Digital Commons Network^™

Fill And Dump Measurement Of The Neutron Lifetime Using An Asymmetric Magneto-Gravitational Trap, Alexander Komives, Et Al.

Physics & Astronomy Faculty publications

The past two decades have yielded several new measurements and reanalysis of older measurements of the neutron lifetime. These have led to a 4.4 standard deviation discrepancy between the most precise measurements of the neutron decay rate producing protons in cold neutron beams and the most precise lifetime measured in neutron storage experiments. Measurements using different techniques are important for investigating whether there are unidentified systematic effects in any of the measurements. In this paper we report a new measurement using the Los Alamos asymmetric magneto-gravitational trap where the surviving neutrons are counted external to the trap using the fill …

Medical Racism: Comparing Prenatal Care Across Races In The United States, Rubina Cheema

Student Research

Prenatal care describes any care a woman receives during her pregnancy. It is intended to keep both the mother and the child healthy and also to reduce the risk of complications during and after birth. This care is especially important for women with high-risk factors so that doctors and nurses are able to monitor their health and the health of their baby during the duration of their pregnancy. For prenatal care to be most effective, it is imperative to begin prenatal care within the first trimester of a woman's pregnancy. However, in the United States, medical racism creates a major …

Examining The Impact Of Covid-19 On The Education And Development Of American Students, Riley Fortin '25

Student Research

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the vast majority of American children have fallen behind on core subjects due to the ultimate ineffectiveness of remote learning. This study attempts to discover the degree to which children have fallen behind through the trends in the National Association of Educational Procurement’s two most recent testing years. A database accessed from Google has been analyzed, filtered by state and visualized in tables in order to indicate any possible trends as a result of remote learning brought on by the pandemic. By looking at data in seven different states across the country, there is a notable …

Sexual And Reproductive Health Disparities For Lgbtq+ Patients, Lauren Del Rosario

Student Research

As of 2022, 7.1% of Americans identify as LGBTQ. Members of the LGBTQ+ community in the United States experience greater health disparities than their heterosexual counterparts due to structural inequity: in addition to having minority status within the United States, there is a lack of education and research about LGBTQ+ health-related issues as well as restrictive policies that limit access to health care and other health benefits. As a result, the LGBTQ+ community is more prone to developing certain conditions, have less access to health care, and have worse health outcomes. However, LGBTQ+ visibility has increased dramatically within the last …

Polarization, Media Bias, And General Opinion, Knole Ihle '25

Student Research

This article researches the relationship between three different spheres of influence: party identification, issue selection process in media, and the following changes in public opinion. This relationship was examined through a random sample of news organizations based on a specific issue. The number of articles was then documented for each newspaper and measured against the articles produced apropos to that issue in the previous year. The discrepancy in articles produced is then compared to the succeeding policy shift to determine whether or not there is a correlation between these two relationships. Regarding the relationship between Ukraine-Russia War media and proceeding …

Effect Of Education On Self-Reported Health, Mai Le '24

Student Research

Human Capital Theory pointed out health as a possible return to education. The question at the center of this research is if education can improve health. Replicating the work of Goesling (2007) on new data from the 2000-2022 Current Population Survey (CPS), a cross-sectional probit analysis shows a positive relationship between educational level and self-reported health. This relationship is robust and significant across age groups.

Evidence-Based Study: The Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Post-Secondary Enrollment And Chosen Fields Of Study, Hannah Fields '25

Student Research

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in March of 2020 derailed educational systems at all levels. Specifically, at the post-secondary level, the pandemic sent many students online or forced them to take a fifth year to complete their degrees. As a result, post-secondary enrollment rates are likely to have dropped to reflect these changing post-COVID views surrounding education. Additionally, changing viewpoints about the essentiality of certain jobs and roles changed the chosen fields of study of these same students. Data for this study was collected by way of a short-scale meta-analysis, and enrollment rates were split …

A Hidden Window: Love And Insecurity For Peter And Clive, Ian Smith '26

Best First-Year Seminar Writing

The concept that Peter Walsh’s views in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway are a hidden critique of her fellow Bloomsbury member Clive Bell’s incendiary essay Civilization is in no way innovative or groundbreaking, having been recognized and expanded upon by biographers and literary critics alike. However, this comparison is deceptively easy to extend to realms in which it does not apply. Woolf is first and foremost a novelist, and Peter Walsh is first and foremost a character in a novel. As such, Peter’s presence in Mrs. Dalloway should not be interpreted as a commentary on Bell’s Civilization, but rather as …

Putting Policy Into Practice: The Problematisation Of Catalan Language Planning And Ideologies In Media Discourse, Farah Ali

Global Language Studies Faculty publications

The revitalization of the Catalan language has been an ongoing effort in Catalonia for decades. The language policies that have stemmed from this effort have perpetuated ideologies that promote the use and legitimization of Catalan as both an official and a vehicular language. While this effort is widely regarded as an example of successful language revitalization, the process has not been without conflict between Spanish and Catalan, particularly in terms of domains of use and disparate attitudes towards the two languages (Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015; Woolard, 2016; Soler & Gallego-Balsà, 2019; Ianos et al., 2020). Given that these policies aim …

December 2022 Table Of Contents Newsletter - Scholarly Communication, Victoria Peters, Kayla Birt Flegal

Table of Contents Newsletter

This month's DePauw University Libraries newsletter surrounds the service of Scholarly Communication. We feature the library's open access statement, open access publishing, and meet the Scholarly Communication and Resource Services Librarian, Victoria Peters.

High-Metabolism Infrastructure And The Scrap Industry In Urban China, Adam Liebman

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty publications

Abstract

Rapid urbanization in 21st-century China has been fraught with contested demolition, overdevelopment and shoddy infrastructure with short lifespans. By viewing this infrastructure as having “high metabolism” and examining the urban scrap trade that is fuelled by its material outputs, this article challenges a common assumption that such a form of urbanization is merely wasteful and problematic. Crucially, such urbanization also puts rural migrants and scrap into motion in a way that helps to reproduce its form. This occurs by generating socio-material nodes of scrap trading wherein migrants make the most of temporarily stable situations with entrepreneurialism. The nodes are …

A New Model For The Segmentation, Propagation And Linkage Of The Tan-Lu Fault Zone, East Asia, Chengming Li, Changhou Zhang, Tim D. Cope

Geology and Environmental Geoscience Faculty Publications

The Tan-Lu fault zone (TLF) is a major strike-slip fault with a long and complex history in East Asia, whose evolution provides a new perspective on the formation of large-scale faults (>1000 km long). Fault displacement analysis, geological mapping and U-Pb LA-ICP-MS dating have been performed to understand the evolution of the TLF. Along-strike displacement variation reveals that the TLF consists of two kinematically independent segments, the northern and southern TLF, with opposite long-term propagation directions. Structural and geochronological studies in the eastern Yanshan belt, located around the linkage area of the southern and northern TLF, indicate that NNE-trending …

Postdigital Soundscapes: Sonics, Pedagogies, Technologies, Derek Ford

Education Studies Faculty publications

No abstract provided.

Overconfident, Resentful, And Misinformed: How Racial Animus Motivates Confidence In False Beliefs, Salil D. Benegal, Matt Motta

Political Science Faculty publications

Many Americans not only hold misinformed beliefs about policy-relevant topics (e.g., climate change, public health) but hold those views with high degrees of confidence in their factual accuracy. Epistemic overconfidence – an application of the Dunning Kruger Effect (DKE, or “ignorance of one’s own ignorance” – is politically consequential, as misinformed individuals who hold those views with high degrees of confidence may be especially likely to oppose evidence-based policies and resist attitude change. Yet, its psychological origins – particularly in application to misinformation endorsement – are not well understood. In this paper, we propose that racial animus plays a key …

Teaching Income Inequality With Data-Driven Visualization, Humberto Barreto, Sang T. Truong

Economics and Management Faculty publications

The distribution of household income is a central concern in economics due to its strong influence on society’s well-being and social cohesion. Yet, non-expert audiences face serious obstacles in understanding conventional measures of inequality. To effectively communicate the extent of income inequality in the United States, we have developed a novel technique for visualizing income distribution and its dispersion over time by using U.S. household income microdata from the Current Population Survey. The result is a striking dynamic animation of income distribution over time, drawing public attention, and encouraging further investigation of income inequality. Detailed implementation is available at github.com/sangttruong/incomevis …

Evaluation Of Sedimentary Bacterial Community Dynamics And Contamination Assessment Of Lower Des Plaines River, Philips O. Akinwole, Madeline C. Draper, Amerti Guta, Mahaila J. Martin

Biology Faculty publications

Urban rivers often contain elevated concentrations of contaminants such as organic pollutants and heavy metals which can be amplified in lotic ecosystems receiving effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). However, the impact of WWTPs on the microbial parameters of the urban river sediments has not been well documented compared to urban surface water. Collecting sediment samples at five different locations over a 9,000 m transect during four sampling periods, we investigated spatiotemporal variations of microbial parameters in sediments of lower Des Plaines River; the largest effluent-dominated stream in the United States and the effects of sediment physicochemical properties on the …

November 2022 Table Of Contents Newsletter - Music Library, Z. Sylvia Yang, Kayla Birt Flegal

Table of Contents Newsletter

Once housed in a single room with materials shelved all the way to the ceiling, DePauw's Music Library is a beautiful two story space with spectacular views (particularly in the fall) of campus. While the space is nice, it's the collections and services provided by Sylvia Yang, Music & Performing Arts Librarian, that make DePauw's music library one of the best.

Mathematical Musings On The External Anatomy Of The Novel Coronavirus. Part 4: Models Of N-Cov, Jyotirmoy Sarkar, Mamunur Rashid

Mathematics Faculty Publications

What is the shape of the novel coronavirus (n-CoV) which has turned our world upside down? Even though under a microscope, it looks dull, unattractive, and even disgusting, creative artists have attributed to it bright colors, made it look pretty, and depicted it as a thing of beauty. What can a mathematician contribute to this effort? We take a purist’s point of view by imposing on it a quasi-symmetry and then deriving some consequences. In an idealistic world, far removed from reality but still constrained by the rules of mathematics, anyone can enjoy this ethereal beauty of the mind’s creation, …

Special Edition Table Of Contents Newsletter - Renovation, Brooke Cox, Kayla Birt Flegal

Table of Contents Newsletter

An update for the campus on the progress of the Roy O. West Library renovation.

Environmental And Social Conflict In The Urban Context: An Analysis Of Waste Management In Hanoi, Nam Hoang

Student Research

The resistance movement regarding the operation of Nam Sơn Waste Processing Center – one of the main landfills in Hanoi – has for over twenty years been a significant challenge to the city. Considering the resistance among local communities as a natural and environmental conflict, this project will attempt to discover the sources, dynamics, and outcomes of the conflict. The continuing reproduction of local resistance despite authority’s efforts to mitigate through negotiations and promises has revealed the complex nature of the conflict, which then required a more comprehensive approach not solely to the direct conflict but also to the system …

Linking Historical Redlining Maps To Present‐Day Environmental Hazards In St. Louis, Margaret Keller, Kenneth Brown

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Many of America’s cities were mapped by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC). This practice led to structurally racist housing policies and practices, namely redlining. The practice of redlining directed both public and private capital to native‐born, white families and away from Black, Latinx, and immigrant families that lived in these areas. While redlining is illegal today due to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, its impact is still evident in the structure of many U.S. cities including St. Louis (Hillier 2015). Today, redlined areas are particularly susceptible to environmental injustices because laws, regulations, governmental programs, and policies inadequately protect …

Magma Mixing In The 874 Ad Hrafntinnuhraun Rhyolite Eruption, Chris Shannon, Kenneth Brown, D. Mcgarvie, Matthew Looke

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The exposed Icelandic crust contains ~10% rhyolite and ~90% basalt, and there is ample evidence in both recent and ancient rocks of interactions between rhyolitic and basaltic magmas. A spectacular and little-studied example is the c. 874 AD rhyolite eruption of Hrafntinnuhraun at the Torfajökull volcano, where after an initial explosive (Plinian) phase a large rhyolite lava field formed. In this lava field, one vent produced a hybrid lava which is a mechanically mixed blend of approximately 83% rhyolite and 17% basalt.

Polarized light microscopy was conducted on a suite of Hrafntinnuhraun samples that include flow-banded rhyolites, vesicular basaltic enclaves, …

Gender Disparities In Nlsy97: Educational Attainment And Income Level, Ngan Tran, Naima Shifa

Annual Student Research Poster Session

This paper is designed to examine gender differences in education and their impact on education and occupation status, following the research Economic Rationale for Sex Differences in Education conducted by Janice Fanning Madden. Data was collected from the NLSY97 (National Longitudinal Survey) on American youth born between 1980-84. The sample originally included 8,984 respondents when first interviewed in 1997.

Visualization For Better Learning In Chem 120, Ngoc (Valerie) Tran, Jeff Hansen Ph.D

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Many concepts in organic chemistry relate to spatial reasoning and the ability to translate two-dimensional representations into a three-dimensional mental image. It is critical that students gain a thorough understanding of visualizing atoms, orbitals and their interactions in three dimensions. By developing an E-book with computer graphics, 3D animations, H5P films, and online apps, we hope to enhance Depauw students' learning experiences in the CHEM 120 course. In this project, we would like to demonstrate 3D representations of chemical concepts to help students form these 3D mental images from a 2D surface. The process includes concept developing, storyboarding, 2D and …

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (Hplc) For Ampicillin And Cefuroxime, Patrick Mcinerney, Richard Martoglio

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Appropriate levels of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in medicines must be present in a medical product for the patient to receive therapeutic value. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to develop a methodology to test for the API in Ampicillin and Cefuroxime drugs. Following the regulations of the Distributed Pharmaceutical Analysis Lab (DPAL) out of Notre Dame system sustainability requirements linearity, precision, accuracy/range, spike/degraded spike, limit of detection /quantitation, tailing factor, and number of theoretical plates were experimentally determined to meet the excepted standards.

Emotion-Aware Music Recommendation, Hieu Tran, Tuan Le, Anh Do, Tram Vu, Steven Bogaerts, Brian Howard

Annual Student Research Poster Session

People often listen to songs that match their mood. Thus, an AI music recommendation system that is aware of the user’s emotions is likely to provide a superior user experience to one that is unaware. In this paper, we present an emotion-aware music recommendation system. Multiple models are discussed and evaluated for affect identification from a live image of the user. We propose two models: DRViT, which applies dynamic routing to vision transformers, and InvNet50, which uses involution. All considered models are trained and evaluated on the AffectNet dataset. Each model outputs the user’s estimated valence and arousal under the …

Megacrystic Potassium Feldspar Magmatism In The Southern Mojave Desert, California, Claire Wolfe, Matthew Loocke, Kenneth Brown

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Investigating the textural, chemical, and chronological records preserved within crystal populations can provide insight into the processes which operate during magma ascent, emplacement, and crystallization. K-feldspar megacrysts offer an excellent opportunity to explore these records, particularly in chemically-evolved systems. Understanding megacryst formation bears on a fundamental issue in granite petrogenesis, namely whether the textural and chemical features preserved within granitoid intrusions reflect primary magmatic processes or late-stage crystallization and subsolidus reorganization. To expand our understanding of megacryst formation, we investigated a suite of K-feldspar megacrysts from the Sheep Hole Pluton (SHP) in Southern California.

SHP megacrysts are euhedral, ranging from …

Diagnosing The Present With An Ecotopian Lexicon, Chirag Giri, Adam Liebman

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The book An Ecotopian Lexicon (2019) presents a collection of thirty terms and concepts from speculative fiction, anthropology, and the sociology of subcultures, each explored by a different author. The lexicon intends to address our collective “poverty of imagination” when it comes to avoiding global environmental collapse and building a different world, evidenced by the increasing dominance of apocalyptic narratives in popular culture. Although the book’s primary aim is to explore diverse concepts for imagining better futures, we have analyzed the form and content of the book for what they tell us about the present.

Impact Of Urea On Size And Red-Edge Emission Spectroscopy Of Reverse Micelles, Tran Nguyen, Nancy E. Levinger, Bridget Gourley Ph.D

Annual Student Research Poster Session

We use reverse micelles (RMs) as our model system to study the impact of osmolytes on water at the nanoscale. Reverse micelles are characterized by w0 = [polar component]/[surfactant]. In our experiment, we focus on 5 different w0 (w0 = 1, 5, 10, 20, 40) and 3 concentrations of urea (0.5M, 1M, 2M). The Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) illustrates a linear relationship between reverse w0 (the ratio) and size. Additionally, the DLS data indicates that the impact of osmolytes on size for small reverse micelles is not significant. Furthermore, Red-Edge Emission Spectroscopy shows a bigger impact on emission for smaller …

High-Risk Behavior Of Students Carrying Weapon To School, Nan Lin Wah Sin Htoo, Naima Shifa

Annual Student Research Poster Session

The rise of personal and mental issues in students has been accompanied by an increase in the number of students carrying guns and the frequency of mass shootings at schools in the US. A recent study (Dong, 2021) pointed out that future researchers should focus on recognizing high-risk youths and tackle their issues early on in life most appropriately according to individual differences such as age and personal circumstances.This research discusses the contributing factors to youths carrying guns to schools and analyzes the high-risk behaviors of students. It was hypothesized that their personal issues such as their mental wellness, high-risk …