Category: Poster Presentation

Racialized and Gendered Justice in the Criminal Court System

Presenter(s): Joy Wilcox

Faculty Mentor(s): Debra Thompson

Poster 97

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

Criminal courts facilitate mass incarceration and the disproportionate incarceration of people of color, especially Black people, and Black men in particular. While other research has been done around this topic, this study offers insight into how exactly this is produced in the courtroom specifically. This study sought to observe (1) the potential use of coded language in the courtroom as a proponent of mass incarceration, (2) the reproduction of race and gender-based biases in the criminal justice system, and (3) the role of the courts in both mass incarceration, and the disproportionate representation within the incarcerated population. This study employed an observational research approach which included the accumulation of both quantitative and qualitative data by recording the race and gender of main courtroom actors, every reference to race, gender, and/or class made in the courtroom, and a brief overview of each case in order to contextualize this information. The types of cases observed during this project include: Attempted Robbery, Burglary, Child Endangerment, Possession of a Controlled Substance with Intent to Sell, Robbery, and Theft (including Vehicle Theft). This study found that defendants for these cases were disproportionately Black and Latinx men, while the other main courtroom actors were disproportionately White, with all categories other than prosecutors also being disproportionately men. The structural dependency on police within the courtroom resulted in the court legitimizing all police discretion with no interrogation of bias. When defendants and their legal representation attempted to discuss any identity-based bias of the criminal justice system before a jury trial, this attempt was stopped by the judge. This study concluded that in order to produce justice, anti-racism must be made a genuine priority of the criminal justice system.

The effects of leucine, arginine and lysine, and HMB stimulation of anabolic and catabolic mechanisms on myoblasts

Presenter(s): Lillian Wheary

Co Presenter(s): Sam Kirby, Nick Belair

Faculty Mentor(s): Hans Dreyer & Doug Foote

Poster 27

Session: Sciences

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures are projected to increase nearly seven-fold to 3.4 million per year in the U.S. by 2030. Nearly all patients undergoing this surgery experience some degree of muscle loss during the first two weeks after surgery. Although effective at eliminating osteoarthritic pain, muscle atrophy and functional deficits persist. Essential amino acid (EAA) supplementation has been successful used by us in mitigating muscle atrophy after TKA. To understand how EAAs work at the cellular level, we isolated myoblasts from biopsies. Our goal was to model the cellular responses to anabolic stimuli using cell culture methods. Our objectives were: 1) isolate myoblasts from biopsies with >80% purity, 2) measure changes in anabolic mTORC1 response to anabolic amino acids (leucine, lysine and arginine (LRK)) ± insulin, and 3) measure changes to the leucine metabolite hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB). Cells were seeded and myogenic purity confirmed via immunocytochemistry (ICC). Phosphorylation status of anabolic and catabolic signaling were determined. Preliminary results: isolating myoblasts from older muscle is more difficult than young controls. LRK+I produced a significant increase in rpS6 and Akt phosphorylation while no change was detected when myoblasts were incubated with HMB. Additional research is needed to refine our isolation methods and to better understand the mechanism(s) through which amino acids can help to maximally preserve muscle mass after common orthopedic procedures in older adults. If successful, recovery strategies such as amino acid supplementation will improve functional mobility following surgery and enhance long-term quality of life for these older individuals.

“The Perfect Hybrid”: Art, Architecture, and Advertising in Solange’s Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube)

Presenter(s): Claren Walker

Faculty Mentor(s): Emily Scott & Gretchen Soderlund

Poster 149

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

In April 2018, multidisciplinary artist and musician Solange Ferguson (neé Knowles) debuted a collaborative performance piece titled Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube) at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Although the piece centers around a choreographed dance performance within a sculptural white cube structure, Metatronia’s ultimate manifestation is the short video that has been widely circulated on the internet and social media. While Solange’s sculptural white cube both relies upon and disrupts the canons of modern architecture and minimalist art, it also occupies a place in the landscape of brand advertising. Critically, the video was executed “in partnership” with the Japanese fast fashion corporation Uniqlo (whose clothes the dancers wear) and produced by their advertising agency of record, Droga5 UK. By critically examining media coverage of the project and bringing it into dialogue with historical and contemporary art, architectural, and media scholarship, this research explores the tension in Metatronia (and other branded cultural phenomena like it) between its status as a work of art for public benefit and its function as a media vehicle to generate capital for corporate interest. Metatronia’s effectiveness as an advertisement depends on the veiling of its very function as one: with brand involvement masked under smooth rhetorics of “partnership,” the piece can exist comfortably in high art contexts while still elevating a fast fashion company. Metatronia exists at a nebulous–but commercially successful–intersection of art, architecture, and advertisement. More broadly, this case study reveals the complex dynamics and contradictions of contemporary cultural production under late neoliberal capitalism.

Medical Technologies in Context: Maternal and Child Healthcare at Ghana’s Cape Coast Teaching Hospital

Presenter(s): Ally Waldron

Faculty Mentor(s): Melissa Graboyes

Poster 161

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

This ethnographic thesis explores medical technologies in the context of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in southern Ghana. All too often the transfer and integration of medical technologies to the global south are based on the simplistic assumption that the advantages of foreign technology are self-evident and universal. However, in settings where conditions are harsh, resources limited, and culture dynamic, medical technology develops new meaning and purpose beyond original clinical expectations. To explore this phenomenon, I use ethnographic observations and field notes gathered from clinical shadowing in hospitals in Oregon and Cape Coast to investigate three medical technologies involved in maternal and newborn health. I show how the fetal ultrasound, pulse oximeter, and neonatal incubator change when exported to the Ghanaian context to fit the needs of doctors and patients while also working to change the way people relate to each other and their illnesses. In this process, medical technology becomes both a changeable force and a force for change in this hospital environment. Exploration of these examples of global medical technology transfer demonstrates that context matters in how medical technology operates and is operated within the clinical space. This thesis presents evidence against the idea that medical technology remains a static element of healthcare when transferred globally and also calls for more consideration of cultural, social, and economic institutions when exporting foreign medical technology to a new context.

Regulatory success and eating disorder symptomatology: does cognitive reappraisal scores predict specific eating disorder risk?

Presenter(s): Nathalie Verhoeven

Faculty Mentor(s): Dani Cosme

Poster 81

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

This study seeks to illuminate the effects of high stress on eating habits, such as craving regulation, and the relationship between regulatory success and eating disorder symptomatology. Many years of research have showed a strong correlation between emotional regulation and ED risk. High stress has major effects on eating habits, such as craving regulation, and acts as a mediator between regulatory success and eating disorder symptomatology. A lot of modern and foundational research on eating disorders (ED) and emotional regulation (ER) has focused primarily on risk reduction and mitigation, but very little has been dedicated to prevention. In this study, we observe the correlation between ED scores and reappraisal abilities.

Investigation of Riboswitch Structure and Dynamics Using Fluorescent Spectroscopy

Presenter(s): Michael Veirs

Faculty Mentor(s): Julia Widom

Poster 23

Session: Sciences

Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) is a photophysical phenomenon in which the excitation of a donor fluorophore results in fluorescent emission from an acceptor fluorophore when the two molecules are in close proximity. Using a FRET system, we intend to investigate the folding dynamics of the preQ1 riboswitch, which is an RNA species that regulates gene expression in bacteria. We used a double-stranded DNA system and the fluorescent adenine analog 2-aminopurine (2AP) to determine fluorescent molecules that can be used as FRET acceptors for 2AP. We found mFluor violet 450 and Atto390 to be appropriate acceptor fluorophores for use in more complex RNA systems. We also found that the riboswitch has a tendency to dimerize under our experimental conditions. To investigate this process, we ran our RNA samples using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. We determined protocols for minimizing dimerization of our RNA by varying the procedure by which the construct was annealed and stored. These results lay the foundation for using FRET to study the folding of this riboswitch and, by extension, the mechanism by which it regulates gene expression.

Weight Related Teasing is Associated with Exercise Dependence Symptoms in African American Men

Presenter(s): Trace Vancleave

Co Presenter(s): Grace Floyd

Faculty Mentor(s): Nichole Kelly

Poster 129

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

Few studies have examined the correlates of weight related teasing in African American men. Yet, extant data indicate that weight related teasing is linked with body image concerns and unhealthy weight control behaviors in college women. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between weight related teasing and exercise dependence symptoms in young African American men. Body image concerns were evaluated as a possible moderator. Study participants (N = 261; Mage = 23.72 ± 3.47; MBMI = 25.01 ± 5.90 kg/m2 ) completed an online survey and reported on frequency and distress of perceived weight related teasing (Perceptions of Teasing Scale), exercise dependence symptoms (Exercise Dependence Scale), and body image concerns (Revised Male Body Image Attitudes Scale). Linear regression models were conducted, controlling for income, education, presence of a psychiatric diagnosis, and body mass index. Frequency and distress of weight related teasing were both positively associated with exercise dependence symptoms (ps < .001). Body image concerns did not moderate the link between frequency of teasing (p > .05) or distress from teasing (p > .05) and exercise dependence symptoms. These results suggest that, regardless of body image concerns, higher frequency and distress of weight related teasing are associated with increased exercise dependence symptoms in young African American men. Contrary to prior research in women, African American men may have different motivations for excessive exercise that makes their body image concerns less relevant.

The Micro-Mobility Narrative: Understanding the Effects of Anecdotal and Visual Communication on Health and Safety Behavior

Presenter(s): Marie Van Rysselberghe 

Faculty Mentor(s): Autum Shafer & Nicole Dahmen

Poster 108

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

In the face of extreme pollution and congestion, micro-mobility transportation presents an alleviating solution for many megacities. However, as e-scooters, such as Lime and Bird, have rolled out in major cities across the globe, media coverage has centered around the accompanying safety epidemic related to user error and miscommunication. To understand how shared e-scooter companies can better design health and safety information, my research examines the presentation of terms and conditions statements that include safety instructions. By using a 2×2 factorial design experiment, my research examines participants interaction with the following stimuli conditions: (1) narrative example in standard (i.e., text-only) presentation, (2) narrative example in visual presentation, (3) non-narrative example in standard (i.e., text- only) presentation, and (4) non-narrative example in visual presentation. Participants are randomly assigned to one condition and exposed to the stimuli online via Qualtrics before answer a posttest questionnaire. Examining the effect of narrative and visual communication on health and safety attitudes and behavior, this research measures participants knowledge and understanding of the presented safety information, perceived fear of scooter use, perceived vulnerability, intentions to comply with safety instructions, and organizational trust. On these outcomes, hypotheses predict increased levels of knowledge, intentions to comply and organizational trust, as well as predict decreased perceptions of fear and vulnerability.

Connexins are not responsible for specification of the electrical synapse

Presenter(s): Elisa Trujillo

Faculty Mentor(s): Adam Miller & Abagael Lasseigne

Poster 56

 Session: Sciences

In order to initiate synaptogenesis two cells must come together and undergo intracellular communication; both can be done through a protein with cell adhesive properties. At chemical synapses, extracellular cell adhesion molecules allow two neurons to communicate in order to recruit compatible pre- and postsynaptic machinery. By contrast little is known about electrical synapses, where gap junction channels physically couple neurons. Transmembrane gap junction proteins at the electrical synapse, Connexins, have adhesive properties. We hypothesized that Connexins are required to initiate electrical synapse formation. To investigate this we created Connexin mutant animals and assessed whether or not a highly stereotyped electrical circuit containing Mauthner neurons was still morphologically normal. We used the localization of the required scaffolding protein, Tjp1b, as an indicator for electrical synapse specification. Connexin proteins are co-dependent; without one Connexin the other is unable to localize to the synapse. I tested the requirement of the pre- and postsynaptically required Connexin proteins for normal neuron morphology and Tjp1b localization by selecting fish with green fluorescent protein (GFP) positive Mauthner neurons and immunostaining zebrafish larvae for Tjp1b, and GFP in animals with non-functional Connexin proteins. Despite the loss of Connexins, Tjp1b still localized at the potential electrical synapse site and the morphology of the Mauthner neuron remained normal. Thus, Connexins do not appear to be the proteins responsible for electrical synapse initiation. My future work will aim to identify the protein with cell adhesion properties necessary for electrical synaptogenesis.

The role of limb dominance in visuoproprioceptive tasks

Presenter(s): Kieley Trempy

Faculty Mentor(s): Kate Spitzley & Andy Karduna

Poster 30

 Session: Sciences

Movement is the product of sensory input, mainly from vision and proprioception, and motor output. Vision is the sense of the surrounding space and proprioception is the sense of the body’s position in space. Joint position sense (JPS) is commonly used as a measure of proprioception. JPS of the dominant and nondominant shoulder was measured in healthy subjects to quantify error in a JPS task with and without visual information. Previous studies have examined sensory differences in limb dominance with conflicting results. Some have shown that no differences exist, while others show that movements with the dominant arm rely more on visual information and movements with the nondominant arm rely more on proprioceptive information. The latter theory is illustrated in activities of daily living, such as with preparing food, where the dominant arm uses a knife by viewing the movement while the nondominant arm guides the food by feeling the movement. It was hypothesized that in a JPS task, the dominant arm would have less error with visual information whereas the nondominant arm would have less error without visual information. Subjects wore a virtual reality headset with a tracker on their arm while performing a JPS task. Using the headset, subjects were presented with either a visual representation of their arm location or no visual information about arm location. No difference was found between sides. However, difference was seen between the vision and no vision conditions regardless of limb dominance. Higher error with no vision indicates that proprioception alone is not as effective in driving accurate movements as the combination of vision and proprioception. Future studies analyzing the contributions of vision and proprioception to movement may rule out variation associated with limb dominance.