Digital Commons Network^™

Carbon Dioxide Flux Rate For Cold Burn And Hot Burn Sites, Sophia Cheong, Alexander G. Grissom, Grace K. Lank

Featured Research

This experiment seeks to further expand modern understanding of post-fire ecology via systematic measurement of soil respiration within areas burned by cool, mild flames and hot, intense flames caused by the recent Woolsey Fire. We theorized that within hot burned areas, soil respiration would be less than that of the cool burned areas because the microbe population in the hot burned areas would be affected far more than those subjected to a cool burn. By measuring soil respiration with our Li-6800 CO₂ soil flux chamber at each of the according disc sites within hot and cold burned areas we …

Comparison Of Postfire Seedling Recruitment Of 2019 In Three Key Chaparral Species, Karagan Smith, Reid Furukawa, Brett Muramoto, Stephen D. Davis

Featured Research

Fire is a common natural disaster that sweeps through Southern California. Combined with periods of acute, and most recent, chronic drought, we have seen an increase in the damage and frequency of these fires in recent years. Three chaparral species are common to the Pepperdine campus: Malosma laurina, Ceanothus spinosus, and Ceanothus megacarpus. The survival of these three native species is essential because they serve as biomarkers for the changes that are occurring in our local ecosystem and provide further implications for how our ecosystem is responding to natural disaster. Seedling recruitment is a mechanism that is used by …

Heteromeles Arbutifolia Associated Post-Fire Soil Microbiome Recovery And Respiration In A Chaparral Ecosystem, Gabrielle Boeger, Lauren Dedmon, Emma Thomsen, Alexander Soloniuk

Featured Research

The purpose of this post-Woolsey Fire project is to examine the relationship between soil respiration in areas of cool burns and hot burns relative to individuals of Heteromeles Arbutifolia. It was hypothesized that the soil subjected to a cooler burn would have greater respiration rates due to increased survival of microorganisms compared to a hotter burn. An Li-6800 CO2 Flux Chamber was used to collect measurements for several replicates. Significance was detected in the “Day 3” data, with the soil respiration higher at the cool burn site. Temperature and soil flux also varied directly. In the future experiments including increasingly …

Why Doula Services Should Become An Essential Health Benefit In New York State, Jalisha Hanshaw, Amy White

Publications and Research

Doulas are birth workers who assist expecting mothers through pregnancy, birth and postpartum using holistic techniques. Techniques include: prenatal yoga, birth affirmations and induction acupuncture. Doulas are underrated healthcare providers who deserve the same respect as clinical and non-clinical providers. Doulas are well-rounded alternative care providers who focus on mental, emotional, and physical well being of mothers. Also, they know special alternative medical techniques that prevent mothers from maternal mortality among other negative health outcomes. The amount of time and effort doulas perform with expecting mothers are equal or more than the average medical healthcare provider and should be a …

Physical Therapy Clinical Decision Making, Intervention, And Outcomes Of A Patient With Cervicogenic Dizziness: A Retrospective Case Report, Melissa Koehl, Roberta O'Shea

Research Days

Background and Purpose: Cervicogenic dizziness (CGD) is believed to be a result of altered proprioception secondary to cervical spine pain and/or dysfunction.^..There currently are no validated clinical tests or clinical prediction rules to accurately identify CGD, however, there are published physical therapy clinical decision-making guidelines available. This retrospective case report describes the use of published guidelines to aid clinical decision-making regarding the physical therapy examination, interventions, and outcomes of a patient with CGD.

Case Description: The patient was a 66-year old woman referred to PT with the medical diagnosis of dizziness. A detailed history and thorough …

Systematic Review On Tobacco Marketing In Vulnerable Populations, Brittney Harding, Lisa Aponte-Soto, Phd, Mha

Research Days

Introduction: Tobacco use is the most common preventable cause of death and it increases one’s risk for numerous diseases, associated illness, and death. Unfortunately, certain populations are disproportionality burdened by tobacco-related morbidity and death. These populations consist of individuals from low-income areas, people with mental illnesses, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, African-Americans, and Hispanics/Latinos.

Methods: Articles were retrieved using Google Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago Library (UIC) search engine, and PubMed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website was used as source to find information about certain demographics. Articles were chosen if they were published between the years …

Nitrate Removal And Patterns Of Ph-Induced Flocculation In High-Lipid Producing Algae Ochromonas Danica, Abigail E. Armstrong, Timothy Gsell Dr.

Research Days

Algae have grown in popularity as a source for biofuels as some algae species, like Ochromonas danica, can produce energy-rich lipids for biofuels while simultaneously removing nutrients from wastewater. As such, use of biologic systems to mitigate pollutants are an attractive method of pollution control. Given the unique metabolic properties of O. danica, this organism is a promising candidate organism for this purpose. This study seeks to characterize the basic metabolic parameters of these algae as well as their population behaviors with attention to their growth rates and nitrate removal at varying pH over time. To do this, live cultures …

Intersection Of Law, Science, Technology, & The Humanities, Marissa J. Moran, Yu-Wen Chen, Sarah A. Standing

Publications and Research

The challenge of how best to incorporate the wealth of educational/research material currently available through technologies and drawn from the social, cultural, economic, political and legal aspects of our society today has brought together professors from three distinct disciplines and schools at New York City College of Technology, CUNY to research, design, and create innovative new courses and to continually revise content and methodology in existing courses. This dynamic and interdisciplinary approach to learning allows our undergraduate students opportunities to research and apply their knowledge to existing societal issues, in “real-time” to analyze, discuss, and suggest ways to improve upon …

A Comparison Of Two Methods Of Increasing Voter Turnout Among African Americans, Korriee De'vonne Green

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

Many of the studies about minority voting are from the 1990s, and they effectively say neither representation nor redistricting affect turnout for African Americans. We hypothesized that making people politically aware is more likely to get them to vote rather than directly telling people to vote. There were 117 participants in this study, with ages ranging from seventeen to thirty-six. These groups were split into two populations: “Aware” and “Unaware”. Only 10% of the Unaware population voted because they were told to vote but the informed participants (Aware) were 71% more likely to vote (p<.01).

Preservation Of Ozark Glades: Soil Inocula And Plant Additions Effect On Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, Srikavi Premnath

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

Soil microbial communities can play a major role in the structure of natural plant communities, and restoring the soil microbial content can be important in restoring the plant community in prairies. In 2014, an experiment was set up to test whether soil inoculation along with native plant additions (Schizachyrium scoparium and Rudbeckia missouriensis) produce a similar restoration effect among glades, rocky grasslands found in south central Missouri. The following six inoculation treatments were set up in three sites: live inocula soil from well-restored glade sites, sterilized glade soil as a control, inoculated S. scoparium, uninoculated S. scoparium, inoculated R. missouriensis, …

The Relationship Between Diet And Evolution In Primates, Tori Spencer

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

This literature review investigates the evolutionary relationship between diet and primate physiology, using both human and non-human primates as evidence of past and present examples. Special attention is devoted to physiological factors shaped by diet that have and may still cause differences between primate groups. Diet has heritable markers and can predisposition individuals to change both physically and behaviorally. Diet in primates appears to play a role in the teeth placement, brain size, shape and chemistry, taste and olfactory sense, to name a few. This information can be used to identify future human features that may continue to evolve as …

The Relationship Between Depression, Sleep, And Dream Content Among College Students, Bretta Gerhard

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

This study examined any correlation linking depression with the sleep and dream content of college students. A survey was given to Social and Behavioral Science college students at Lincoln University. The survey contained self-report questions on their level of depression, sleep habits, dream content, exercise habits, and basic demographic information. Based on prior research, we expect students who report high levels of depression to have poor sleep quality. We also expect depressed students to report a higher frequency of dreaming, and “bad” dream content then non-depressed students. Results indicating there is a relationship between depression and sleep will serve as …

Using Gis In Archaeology For The Don Carlos Site, Jeremy Morin

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

The project I would like to present is the GIS project I did for Dr. Boston on the Don Carlos archaeology site in Moniteau County, Missouri. The presentation would consist of a few aerial photos of the site, as well as a plat map from the 1930s, and a topographic map from around the mid-1980s; all of which have a GIS’d outline of individual parts of the site. I will then explain the items used to map the entire site, as well as some of the items that were discovered, why they are of important to the site and the …

Selecting Phycoremediators For Consortia, Tori Spencer

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

Bioremediation is the process by which organisms remove and transform toxic compounds in a contaminated source. This is a waste management technique currently used to clean up man-made contamination. Many organisms act as natural remediators; in the case of algae, they are called phycoremediators who perform phycoremediaton. The term algae encompasses a variety of taxonomic groups and their diversity is still being realized; there are over 44,000 named species of the 72,000 species that we have identified. Some estimates calculate that there are over 200,000 diatom species alone. This diversity continues to be difficult to organize, which is problematic for …

Imaging Fluorescent Proteins In Plant Cells: A 12-Week Research-Project Oriented Cell Molecular Biology Laboratory, Michael Grubb, Bridget Mbula

Show Your Stripes Research and Creative Showcase

When plants are attacked by pathogenic fungi, plants defend themselves by "chewing" the fungal cell wall. Chitin, a main component of the fungal cell wall, is released and recognized by the plant cells to activate the innate immune response in the whole plant. The objective of this study is to investigate the cellular localization of the proteins encoded by two chitin-induced genes, Annexin 1 (ANN1) and SNAP33, from the genetic model Arabidopsis thaliana. The full-length cDNA (excluding stop codon) of ANN1 and SNAP33 were amplified from cDNA template and cloned into a binary vector pMDC83 to form a translational fusion …

Impact Of Athletics On Academic Performance At Nwc, Matthew Scott, Brant Vermeer

Celebration of Research

In this paper, we study the impact of athletics on academic performance at Northwestern College. Using data from 2006-08 and 2013-17, we show average ACT score for athletes is lower compared to non-athletes. Additionally, athletes typically earn lower GPAs in their first year, even after controlling for past academic performance. This negative relationship between athletics and first-year GPA is most prevalent among students entering college with a low composite ACT score. The data show mandatory meetings with coaches for struggling students do not have a statistically significant impact on average team GPA, but this requirement may have a positive impact …

Building A Better College: Estimating The Effects Of New Athletic Facilities On The Enrollment Decisions Of Student-Athletes, Alex Vander Stoep

Celebration of Research

In 2015, Northwestern College opened the Juffer Fieldhouse, a $3.3M indoor sports facility complex, with hopes of advancing the athletic programs at the college and capturing the interest of prospective student-athletes. Based on prospective student data from 2006-08 and 2013-17, this study identifies the impact that the Juffer Fieldhouse had on the enrollment decisions of prospective student-athletes. I show that the opening of this new indoor facility is associated with a 8.54% increase in the probability of enrollment for prospective students with an athletic interest compared to non-athletes. Furthermore, student athletes who expressed interest in sports directly supported by the …

Intuitions About God And Satan: The Relationship Of Mentalizing And Imagination With The Experience Of Supernatural Good And Evil, Paige Boote, Ethan Husbands, Taelor Lamansky, Rebekah Muilenburg, Hannah Paauw, Bailey Swain

Celebration of Research

Believers in relational deities conceptualize god(s) as agents with mental states. The ability to imagine other minds may be one of the cognitive foundations of religious belief. Research on this relationship is mixed, however. This study tests this relationship across experiences of supernatural good and evil rather than abstract beliefs.

Previous research has demonstrated that mentalizing significantly predicted prayer type (Edman et al., 2015; 2017). However, a multi-site replication study failed to replicate the initial results, indicating that perhaps mode of prayer is more complexly related to mentalizing than initially hypothesized. Edman (2015; 2018) extended this research by including measures …

Unretentive Incentives, Rebekah Paradis

Student Scholar Showcase

In the workplace, managers often offer monetary rewards or incentives as instantaneous motivators in hopes that it will alter employee behavior. Unfortunately, although these rewards have been proven to yield desired outcomes, their impacts are short lived as managers create an environment based on extrinsic motivation. When an employee works solely to receive a paycheck it is already challenging to keep them, as other companies can offer them comparable, if not better, salaries. It is even harder to retain an employee who is accustomed to receiving an incentive with a particular behavior when the reward is no longer an option, …

A Tale Of Two Bonnies: Comparing “Lost Cause” Narratives And Post-War Memory From The American Civil War And The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion Through Art, William Robert Tharp

Student Scholar Showcase

In the cultures of Scotland after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and the American South after the Civil War, defeatist memories and art featured prominently in mythmaking and served as a focal point for many who wished to make political statements or critiques of current realities. In Scotland, romanticism revolving around “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and the Jacobites in 1745 lessened the burden of defeat for many. Contextualizing their loss within a broader historical framework, which stressed different features depending on the group’s purpose, some Scots utilized Jacobite memory as a potent political critique of Scotland’s place within Great Britain. Others, like …

Quantitative Analysis Of Iron In Beer Using Cloud Point Extraction, Joshua Rempfer

Student Scholar Showcase

Determination of Iron concentration in Apocalypse Ale beer using a preconcentration method coupled with UV-Vis spectroscopy. Samples will be cross checked with MP-AES to ensure precise and accurate results.

Communication & The Body Positivity Movement, Alyssa Cannaday

Student Scholar Showcase

The Body Positivity Movement has gained a presence on social media. In this study, social media outlets were examined (such as Twitter and Instagram) to explore the communication within the movement, both from those advocating body positivity and from individuals responding in the comments. A variety of respondents, most of whom were women, give a broad perspective of the movement as a whole. Some respondents who contribute their viewpoints have educational backgrounds in counseling or work in the field. Themes uncovered in this study reveal the Body Positivity Movement to be welcoming, open minded, and expressive of messages of self-love …

The Secret Police: The Heavy Hand Of Apartheid Government, Christine L. Moore

Student Scholar Showcase

The secret police during the apartheid in South Africa’s had a heavy hand that causes fear and also death. They used many tactics such as violence, intel, media, and various forms censorship to help get the job done. In the late 70s to the early 90s there was a massive surge of anti-apartheid movements throughout the country as well as internationally, which led to an increase in trying to put down these various movements. With so much more work to do and with only a handful of of members, these squads became to get overwhelmed, which ultimately led to their …

The Relationship Between Insect Visitors And Chemical Fragrance Composition Of Cypripedium Parviflorum Var. Pubescens In Central Virginia., Ruth Elkins

Student Scholar Showcase

Due to its rarity, little is known regarding which insects pollinate Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens, large yellow lady slipper orchids, and why they do so when offered no reward. Insect identification and fragrance composition data have been collected from two populations of large yellow lady slippers in Central Virginia for more than a decade. This research analyzed data in order to determine potential relationships between visiting insects and fragrance compositions of the orchid. The results of this research can be used to establish and protect populations of Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens.

The Rockbridge Group: Masters Along The Maury, Teresa Gunter, Whitney M. Grim, Emma E. Noe, Grace Ragansky, William R. Tharp, Christine L. Moore

Student Scholar Showcase

For the last eight decades Rockbridge County, Virginia has served as an influential center for modern art. Neighbored by the capricious Maury River and nestled against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rockbridge Baths significantly impacted the lives of four distinguished modern artists. Connected by ties of friendship or kin, the Rockbridge Group—Pierre Daura, Jean Hélion, Cy Twombly, and Sally Mann—drew inspiration and support from each other and from the people and places of the Rockbridge area.

In 1928, Catalan modernist Pierre Daura (1896-1976) married Louise Blair, a Virginian studying in Paris. His friend, the French painter Jean Hélion …

Elemental Analysis Of Legacy Sediments At College Lake, Amelia Dalton

Student Scholar Showcase

College Lake is a large reservoir located on the campus of the University of Lynchburg. College Lake’s ecosystem has degraded over the years due to the buildup of sediment, nutrients, and raw sewage. Increased urbanization in the area has also most likely contributed to the contaminants present within the system. Because of flooding issues during the summer of 2018, Lynchburg CIty officials drained College Lake, which caused sediment to be released downstream. To better understand the transport of heavy metals in the sediments released from College Lake, sediment core samples were taken from College Lake, Hollins Mill Park, and Sandusky …

The Process Of Radicalization: Understanding The Road To Terrorism, Matt Slade

Student Scholar Showcase

This thesis attempted to create a better understanding of how the transition from Islamic and right-wing radicalization to violent terrorism occurs in Western countries. The hypothesis that was tested was that the greater level of radical actions an individual takes part in based on their extreme views, the greater likelihood that they will participate or attempt to participate in violent terrorism. There are eight fanatical behaviors that have to be combined with three contextual factors in order for a radical extremist to be pushed towards violence. This research added on to the Fanaticism school of thought that has been under-researched …

Comparison Of Head Impact Mechanisms And Type Of Play For Women’S Lacrosse Over 4 Years, Jessica Riquelme

Student Scholar Showcase

Context: Lacrosse is a fast growing contact sport, minimal studies have examined head impacts in women’s lacrosse.

Objective: To compare head impact mechanisms and type of play in women’s lacrosse.

Design: Descriptive epidemiology study.

Setting: Collegiate lacrosse fields.

Participants: 29 women’s lacrosse players (age=20.39±0.39 years, height=162.13+6.50 cm, mass=60.99+4.82 kg) participated over years. Intervention: Participants wore xPatch sensors during games and practices.

Main Outcomes Measures: Peak linear (PLA; g) and rotational (PRA; deg/sec²) accelerations of head impacts.

Results: Stick to head impacts occurred most often (IR=483.87, CI₉₅=397.30-570.45); whereas, head …

Comparing Men’S Soccer Head Impact Characteristics Over A Three Year Time Period, Karlie Ennis

Student Scholar Showcase

By studying head impacts over multiple seasons, injury patterns may be recognized which can lead to rule changes and other injury reduction measures. The purpose of our study was to compare head impact characteristics (impact location and mechanism) in men’s soccer over 3 years. We recruited 26 NCAA Division III intercollegiate male soccer players (age=19.64±1.25 years, height=181.70±5.80 cm, mass=76.98±10.19 kg) over 3years. X2 Biosystems xPatch sensors measured frequency and magnitude of all head impacts over a 10 g threshold. The overall male soccer player IR was 7.50/1000 athlete-exposures (CI₉₅=2.85-12.15). The most common head impact mechanism was ball …

Revolution And Visual Culture In South Africa During Apartheid, Teresa Gunter

Student Scholar Showcase

In a nation firmly entrenched in the principles of white supremacy and complete separation of the races, self-determination eluded South Africans of color whose visual culture had a positive impact on important political changes during apartheid. This paper examines the works of South African artists like John Mohl, Helen Sibidi, Gavin Jantjes, Ernest Cole, and Thami Mnyele who drew inspiration from their forebears and each other and enlist the strife of individuals, as well as their own struggles, to engage the viewer in intellectual and emotive narratives.

Embedded art was a fundamental element of South African communities before colonization by …