups
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Kevin
Lanning
In the wake of September 11th and
the Iraqi war, the United States remains preoccupied with terrorism, freedom,
and security. Is there a type of person who is more likely to value his or her
freedoms over security? Are there certain groups that ought to have more
liberties than others? If so, which groups and how much freedom? In the
present study, we address these questions in order to further our
understanding of prejudices toward marginalized groups in contemporary
society. We examined the attitudes individuals have towards these social
concerns as well as towards marginalized groups such as African Americans,
Arab Americans, women, and homosexuals.
Gabriela Botta and Dr. Paul Kirchman
Copper supplementation extends yeast life span under conditions requiring respiratory metabolism
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Paul Kirchman
The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used as a model for cellular aging. Life span
determinations of yeast have historically been carried out on media containing
glucose as a carbon source. On media containing glucose, yeast utilize both
fermentation and respiration, which occurs in mitochondria, to generate
energy. Experiments were initiated that force yeast to use only respiration to
generate energy. Glycerol, a non-fermentable carbon source, was used in
growth assays. It was found that supplementation with copper increased growth
rate. Life span analysis on media containing glycerol as a carbon source
showed that yeast have a similar life span when glycerol is used as a carbon
source to that previously found with glucose as a carbon source. However, the
addition of copper to the plates used for life span analysis increase life
span. The extent of the increase was strain dependent. The implications of
these results will be discussed.
Heather J. Boyer
Cosmetics and the Composition of
Femininity
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu
Njambi
Makeup is one of the oldest forms of decorative
technology. Using makeup to enhance facial features began with the Egyptians
in 4000 BC, and for thousands of years, men and women used cosmetics to
enhance facial features and to create an artificial representation of self and of beauty. But today's makeup is overwhelmingly
associated with women, especially in Western societies. My research will
demonstrate the role that cosmetics plays in the making of femininity. On one
hand,
cosmetics are empowering to women because they provide them with the option of
creating a mask that disrupts the notion of "natural" beauty. In other words,
women are empowered by wearing makeup because it allows them to challenge "nature" and to fool
others by presenting an alternate version
of the self. On the other hand, makeup can also be oppressive because much of
Western society judges the made-up face as the most attractive female face,
creating an expectation that all women must wear makeup in order to be
considered beautiful.
Morgan L. Cable
Developing Novel Methods for the
Detection of Bacterial Spores in Extreme Environments
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Rakesh Mogul
Bacterial spores (endospores),
produced by certain bacteria under stress, are the most robust form of life on
earth. Detection of endospores has applications both in anti-terrorism
efforts (anthrax) and in the search for life in our solar system, particularly
on Mars. We are developing new methods for detecting bacterial spores based
on a unique chemical marker, dipicolinic acid (DPA), to quantify endospore
concentrations in soils obtained from extreme environments such as the Atacama
Desert in Chile. Specifically, we investigated several methods to optimize
the extraction efficiency of DPA from soils quantified by UV absorption
spectroscopy. Results suggest a high extraction efficiency (68%) and low
limit of detection (45mM) for Lab sand and Atacama Desert soil (71%), though
these depreciate with increasing soil matrix complexity. In addition, we are
evaluating cooperative binding effects to enhance the limit of detection and
selectivity for the Tb-DPA luminescence assay using fluorescence excitation.
An optimized procedure for rapid detection of endospores in soils will allow
us to quantify the distribution and viability of the toughest form of life in
the most extreme environments.
Satu Correa
Cultural/Social Practices and
the Naturalization of Gender Roles
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu
Njambi
Today, the sex of a baby
can be determined even before it is born by using ultrasound imaging; babies
are dressed according to their gender (pink for girls, blue for boys); and
children play with gender-specific toys (girls with My Little Ponies, boys
with Transformers). What my research will show is how gender is constructed
through technologies such as those indicated above. In this
sense, my research will be looking at some of the ways in which the difference
between men and women becomes naturalized even before children are born. My
research will also be looking at some of the social implications of the
naturalization of gender roles.
Shannon, Edmund Malinowski, and Eugene Smith
Reduction Potential of FAD
Determined by Spectroelectrochemistry using Factor Analysis
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Eugene Smith
Flavins (FAD) are
ubiquitous biological redox centers that serve as electron carriers in the
oxidation of fuel molecules as follows: FAD + 2H+ + 2e- → FADH2. Since the proton and electron transfer steps are coupled,
the equilibrium constants for individual steps in the reaction mechanism have
not been established. In this preliminary study, individual species involved
in this reaction mechanism were identified and quantified as a function of
experimental conditions. This task was accomplished using two methods:
spectroelectrochemistry and factor analysis. The first method is a hybrid
electrochemical method that spectroscopically determines species
concentrations as a function of solution potential. Factor analysis is a
statistical technique used to analyze large arrays of experimental
measurements for unique features. The final step of this investigation, which
will be the goal of future studies, is to calculate the values of the
equilibrium constants based on additional experiments developed by this study.
Kari Edelson
The Effect of Mitochondrial Mutations and Membrane Potential on Metabolic Activity of Yeast
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Paul Kirchman
Metabolism is defined as the sum of all the chemical reactions taking place within a cell. Through metabolic processes, food is ingested by an organism, broken down into smaller components, and converted to a form of energy more useful to the cell. The electron transport chain, which is part of respiration, takes place in the mitochondria and is where most of the cell’s energy is produced. Mitochondrial mutations, as well as alterations in the functional abilities of uncoupling proteins, have the potential to affect metabolic efficiency. Changes in metabolism due to mutations in mitochondrial DNA were detected by growing yeast mutants in aerobic conditions and calculating their individual growth rates. When yeast were treated with CCCP, a chemical which alters uncoupling activity, respiratory growth rates were also significantly affected. Further research is needed to determine if this data could potentially be useful in solving the problem of obesity in humans.
Katie Glatthorn, Misty Hudelson
Actor Similarity and Unconscious Transference in Eyewitness Memory
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Julie Earles, and Dr. Alan W. Kersten
Eyewitness memory is often the only tool that we have to determine an individual’s innocence or guilt. A problem, known as unconscious transference, can occur when a witness incorrectly matches an innocent person with the crime based on the witness’ familiarity with that person. We expected that unconscious transference was more likely to occur when the actors were the same sex than if the actors were of different sexes. Forty college students viewed 60 simple actions, such as someone flipping a coin. One week later, participants viewed 72 events. After viewing each event, participants were asked if they had seen that actor perform that action at encoding. Our results confirmed our hypothesis that participants were more likely to make binding errors with conjunction items in which the actors were similar (i.e., when the actors were of the same sex).
Chauncey Graham
Men, Women, and Cooking: Household Technology and the Construction of Gender
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimũ Njambi
The Western industrial revolution facilitated an increased focus on technological advancement. For instance, cooking has been transformed through technological advancements of industrialization, and has become more complex and involved. Cooking, once an activity shared by all the members of the household (like many other household chores) became associated with women as a result of the 'separate spheres' doctrine that associated men with the public and women with private (household) arena. Industrialization also brought with it a notion of "true womanhood" which was measured solely on the basis of what a woman did within the household. My research will show how the act of cooking has been used in the construction of gender and the defining of "womanhood," and the resulting societal implications.
Nikki Grottano
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero?
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu Njambi
Gender is created based on elements of society; ever since birth it is implicit in our lives, especially in the technologies we utilize. Historically, children in middle class America are given technologies at a young age that reinforce our innately patriarchal framework, which is not beneficial to any but the white middle class male. By strictly defining gender for children with G.I. Joe comic books and Barbie dolls, Americans are not problematizing gender laws and are thereby encouraging the further oppression of anyone fighting for equal rights. My research will show how technologies for children create separate spheres for them to place women and men on different levels.
Meghan D. Hoffman
Impact on Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches Along Florida’s Atlantic Coast: The Effects of Artificial Lighting, Beach Renourishment, and Beach Armoring
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Jon Moore
Florida has the highest concentration of sea turtle nesting beaches in the United States. Female sea turtles deposit between 40,000 and 70,000 nests every year. Florida is a year round vacation and retirement destination drawing millions to its sandy beaches yearly. I investigated how development and conservation come together to preserve sea turtles. Sea Turtle protection policies need to be created and monitored so turtle nesting beaches are preserved. It has been well documented that artificial lighting near sea turtle nesting beaches disorients both nesting females and emerging hatchlings. Increasing development along the Florida’s coast interferes with the natural processes between land and sea by accelerating erosion, calling for erosion control (beach renourishment and beach armoring), which adversely affects sea turtle nesting. Are the conservation efforts and management planes in Palm Beach County effectively reducing the negative impacts of humans and sea turtles trying to occupy the same space?
Amanda Kennedy
Just Reproductive Vessels? A Feminist Critique of Gendered Technology
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu Njambi
Technology, like any human endeavor, is value-laden (though we often forget this and label science “objective”). Science produces, reproduces, and informs culture in both positive and negative ways. As Eileen Leonard explains, “technology is typically envisioned and implemented within the parameters of inequality that fracture our society. In this way, it reflects and even reproduces prevailing social relations, extending rather than eradicating the inequality associated with gender, race, or class” (2003). My research focuses on the construction of female sexuality and female bodies through the Western technologies of contraception, reproduction, and orgasm. Critical analysis of science and technology must involve a look at how gender stereotypes limit women’s access to technology. Additionally, such an analysis should offer a contextualization and critique of certain problematic notions, including the universalized or biological body, what it means to be “natural,” and the idea of progress.
Erin Kidwell
The Induction and Resuscitation of Various Escherichia coli Strains into and from the ‘Viable but Non-Culturable’ State
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Paul Kirchman
E. coli resides naturally in human and animal intestines. Outside the body, the fate of E. coli depends on whether it is ingested back into the intestines or remains in the open environment. Seawater is relatively limited in available nutrients and does not always maintain conditions necessary for bacterial survival. Under the highly stressful conditions of seawater, E. coli can enter a “viable but non-culturable” (VBNC) state. Regulatory proteins, such as RpoS, and enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), help E. coli fend against these environmental stresses. Preliminary results indicate that an environmental E. coli isolate has the ability to avoid entering the VBNC state longer than three laboratory strains (wildtype, rpoS—and sodA—sodB—). Specifically, enumeration has shown that the environmental strain cultures 20-30 times more colonies than the sod double mutant strain and 2-3 times more than the wildtype and rpoS— strains. Resuscitation results are pending.
Atalia Lapkin
The Construction of Gender through Corsets and Brassieres
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu Njambi
Gender is not an innate phenomenon but rather a cultural construction based upon established cultural and societal norms. The historical construction of maleness and femaleness has been manifested from certain gendered ideals of appearance and behavior and have been perpetuated and reinforced by artifacts such corsets and brassieres, which literally force the female body into a specific form that has been declared feminine. My research will show will show how technology helps to make bodies into specific genders, thus disrupting the idea that gender is natural, not constructed.
Gretchen Myers
Technologies of Changing/Blurring Genders, From Drag Performance to Transsexual Surgery
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Wairimu Njambi
Gender is a cultural product, not a natural given. Gendered Technologies serve to shape gender in various ways, usually to reinforce the binary gender system by emphasizing the connections between biological maleness and culturally-constructed masculinity, biological femaleness and culturally-constructed femininity. In this project, I will focus on gendered technologies that are used to cross and/or blur traditional gender boundaries by endowing biologically male bodies with feminine characteristics and biologically female bodies with masculine characteristics. These technologies range from drag performance in which unambiguously-sexed bodies are covered with the clothing/accessories of the “opposite” gender to transsexual surgery in which bodies are physically altered to embody the “opposite” gender. I will discuss how, at times, these technologies reify the binary gender system and, at other times, represent an attempt to subvert this system and instead reveal the performative nature of gender.
Annemarie K. Phelan, Julie L. Earles, Ph.D., Alan W. Kersten, Ph.D.
Does context affect event memory?
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Julie Earles
When a person witnesses an event, individual features are bound together to form a complex memory in a process called feature binding. Sometimes, at recall, the brain incorrectly binds familiar features from separate memories. This is especially relevant in the courtroom when a familiar and innocent person is mistaken for a criminal. We investigated whether the context of events affect the occurrence of binding errors. Participants were more likely to make binding errors when a familiar actor was from the same context (seen at encoding) than when a familiar actor was from a different context. Thus, a familiar person from the scene of a crime is more likely to be mistakenly identified as the criminal than a familiar person seen at a different location. Clearly, people use contextual clues when recalling events.
Bianca Pintado, Jennifer Becker, Alan Kersten, and Julie Earles
Verb Learning in Young Children
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Alan Kersten and Dr. Julie Earles
In this study I examined whether or not children attend to objects when learning new verbs, and if there are differences between English and Spanish speakers when learning these new verbs. The participants in this study were 3 to 5 years old and enrolled in local preschools. These children were shown a puppet show featuring two novel creatures performing two different actions that do not have a single-word label in English or Spanish. These actions were given new one-word names, and we tested to see if the children also attended to the object when learning these verbs. We found that both English- and Spanish-speaking children attended to both the object and motion when learning a new verb, implying that children must first understand an object before they understand the verbs accompanying it, and that children learn verbs similarly across languages.
Danielle R. Reis and Shelia M. Kennison, Ph.D.
The Effect of Trigram Frequency on Second Language Acquisition: Learning French Vocabulary
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Julie Earles
A series of vocabulary learning and recall tasks, presented to 36 undergraduates enrolled in second-semester French language classes, tested the extent to which the acquisition of second language vocabulary was influenced by the orthographic similarity of the L2 (second language) word with characteristics of L1 (first language) in general. Students were presented twice with 36 novel French (L2) vocabulary words, with initial trigrams that are found frequently, infrequently, or not at all in the English (L1) language, and which were associated with sham English translations for learning and retention. Recall tests were administered directly following the learning task and again one week later. Recall performance immediately after the study phase was highest for French words whose initial trigrams did not occur in English and this condition was significantly different from the low trigram frequency condition. Recall performance one week later showed a similar trend, but the difference among conditions was not significant.
Stephanie Sabshin
The Big Cat Barrier
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Travis Lybbert
Big Cat Rescue (BCR) is a non-profit sanctuary for wild cats located in Tampa Florida. This sanctuary is home for over 150 wild cats. With so many mouths to feed, the total cost of running BCR takes $2,000 per day (this does not include emergency veterinarian care). The only revenue at BCR comes from donations and fees charged for tours through the sanctuary. The total revenue from tours on an average weekday ranges from $600 to $2,000 per day. The total revenue on an average weekend ranges from about $1,000 to $2,000. The costs at BCR that are not covered by the daily tour fees are paid through donations, the majority of which come from the founder, Carole Lewis.
BCR is currently struggling to protect their cats from encroaching development. This requires an 8 foot high concrete perimeter wall that will prevent trespassing. Trespassers could put the lives of the cats in danger, as well as their own. The perimeter of their property is approximately 7,000 feet. To build a wall this long would cost the sanctuary a total of $560,000. The purpose of this project is to find a way to fit such an expense into the budget of a self-sustaining non-profit sanctuary.
Sara C. Tippins
Creative Fanaticism: Fan Art in the Information Age
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Christopher Strain
Fan Art is an increasingly popular social phenomenon of the Twentieth Century and early Twenty-First Century. While the authors and artists who lend their talents to the creation of Fan Art are passionately devoted to it, the idea of Fan Art is problematic. Fan Artists, Authors, and even Directors use pre-existing creative products and alter them for their own purposes. Fan Art is original creative ends acquired by unoriginal means: can this constitute genuine "art"? The Postmodern Era and the creation of the internet made possible the spread of fanatic ideas and creative products, but do these products constitute "art" according to the era in which they are created?
Daniela Tortora and Dr. James Wetterer
Ants in myrmecophytic orchids (Caularthron spp.) of Trinidad
Advisor/Professor: Dr. James Wetterer
Caularthron spp. are epiphytic orchids with specialized hollow pseudobulbs that house ants. We studied ants living in Caularthron bicornutum and Caularthron bilamellatum in Trinidad. We collected C. biornutum from a wide variety of trees in secondary growth forests along the north coast of Trinidad and collected C. bilamellatum from large shad trees in urban areas on the island’s central plain. We found ants in 16 of 20 orchid clusters, with 1-3 ant species per cluster. Collectively, ants represented 13 different species, all native to the Neotropics, seven of which had not been previously reported from Trinidad.
Jessica A. Wassung; Tory Nicole Spokane; Danielle L. Boutte
Memory Errors of Older Adults: The Prevalence of Unconscious Transference Related to Age
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Julie Earles and Dr. Alan Kersten
Previous studies support the existence of the memory phenomena known as unconscious transference, and the effect the hippocampus may have on its likelihood to occur. The present study examines the occurrence of unconscious transference in both younger and older adults. Older adults identifying movie clips they had first seen a week before had more incidences of responding “old” to a video clip in which both the actor and the action had been seen before, but not together. This demonstrates the susceptibility of older adults to unconscious transference. Because hippocampal tissue decreases in volume with age, the results also support the hypothesis that the hippocampus is a vital agent in the binding of memories from working to long term memory.
Erica J. Young and Patrick Monnier
Subthreshold Patterns can Cause Shifts in Color Appearance
Advisor/Professor: Dr. Patrick Monnier
Chromatic induction refers to shifts in color appearance of a target color caused by the colors presented nearby. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that inducing patterned backgrounds so low in chromatic contrast that they cannot be distinguished can still induce shifts in color appearance. In a preliminary experiment, discrimination threshold for a pattern was measured using an adaptive method (staircase). A non-signal interval contained two uniform achromatic backgrounds presented side by side. A signal interval contained one uniform achromatic background and one patterned background composed of purple/lime circles. The non-signal and signal intervals were randomly presented and the task was to indicate which interval was the signal interval. In the main experiment, discrimination threshold was estimated with the same backgrounds, with the addition of a test ring located in the central portion of the purple/lime patterned background. Chromatic contrast thresholds in the main experiment were significantly lower, by about a factor of 2. This indicates that a purple/lime patterned background with a test ring is more visible than the same purple/lime patterned background without a test ring. This surprising result and additional control experiments suggest an inducing pattern that is not visible (subthreshold) still causes color shifts. |
