Tag: Poster 44

Decorated Youth: The Street Fashion Revolution in Japan and the Reordering of Form, Aesthetic, and Identity through Dress

Presenter: Dorothy Siemens

Mentor: Alisa Freedman

PM Poster Presentation

Poster 44

Emerging street fashion trends in 1990s Japan changed fashion and clothing systems not only domestically, but around the world. These rebellious urban youth, and their eccentric styles, have landed Tokyo on the map as a legitimate city of fashion production; challenging the long established European hegemony of sartorial power. Of these styles ‘decora’ (which literally means to be decorated) stood out with its bright colors, extreme ornamentation, and command of all things cute. This thesis seeks to explore the iconic ‘decora’ style as a representation of how street fashion in Japan is used as a tool to reorder aesthetics, identity, fashions systems, and the meanings associated with dress. The research of Amelia Groom, Yuniya Kawamura, and Toby Slade are used widely in this study, and the ‘decora’ style is placed into their theories to better understand fashion and clothing systems, identity, innovation and imitation in a post-modern Japanese context.

An Electronic Art Installation

Presenter : Athan Spathas

Major : Sociology

Poster 44

This is an electronic art installation: using the Arduino (an open-source microprocessor), an accelerometer (which measures tilt and acceleration), an electronic drum-pad (midi-controller), and the computer program ‘Max’ to design a multi-person instrument. The accerometer is on a cord which can be swung like a pendulum (hence that part is an electronic pendulum), and its lengths can be adjusted to demonstrate how it swings faster or slower (educational for explaining the functions of a pendulum). As it swings, the accelerometer measures the velocity at which it’s moving, and controls the amplitude of the tones which are controlled by the drum-pad. To summarize, I made an instrument that you can swing in a variety of ways to manipulate sound, and can be used in conjunction with other instruments to create an interdependent sound (this primarily came from 2 classes I took this year which are brand new, with Chet Udell in the Music (Technology) Department, Sensormusik & Computer Net- work Music).

Effects of Chronic Passive Heating on Resting Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and Body Core Temperature

Presenter: Kaitlin Livingston

Mentors: Christopher Minson and Vienna Brunt, Human Physiology

Poster: 44

Major: Human Physiology 

Repeated bouts of exercise in the heat are known to decrease resting body core temperature (Tc), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and resting heart rate (HR). Although exercise in the heat produces these cardiovascular changes, it is currently unknown whether passive chronic heating provides the same benefits. Our research sought to examine the effects of passive chronic heating on resting Tc, MAP, and HR. Five sedentary, college-aged subjects (4 females, 1 male) were assigned to an 8-week hot water immersion program (4-5 sessions/week). Subjects were submerged to the clavicle in 40.5°C water until a rectal temperature (Tre) of 38.5°C was reached. Subjects maintained a Tre between 38.5-39.0°C during an hour of partial immersion. HR and Tre were measured with a HR monitor and rectal thermistor both at rest and at 5-minute intervals during the heat stress. MAP was measured on another day with brachial auscultation after ≥20 minutes of supine rest. Both resting MAP (81±1 vs. 76±2 mmHg, p=0.02) and resting Tre (37.4±0.5 vs. 36.8±0.4°C, p=0.03) decreased after 8 weeks of passive heat stress with no change in resting HR (63±5 vs. 63±6 beats/min, p=0.26). Chronic passive heat stress reduces resting MAP and Tre similarly to what is observed with exercise heat in the heat. This suggests that chronic passive heat stress could be used to benefit cardiovascular health similarly to exercise in the heat.

Parenting Quality and its Relation to Child Brain Function for Selective Attention in Low Socioeconomic Status Families

Presenter: Courtney Adler

Faculty Mentor: Helen Neville, Jimena Santillan

Presentation Type: Poster 44

Primary Research Area: Science

Major: Psychology, Biology

Selective attention is a foundational skill that is important for academic readiness and success. Past research indicates that children from low socioeconomic status (SES) families exhibit deficits in a neural index of selective attention relative to their high SES peers, which is consistent with the academic achievement gap seen between low and high SES children. Selective attention exhibits neuroplasticity and can be enhanced or decreased by the surrounding environment. One of the most prominent factors children are exposed to early on is the quality of parenting they receive. Previous research has shown that parenting quality predicts behavioral measures of many cognitive abilities related to academic success. This study examined whether the quality of parenting shapes neural indices of selective attention in children from low SES families. To measure parenting quality, four parenting behaviors (affection, responsiveness, encouragement, & teaching) were coded from videos of mother-child interactions during a free play task. To assess brain function for selective attention, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during an auditory task in which children were simultaneously presented with two different children’s stories and were instructed to attend to one story while ignoring the other. We hypothesized that higher parenting quality would predict enhanced brain function for selective attention. Results will be discussed.

Building Zebrafish Gut Bacterial Communities From the Bottom Up

Presenter(s): Dylan Martins − Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Raghuveer Parthasarathy

Poster 44

Research Area: Natural/Physical Science

The intestines of humans and other animals are home to tens of trillions of microbes. These microbial communities play important roles in health and disease, and are composed of dozens to hundreds of interacting species. While the factors that determine a particular species’ presence in the gut are largely unknown, both physical and biochemical interactions between species are likely important. Learning about these factors poses challenges due to the difficulty of performing controlled experiments with existing tools.

This project addresses these challenges by constructing five-species microbial communities in zebrafish, a model vertebrate animal to determine whether these model groupings are stable, and what inter-species interactions are evident. We use zebrafish as a model organism because they can live in a bacterially controlled environment and because their larval transparency allows for live microscopy. Experimentally, we introduce commensal intestinal microbes to larval zebrafish, initially raised germ-free to allow introduction of controlled combinations of bacterial species. Using a combination of conventional dissection and plating assays and three-dimensional live imaging, we have been able to demonstrate the existence of stable multi-species communities, and we can test whether outcomes from two-species competitions contain enough information to allow prediction of multi-species abundances and interactions, of key importance to creating predictive models of the human gut. Further, we find that individual species are differentially sensitive to the presence of other species, and that the community stability is sensitive to the presence of certain species. Correlations can also be identified between species and their spatial structure within the fish gut.

The microbiome is important to health and disease, but it is a complex system which is difficult to understand. By constructing a model system in a vertebrate gut that has an interesting and tractable number of species, we gain insights and reveal principles that might apply to the human microbiome.

Mutational Analysis of dach Genes During Zebrafish Fin Regeneration

Presenter(s): George Deardorff

Co Presenter(s): Bryson Ramona

Faculty Mentor(s): Kryn Stankunas & Scott Stewart

Poster 44

Session: Sciences

Following amputation, zebrafish fins, comprised of intricate skeletal rays and other tissues, perfectly regenerate to their original size and shape regardless of the nature or position of injury. A cell population observed in the regenerating fin, termed “niche”, produces Wnt signals that promote fin outgrowth. As a known transcriptional regulator of the niche, dach plays a role in maintaining proper regeneration. Depending upon the extent of regenerative demand, dach becomes enriched at the distal region of the regenerating fin, and is eventually downregulated once the fin has stopped regenerating. A mechanistic explanation for dach induction, in addition to a thorough understanding of how it regulates the niche, is lacking. To explore the role of dach we used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to mutate two isoforms of the dach gene, dachc and dacha. By utilizing high-resolution fin imaging, our data showed that dachc mutants display improper morphology, including: abnormal joint segmentation, fusion of rays, and trident-shaped branching patterns. Surprisingly, this observation was not seen during development, but rather only after amputation and subsequent regeneration. Further, while dacha single mutants exhibited normal regeneration, dachc;dacha double mutants died off at an appreciable rate during development. Our data shows a novel role that dach has in promoting correct branching patterns, in addition to its unique regulation in development versus regeneration. Demonstrating how the misregulation of certain genes like dach can lead to the disruption of growth control mechanisms is critical for understanding the basis of a range of diseases.