Digital Commons Network^™

Factors That Influence Dietetic Interns' Dietary Practices, Jenna Sacks, Breann Mcfarlane, Courtney Weese, Katie Thompson

Student Research Symposium

Background: The dietetic internship is a rigorous supervised practice experience that all future registered dietitians must complete. Research suggests that environmental and social factors may affect dietary choices. No studies have been done to evaluate if the rigorous internship experience affects interns’ dietary practices. Objective: The objective of this focus group research study was to gather opinions from various dietetic interns to understand what factors of the internship experience, if any, affected interns’ dietary habits and preferences. It was hypothesized that environmental and social factors from the dietetic internship would impact interns’ dietary habits. Design: Qualitative data was collected via …

The Effect Of Diet On Muc2 Gene Expression In The Colon Mucosa, Abi Weaver

Student Research Symposium

The objective of this study is to determine how a change in diet affects the expression of Muc2 in the colon mucosa at three different timepoints of inflammation.

Curriculum Subcommittee Minutes, April 7, 2022, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Approval of 3 March 2022 Minutes
• Program Proposals
• Semester Course Approval Reviews
• Other Business
• Adjourn: 2:33 pm

The Good From The Ugly: Fermentation Optimization For Hagfish Protein Production, Simon Hulme, Zach Hyde, Ben Florschutz, Caeman Nicholas

Student Research Symposium

When under attack the noble hagfish produces a protective slime that rapidly expands in water to clog the gills of their attacker. The protein threads that hold the slime together caught the eye of Dr. Jones’ Lab here at USU.These proteins, alpha and gamma, have properties very similar to spider silk making them a material of interest to the US Navy. While the Jones lab has already genetically engineered a strain of E. coli to produce these filament proteins the process has not been optimized. This group plans to increase protein production by 20% (from 8 g/L to 9.6 g/L) …

Simulation Of The Nonlinear Dynamics Of A Spherical Magnet In The Field Of A Second Stationary Magnet, Luke Price

Student Research Symposium

We developed a 4th order Runge-Kutta program for the problem of two uniformly magnetized spheres, one sphere orbiting a second stationary sphere, by means of their magnetic fields. There are four coupled ordinary differential equations that describe the motion of the orbiting magnet. We graphed the solutions to these equations for a range of initial conditions and determined the chaotic indicator called the Lyapunov exponent (LE) in each case. A graph of the potential energy was also made. We look at the numerical values and graphs of the four equations and see how much they differ for a range of …

When Should Young Married Couples Have Children?, Morgan Anderton

Student Research Symposium

There are many young married couples who are trying to plan out their lives; one thing they’re deciding is the best time to have children. There are many things to consider when planning for a family, such as, finances, fertility rates, mental preparedness and many others. This research aims to break down these aspects of planning for a family to decide when the best time, for young married couples, is to have children. Research was studied from academic databases, interviews from mothers, therapists, and parenting blogs that provided many points of views on when to start a family. From this …

Cultural Competency Of Utah Department Of Health Diabetes Programs, Savannah Daines

Student Research Symposium

Purpose: Health disparities, or preventable and unjust differences in health, often exist in populations that experience barriers to health as a result of race or ethnicity. In the Hispanic population, health disparities exist in diabetes prevention and management with Hispanics being 70 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and twice as likely to be hospitalized for end-stage diabetic kidney disease compared to non-Hispanic whites. Delivering culturally competent care that respects how cultural factors impact health can help reduce health disparities. This project evaluates the cultural competency of Utah Department of Health diabetes programs for the Hispanic population and …

I'M Telling You, It Just Won't Work, Bonni Jones

Student Research Symposium

Science teachers feel pressure to align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), embrace innovative methods and technology tools with their supporting pedagogies, yet daily classroom practices rarely incorporate them. Investigations of this phenomenon include professional development (PD) effectiveness, teacher learning, beliefs, views, and resistance to change. Investigation findings have not uncovered how to reverse the trend. A search to understand the tensions and barriers that outweigh the pressures mentioned above is one aim of this study. Tensions surface when teachers and students are expected to replace lectures, worksheets, teacher-led labs, and tests with the following: asking questions, defining problems, …

2nd Graders Being Creative With An Open-Ended Coding Robot Geometrical Math Task, Lauren Nix

Student Research Symposium

This semester, I've been working with Dr. Joseph S. Kozlowski in his 2nd-grade classroom at Edith Bowen Laboratory School here at Utah State University. While student teaching, I've also been observing and facilitating what we call Botley Fridays. Each week, we give our students an open-ended math task to work on, explore, and complete using the coding robot Botley 2.0. This presentation contains the cool things our students did during a geometrical math task about shapes.

Quantifying The Value Of Design, Sam Peart

Student Research Symposium

What is good graphic design really worth?It can seem so subjective, hence why most qualitatively-minded creatives struggle to communicate their value to more quantitatively-minded clients. This project seeks to determine what place quantitative numbers have within the subjective world of design and educate designers on how to leverage those numbers to their advantage.

Diversity Within Literature, Amrutha Obulasetty

Student Research Symposium

While our secondary classrooms grow more and more racially/ethnically diverse, common sense would tell us that our literature needs to reflect that, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of books that include diverse racial and ethnic representation. The issue is not the lack of literature but rather the lack of exposure to students in secondary schools in the US. Through my research, I question the dichotomy between the racially and ethnically diverse literature that exists and the racially and ethnically diverse literature that is in the hands of our students. After placing published scholarship in conversation with one another, …

Upward Mobility And Affordable Housing, Amy Mackliet, Trevor Tarter

Student Research Symposium

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) and Rapid rehousing can provide safe, stable housing for vulnerable homeless populations such as those experiencing substance abuse disorder, mental illness, and chronic homelessness (Aubry et al., 2020). We evaluated and analyzed research articles on supportive housing interventions and upward mobility. Literature was collected from online scholarly databases. Evidence supports Rapid Rehousing and PSH interventions in improving targeted outcomes such as mental health, substance abuse use, cost-effectiveness, housing stability, and quality of life (Aubry et al., 2020; (Miler et al., 2021). Further, the literature supports that PSH and Rapid Rehousing are cost-effective models when considering cost …

Heart2heart: Discrimination-Based Stress Reduction In Black, Indigenous, And People Of Color, Shari Linares

Student Research Symposium

Heart2Heart is a theoretically-grounded racial-healing intervention for people of color created by people of color to help reduce levels of discrimination-based stress they may be experiencing. H2H contains definitions on racial trauma and how it affects us, a Racism Recovery Plan, and allows for skills based learning on detecting Microaggressions, using Microinterventions, and learning mindfulness skills. H2H originally began as an in-person intervention using a multiple-baseline design with only Latinx students with promising results, however we had to move online through zoom due to the pandemic's effects. This called for an online delivery system, which is what H2H Online will …

The Well-Being Of Women Of Color During Covid-19, Shari Linares, Hannah Baxter

Student Research Symposium

Well-being for WOC is a media project that examined the differences in well-being for women of color throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. This project was based on the Household Pulse Survey that collected data each week throughout the pandemic. Well-being was defined through the variables mental health, physical health, and financial security, and we also polled our community through the Instagram page to understand the experiences of women of color in our community. We found that race is in fact a very large factor in well-being throughout the pandemic.

The Death Penalty Is A Viable Punishment, Zane Hirning

Student Research Symposium

The death penalty is a penalty that is worthy of heinous perpetrators. Heinous crimes will be committed, and often, the perpetrator is given a punishment unworthy of the crime committed. This causes a low-risk factor when committing the crime. This can cause issues for many, including the victim’s family. The lack of worthy punishment can affect the victim's family, and it may result in outrage against the public, or a personal attack on the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s family. This creates a violent environment that can lead to other American citizens being hurt because the victim’s family took their own …

Detecting Accurate Emotions In Faces, Marisa Davis, Emma Greenwood

Student Research Symposium

Anger race bias is the tendency to misidentify expressions of emotion, specifically anger, in Black or racially ambiguous faces (Hutchings & Haddock, 2008). Hutchings & Haddock (2008) found that Black faces are more likely to be perceived as angry by people high in implicit bias. Since January 1st, 2015, 119 unarmed Black males have been shot and killed by police (Washington Post, 2020). When police officers perceive a threat, they are more likely to shoot, and mistaking expressions such as fear for anger causes the perception of increased threat that can lead to inaccurate responses such as excessive force (Correll …

The Effect Of Temperature Fluctuation On Magnetometer Readings, Brittany Payne

Student Research Symposium

The SAM-III is a 3-axis, simple aurora magnetometer that can be used to sense and study geomagnetic fluctuations. These fluctuations can provide information about auroras, solar flares, geomagnetic storms, or radio waves, among others. In line with the manufacturer’s goals of expanding a worldwide, amateur magnetometer network, one of these magnetometers is being stationed at Utah State University. This experiment specifically looks at how temperature fluctuations affect the accuracy of the magnetometer’s measurements. These results will help determine to what extent the magnetometer can be used to gather useful data and as well as decide where it should be stationed …

Giant Earthquakes' Effects On The Ionosphere, Aaron Houston

Student Research Symposium

The ionosphere is a part of the Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from 80 – 600 kilometers. Gases in this area are ionized which creates a range of free electrons that make up the plasma of the ionosphere. Integrating the electron density along a line between two points will give you the Total Electron Content (TEC), which is responsible for signal delays between satellites in orbit and their GPS receivers on the surface. Using this delay, the TEC in a specific region can be calculated which helps in GPS error analysis. During the earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011, there …

Creating Sustainable, High-Performance Silkworm Fibers Inspired By Neurodegenerative Disease (Amyloids), Gavin Christensen

Student Research Symposium

Amyloids present in neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s, have a devastating effect on neurons at a microscopic level. The aggregation of amyloid plaque in neuronal synapses prevents communication between brain cells, resulting in decreased cognitive function. The ability of amyloids to form these plaques on a microscopic scale can potentially increase the strength of silkworm silk fibers when utilized on a macroscopic scale. Amyloids, by nature, have a high beta sheet concentration that forms beta nanocrystals when incorporated into the silkworm genome via CRISPR-Cas9. Silkworm silk, with select amyloid and spider silk gene sequences, poses a strong candidate for a biosynthetic …

Female Composers In The Salt Lake City Classical Music Scene, Courtney Fairbourn

Student Research Symposium

Research done by the Institute for Composer Diversity shows that music written by women makes up a minority of classical music programming in the United States. This study looks at how Utah compares to the rest of the nation by collecting data on Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, and Ballet West. It also speculates on some potential reasons for the low numbers in Utah based on trends and previous research.

Measuring The Intensity Of Mymotivators™ / Whole Brain® Communication In Print Advertising, Tanner Schulz

Student Research Symposium

Advertising’s purpose is to create a state of mind conducive to purchase. This study seeks to identify, measure, and understand the intrinsic motivators communicated within print advertisements and quantify their intensities. The theory is that ads with more intense motivator content - distributed somewhat evenly across all four quadrants of the Whole Brain^®Model - will be more effective in influencing that state of mind.This research is the first step in identifying, quantifying, and visualizing motivators communicated within print advertisements. The study analyzed 15 print ads found in contemporary magazines.

Name-Matching Techniques For Disambiguating Interaction Data, Adam Weaver

Student Research Symposium

Fuzzy name matching methods are helpful because names are often misspelled, sound similar, or reside in similar circumstances. A fuzzy name matching process assigns two names a similarity score between 0 and 1 using name-matching techniques (with 1 meaning identical and 0 meaning entirely unique). Fuzzy name matching is used for optimizing customer databases, creating more accurate medical records, or in Social Network Analysis (SNA). To observe the links between students’ social practices and academic performance, our research group is performing a large-scale (1000+ student) SNA through open-response name-generator surveys. Accordingly, the survey responses contain ambiguous names—many of which are …

Photochemistry Of Wildfire Derived Pyrogenic-Dissolved Organic Matter (Py-Dom) For Photodegradation Of Aquatic Contaminants, Monika Madhiyan

Student Research Symposium

Erosion of wildfire-affected organic matter and/or its physical disintegration in water results in the formation of pyrogenic Dissolved Organic Matter (py-DOM), which can react with ground state oxygen to produce singlet oxygen (1O2) in the presence of light. 1O2 has a high electronegativity and oxidizing potential which influences the photo-transformation and environmental fate of organic contaminants present in the water, hence, it is essential to quantify singlet oxygen quantum yields for wildfire derived py-DOM, which is absent in the past literature. In this study, py-DOM was extracted from wildfire-affected tree portions from Colorado Grizzly Creek Wildfire. Time-resolved 1O2 phosphorescence was …

Mechanical Methods For Bioreactor Foam Breaking, Ceaira Howard, Bodee Hancock, Adam Martin, Laurent Saysanavong

Student Research Symposium

ThermoFisher Scientific, through the lead of Jason Brown, has commissioned a design team at Utah State University (USU) to create a mechanical foam breaker capable of being used in a single use bioreactor setup. The goal of this design team was to find mechanical methods of foam breaking for reactors of 30 L volume and 300 L volume to reduce the need for chemical antifoam agents which, in concentrations higher than 1% total volume, can lead to higher optical densities and lower protein yield (Routledge, 2012). Initial designs include a rotating mechanical cone (derived from ThermoFisher), a wire bristle apparatus, …

Importance Of A Dietary Cation-Anion Difference In Peripartum Dairy Cows, Laura A. Motsinger, Jacob Hadfield

All Current Publications

At calving, nutrient requirements of dairy cows increase to support milk synthesis. Energy and protein requirements are increased at the initiation of lactation (Moore et al., 2000). Additionally, calcium requirements increase tremendously to meet the demands of lactation (Moore et al., 2000). Calving and subsequent milk synthesis can cause calcium concentrations in the blood to drop. When the demand for calcium exceeds the cow’s ability to mobilize calcium, hypocalcemia (low blood calcium) occurs, which can negatively impact production. This fact sheet reviews hypocalcemia in dairy cows and how to implement hypocalcemia prevention strategies.

Human Trafficking Among Utah Girls And Women, Lindsay B. Gezinski, Mckayla Caress, Marin Christensen, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

Human trafficking is a global problem that involves the exploitation of people for profit through the means of force, fraud, or coercion.¹ It takes a variety of forms, including forced labor, debt bondage, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation.² Systemic inequalities, such as mass displacement, extreme poverty, and lack of access to education and job opportunities are examples of contributing factors that can fuel trafficking of vulnerable populations.³ While the scale of trafficking in persons is difficult to determine, estimates suggest that there were over 40 million victims worldwide in 2016.⁴ In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, …

Ensemble Kernel Density Estimation, Ethan Ancell

Student Research Symposium

The problem of estimating a probability density function from data has many applications in machine learning and data science. Nonparametric estimators are useful in this context as they require relatively few assumptions on the densities. Unfortunately, standard nonparametric methods such as kernel density estimationtend to converge slowly to the true value in high dimensions as a function of the data sample size. Recent work has shown that optimally weighted ensembles of nonparametric estimators can be used to achieve a fast convergence rate when estimating information theoretic functionals such as information divergence. We explore the extension of this theory to density …

Why People Don't Get The Covid-19 Vaccine, Rebecca Mackey

Student Research Symposium

Vaccines have been released in response to the Covid-19 ​pandemic. Despite the good that these can do, many people refuse to be vaccinated. This research aims to figure out why people don’t get vaccinated. Research was conducted using the library database and online articles, including polls and surveys done by various research groups. A big reason that people don’t get vaccinated is because they don’t trust the government, healthcare, or the vaccines due to their quick release. The result of this refusal is greater risk and harm to high-risk populations.

The Effects Of Strength And Conditioning Training On The Health Of College Students, Brynli Bleak

Student Research Symposium

Does participation in Strength and Conditioning (S & C) classes have a positive effect on the physical, emotional, mental, and social health of college students? This study was designed to measure and explore different markers of physical, mental, emotional, and social health from participants in Strength and Conditioning classes. Class participants were asked to complete a survey to self report the effects of the training on various aspects of their life. Data were analyzed and compared to national averages for college students, and correlation tests were conducted to identify relationships in the reported effects. The study found that no significant …

Laboratory Simulations Of Simultaneous Reduced Gravity And Ionizing Radiation Environments, Achal Duhoon, Jr Dennison

Conference Proceedings

A novel system has been developed to simulate the combined effects of reduced gravity and ionizing radiation present during spaceflight on biological and particulate samples. The miniature rotary cell culture system (mRCCS) was designed to synchronously rotate up to five independent vessels containing particulate samples suspended in fluid media, constructed using radiation tolerant, biocompatible, and vacuum compatible materials. Reduced gravity conditions were achieved when particles (e.g., 200 µm polystyrene microcarrier beads with or without adhered cell clusters) were suspended inside the vessels moving near terminal velocity in viscous fluid media with densities matched to the suspended …