Tag: Poster 29

Culinary Study Developing Luxury Kitchen Appliance for the Middle Class

Presenter: Jordan Millar

Mentor: Jason Germany

AM Poster Presentation

Poster 29

We focused on creating food related products. I chose a method of cooking called sous vide which enables molecular gastronomy style cooking. A sous vide is a style of cooking food in a water bath inside of vacuum sealed bags which helps maintain nutrients while cooking food perfectly. The sous vide is currently limited to high-end restaurants and the wealthy, and is not affordable for the average consumer. I designed an affordable sous vide for the middle class and created a fully functional model. The benefits of the sous vide include that it slow cooks food to perfection, it is easy to use, is safer than other cooking methods and it brings families together to prepare restaurant quality food in the home. I created the model using a laser cutter, vacuum former, foam modeling, glass grinding, 3D printing, CNC and silicone molding, and wiring components. Using simple parts and a compact construction, I was able to create a functional sous vide that is affordable for home use that is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing, while enabling the highest quality cooking results.

What’s in my Dust? Communicating Research Findings to Agricultural Families

Presenter : Rossmary Marquez

Major : Human Physiology

Poster 29

The collection of environmental samples represents a responsibility to return study findings to participants. However, developing appropriate and understandable messages can be challenging due to language differences and cultural differences. A previous study collected information from families living in an agricultural community about ways they may be exposed to pesticides and the impact of pesticides on the health and neurological development of their children. A total of 483 dust samples were collected over 4 years. The dust samples collected were analyzed for four organophosphate pesticides. The goal of this study was to evaluate different formats for presenting study findings to participants. Material presenting the results of pesticide concentration was developed along with materials describing methods to reduced exposure. A pilot study was designed to determine which format should be used and questions were designed to evaluate knowledge and reaction to the data. English speakers and Spanish speakers were recruited for the study. It was determined that education and language impacted people’s ability to read and understand the graphs. Higher education was associated with higher quiz scores. English speaking group scored higher. Finding the best ways to return results is still a challenge. Feedback received form the community members was utilized to design an effective and appropriate intervention material to reduce pesticide exposure and inform the families about the pesticides levels found in their homes.

Women and Glaciers: Perspectives on Climate Change Vulnerability, Identity, and the Professional Sphere

Presenter: Jaclyn Rushing

Mentor: Mark Carey

Poster: 29

Major: Environmental Studies/Romance Languages

Women and glaciers appear to be disparate subjects and academic literature has yet to investigate the relationships between them. However, women’s relationships with glaciers can inform many important intersections of gender inequality in sport, science, culture, and environmental climate change. Historically women’s global interactions with glaciers helped them connect to place and self through spirituality, culture, mountaineering, and glaciology. Women have recorded their strong emotional and spiritual connection with glaciers in poems, oral traditions, religious stories, and autobiographical essays. But in recent decades, climate change has altered and complicated women’s interactions with glaciers. On the one hand, studies show that rapid glacier retreat has marginalized and disempowered women, because of increased natural disasters like glacial lake outburst floods, unpredictable water availability, and ecological loss. These hazards pose major threats to Himalayan and Andean mountain communities, especially for already culturally marginalized and impoverished women in those regions. On the other hand, climate- triggered ice loss has created unique opportunities for women to increase their participation in science, conservation, and politics. Historically marginalized women in the Himalayas and Andes are leading their own forums on climate change and disaster mitigation. More international aid agencies are reaching out to women and seeking women’s input in disaster mitigation and relief. Women in science are increasing their presence in the male-dominated field of glaciology largely because of growing academic gender tolerance, but also because climate change provides the occasion to study glacier retreat. Recent rapid glacier retreat thus complicates women’s experience by increasing their climate vulnerability while simultaneously providing them with opportunities to assert themselves in their communities.

Responding to Disclosure of Mistreatment: The Long-Term Impact of Listening Skills Education

Presenter: Alexandra Henry

Mentors: Kristen Reinhardt and Jennifer Freyd, Psychology

Poster: 29

Major: Psychology 

Negative reactions to a disclosure of mistreatment can be more emotionally detrimental to the discloser than not disclosing the event at all, while positive reactions to disclosures can yield significant benefits, such as desensitization towards negative feelings and thoughts (Radcliffe, Lumley, Kendall, Stevenson, & Beltran, 2010). Previous research from Foynes and Freyd (2011) has shown that providing educational material on supportive listening significantly lowered the unsupportive behavior of listeners. This present study hopes to extend the work of Foynes and Freyd (2011) by examining the impact that a supportive listening skills tip-sheet has on a sample of 32 dyads after the disclosure of a mistreatment and at a 6-month follow-up time period. Our sample has a mean age of 19.22 and is 66% women. We hypothesize that the listening tips will have a long term, positive impact on the listeners’ and disclosers’ self-rated ability to listen to disclosures of mistreatment, improve both participants’ satisfaction in the relationship, and enhance participants’ self-reported listening skills through the listening tips learned during the study.

No More Plastic Water Bottles: A Inquiry into Sustainable Packaging Design

Presenter: Cara Murray

Faculty Mentor: Jessica Swanson

Presentation Type: Poster 29

Primary Research Area: Design

Major: Product Design, Clark Honors College

Packaging design is the discipline of creating the container, graphics and visible exterior of a product. While extensive time, energy, and billions of dollars are devoted to this field each year, virtually all packaging ends up in the trash. While the field of packaging design has traditionally maintained a “throwaway” mindset, the past decades have introduced a more sustainable trend. Given the extreme waste associated with packaging it is important to consider how it can be made more environmentally friendly.

Beyond the fundamental functions of product protection, transport, and identification, I examine the greater purpose of packaging design: who does it serve, what purpose does it serve, and who/what does it impact? Using these questions as a initial framework, this research explores the related materials, processes and applications, as well as the cultural relevance, of sustainable packaging design.

After investigating the past, present and future trends related to sustainable packaging, my research then touches on some more theoretical examinations of how packaging design can be used to encourage sustainable consumer habits. I address here how packaging can remain attractive, functional, and cost-effective, but also incorporate increased environmental consciousness.

Research methods include examination of primary and secondary sources from expert designers in the packaging design field, as well as personal exploration of existing packaging, user interviews, and survey based data collection. Ultimately, my research aims to provide a comprehensive examination of the current field of sustainable packaging, identify cultural relevance of these products, and raise theoretical questions regarding the ethics of our existing consumption habits and waste cycles.

Measuring Gate Stability With A Wearable Acceleromenter In Female Club Lacrosse Athletes

Presenter(s): Haley Segelke − Human Physiology

Faculty Mentor(s): Li-Shan Chou

Poster 29

Research Area: Science

Funding: UROP Mini-Grant

Current post-concussion return to play criteria are based on metrics which normalize within 1-2 weeks, however recent research has demonstrated gait-stability deficits in acutely concussed athletes may persist for up to two months post-injury. As such, concussed individuals who return to play within two weeks have a greater risk for re-injury. The purpose of this study was to analyze gait stability in female lacrosse players utilizing a novel accelerometer-based, dual-task gait stability assessment as well as establish the assessment’s clinical feasibility. Nine players from the university club team underwent individual assessments. A wearable accelerometer was placed on L-5 on the subject’s back. Subjects performed a simple walking task at a self-selected pace on an eight-meter path, turned around, and returned to the start position. The walking task was performed under three conditions: normal walking, dual-task walking with auditory Stroop, and dual-task walking with a question and answer test. Raw acceleration data from three orthogonal axes was downloaded for processing. The average testing time was 9:21 minutes ± 57 seconds. This short testing time reflects clinical feasibility when compared to other concussion management assessments, such as the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (IMPACT) procedure takes 25 minutes to complete and the Sort Concussion athletic tool (SCAT5), which cannot be performed in under 10 minutes. Analysis of center of mass kinematic data is ongoing, however early trends support the notion that gait stability in an uninjured, healthy athletic cohort is comparable to laboratory assessments of healthy non-athletes.

Neural and behavioral assays for studying predictive coding in the mouse brain

Presenter(s): Konrad Bailey

Faculty Mentor(s): Santiago Jaramillo

Poster 29

Session: Sciences

‘Controlled hallucination’ is a term that has been used to describe the process of interpreting sensory information according to the theory of predictive coding. This theory posits that the brain’s mechanisms for interpreting sensory information function by generating predictions about the external world and comparing these predictions to sensory signals. The objective of my study in the Jaramillo lab is to identify neuronal mechanisms for how the brain generates predictions about patterns of sounds. The resulting data will aid the process of testing the validity of the theory of predictive coding. In order to achieve an in-depth analysis of neuronal mechanisms for generating predictions the study requires a level of experimental access only available with animal test subjects. We use mice because of the range of available tools for monitoring and manipulating neural activity in this species. We trained a cohort of mice in a reward-driven behavioral task that required the animals to make predictions about incoming sounds. Our preliminary data suggests we were successful in training the mice to detect when a predicted pattern had been altered. Electrophysiological experiments will then be used to evaluate the neural basis of generating these predictions. Specifically, I will record the activity of auditory cortical neurons to evaluate how the sound patterns are represented when they’re expected vs. unexpected. The data we gather will help to either support or oppose the theory that we live in, as psychologist Chris Frith put it, ‘a fantasy that coincides with reality’.