Symposium of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Presentations

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  City360: Visualizing Multimodal City Events for Decision Support

  Vaikunth Sridharan, Tanvi Banerjee, Pramod Anantharam, Archana Sheshadri, RoopTeja Muppalla, Amit P. Sheth, and Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

  Cities are increasingly outfitted with sensors for monitoring various conditions such as traffic, weather, air quality, and infrastructure related issues. Such well outfitted cities are generating massive amounts of multi-modal data leading to daunting challenges in assimilating, visualizing, and making sense of this data by city authorities and citizens. We propose City360 to address these challenges and provide decision support to city authorities and citizens. We demonstrate the utility of our system through concrete use cases for San Francisco Bay area that utilize heterogeneous data from various open city data sources.

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  Expression of the NKCC2A Cotransporter in Mouse Central Nervous System

  Katherine E. Fahy, James B. Lucot, Hayo Castrop, and Mauricio Di Fulvio

  Na-K-2Cl cotransporter 2A (NKCC2A), also known as the bumetanide-sensitive cotransporter 1 (BSC1), transports Na+, K+ and Cl- with a stoichiometry of 1:1:2. NKCC2A is considered a kidney specific cotransporter. It is abundantly expressed in apical membrane of the tubular cells in the thick ascending limb of the loop of Henle (TALH) and in the macula densa. However, NKCC2 has also been found at low levels in different cells, including insulin-secreting ones. This secondary active transporter uses the energy stored in the electrochemical gradients of Na and K maintained by the Na/K-ATPase located on the basolateral membrane of the TALH. The gene encoding NKCC2 is Slc12a1, solute carrier family 12 member 1 located on chromosome 2. Mice lacking NKCC2A (NKCC2A-KO) exhibit mild kidney dysfunction. In this lab it was noted that NKCC2A-KO mice express atypical muscle movements, slight tremors and subtle muscle dyscontrol, endure exceptionally well in the forced swim test and had changes in neurotransmitter levels. These observations led to the hypothesis that NKCC2A may be also found in the central nervous system (CNS).

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  Characterization of Calbindin Positive Interneurons within the Ventral Horn of the Mouse Spinal Cord

  Taylor L. Floyd and David R. Ladle

  Sensory-motor circuits in the spinal cord integrate sensory feedback from muscles and modulate locomotor behavior. Although we know how the sensory-motor system generally works, the main issue lies in identifying all neurons involved and understanding their interrelationships. Many interneurons contribute to sensory-motor circuits and have been well studied. For example, Renshaw cells (RC) are inhibitory interneurons that prevent motor neurons from over-activity. A distinguishing feature of RCs is that they are the only interneurons within the ventral-most region of the spinal cord expressing the calcium binding protein calbindin (CB). Recent studies have found other subpopulations of ventral horn interneurons outside of the RC area that express CB, but knowledge regarding the function and connectivity of these neurons is limited. We hypothesize CB expression serves a functional purpose for ventral horn interneurons and as well as identifying RCs. Here we compare known characteristics of RCs with other ventral horn interneurons that express CB. We analyze anatomical location; cellular density; expression of neurotransmitters; motor neuron and sensory afferent contacts; expression of calcium binding proteins CB, calretinin and parvalbumin; and premotor neuron identification.

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  This Floating World for Solo Flute by Edie Hill

  Donna J. Hangen

  Abstract discussing author's choice of solo flute performance, with analysis and explanation of the various pieces.

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  High Power Pulsed Terahertz Light Generation from Superconducting Antenna Arrays

  Nicholas C. Padgett, Stephanie R. Lake, Jason A. Deibel, T. Bullard, D. Latypov, J. Patel, J. Murphy, J. Bulmer, W. Tang, M. Sebastian, and Timothy J. Haugan

  Terahertz radiation is invaluable in spectroscopy and imaging due to its nondestructive nature. It has become a key focus for those wishing to develop sensors capable of detecting weapons and narcotics unobtrusively and at a distance. An ultrafast pulsed (femtoseconds) laser incident on a superconducting ring causes the emission of terahertz (THz) radiation. It is theorized that the radiation is a result of the supercurrent being modulated by the breaking and recombining of Cooper pairs on the order of picoseconds, where the time scale determines the frequency of the emitted radiation. We propose to investigate the terahertz emission from Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconducting ring arrays of various geometries. Specifically, we will investigate the dependence of the time dynamics of the terahertz radiation, the ultrafast femtosecond laser pump power dependence and time dynamics, the antenna geometry, and the efficiency of the system. The theoretical work completed thus far anticipates high power and bandwidth in the terahertz regime. Furthermore, a complete characterization of the emitted radiation will provide insight into the microscopic properties of the superconductor's supercarriers.

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  No Oasis in the Desert: Identification and Implications of the Food Desert around an Urban Ohio Hospital

  R. J. Sontag

  Montgomery County, Ohio’s diabetes prevalence outpaces the nation, and the incidence of adult obesity approaches 1/3. Access to healthy food in the impoverished neighborhood surrounding Dayton’s Good Samaritan Hospital, the site of the Family Medicine residency, is important when educating about health lifestyle. The purpose of this project was to determine whether the area was a food desert and to evaluate the implications of the label.

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  Student Growth Measures for Teacher and Principal Evaluations

  Suzanne Franco and Allison Mueller

  There were three Ohio research efforts about Student Growth Measures (SGM) for Teacher and Principal Evaluations: 1) extended testing for previously non-­‐tested subjects and grades, 2) relationship between the teacher and principal evaluation systems’ implementation plans, and 3) an empirical study of Local Education Agencies’ (LEA) year-­‐end evaluation data from 2013. In 2011-­‐2012 Ohio offered a 2 year mini-­‐grant to LEAs agreeing to administer extended testing for Value-­‐Added measures (VAM) in grades and content areas not represented in the Ohio Achievement Assessment (OAA). The mini-­‐grant allowed the state to create testing pools sufficient to produce teacher-­‐level VAMs. American College Testing (ACT) End of Course (EOC), Terra Nova, MAPS, and/or Star assessments were administered. The two year study of a sample of 23 funded LEAs has provided has provided findings for the local and national discussions about student growth measures and teacher/principal evaluations. At the same time Ohio completed a case study for a sample of 22 LEAs about the relationship between OTES/OPES implementation. And finally, 21 LEAs' final 2013 teacher and principal evaluation data were analyzed for general trends.

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  The Role of the Nurse in Family Coping after Miscarriage

  Wesley Hannebaum

  When a miscarriage occurs, it affects the entire family unit, making coping an important part of healing during this time. After miscarriage, women are at increased risk for developing mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Miscarriage is seldom seen as a concern for the father of the lost child, and thus their feelings are often ignored. It is important for the nurse to know how to best help these men, women, and the rest of the involved family cope after miscarriage so they can move on in a healthy way. The following is a review of the literature to determine effective interventions nurses can use to help families to cope and reduce stress and anxiety after miscarriage.

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  ETI‐385 as a Novel Anti‐emetic Against Drug Induced Emesis

  Theresa Fennell, James Lucot, Samantha Spitak, Emily Smith, and Teresa Garret

  Drugs currently used to prevent emesis (nausea and vomiting) target only one or a few of the pathways used by emetic stimuli to trigger the reflex. Thus, an anti-emetic drug will only be effective against some stimuli. Prior work determined that 8-OH-DPAT (DPAT, a 5-HT1A agonist) was a universally effective anti-emetic. Although DPAT prevented emesis, it also elicited an extreme anxiety response making it unsuitable for therapeutic use. Presently, there exists no universal anti-emetic drug. We tested a proprietary drug developed from DPAT, ETI-385, which successfully prevented emesis in musk shrews against chemotherapy, drug and motion stimuli. For FDA purposes, we are required to test ETI-385 in another species before taking the drug into clinical trials. Work at Epiomed Therapeutics used ETI-385 to successfully prevent emesis in cats using motion stimuli. Currently, ETI-385 is being tested in cats against a drug stimulus, Xylazine, which is a common veterinary sedative. We determined a dose response curve for ETI-385 against Xylazine over the range of 0.0225mg/kg to 0.36mg/kg. The animals received an ETI-385 pretreatment injected subcutaneously (SC) followed by an injection of Xylazine (also SC). During observation the animals were scored for symptoms of both emesis and anxiety. The dose 0.0225mg/kg was unsuccessful in preventing emesis and produced a higher symptom score than Xylazine alone, suggesting nausea. The dose 0.045mg/kg was 66.7% effective against vomiting but had an increase in symptom score while 0.09mg/kg was 83.4% effective against vomiting with a marked decrease in symptom score. At the 0.36 mg/kg dose we achieved 100% efficacy and a complete eradication of emetic symptoms. Unlike DPAT, only the highest dose produced any defensive behavior.

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  Role of the 3'lgHRR in TCDD-induced suppression of the immunoglobulin heavy chain

  Jayharsh L. Panchal, Eric J. Romer, David Ellis, Tharu Fernando, and Courtney E. W. Sulentic

  2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) inhibits antibody secretion and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) expression. Our previous work has shown that a possible mechanism for inhibition of IgH expression could be inhibition of the 3’IgH regulatory region (3’IgHRR). The 3’IgHRR has four enhancer regions (hs3a; hs1,2; hs3b; hs4) which are purported to control IgH gene expression. Previously we demonstrated a sensitive inhibition by TCDD of LPS-induced 3’IgHRR activity which is correlated with an inhibition of LPS-induced hs1,2 enhancer activity; however, the hs4 enhancer showed TCDD-induced activation following the co-treatment of TCDD and LPS. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to determine if the hs1,2 enhancer mediates the inhibitory effect of TCDD on 3’IgHRR activation. We generated a CH12.LX cell line stably expressing a γ2b transgene under the regulation of the 3’IgHRR and containing loxp sites flanking either the hs3a/hs1,2 or the hs3b/hs4 enhancer pairs. Transient transfection with Cre recombinase results in recombination at the loxp sites and deletion of the appropriate enhancer pair. Cells expressing Cre recombinase were sorted and 96 clones from each parental (i.e., loxp flanking hs3a/hs1,2 or hs3b/hs4) were analyzed by PCR for successful recombination. We found 8 clones and 6 clones with successful deletion of the hs3a/hs1,2 and hs3b/hs4 respectively. Preliminary analysis showed inhibition of the hs3a/hs1,2 enhancer pair and no effect to inhibition of the hs3b/hs4 enhancer pair. These results suggest that the hs1,2 is the primary mediator of TCDD-induced 3’IgHRR inhibition and that the hs4 enhancer in combination with the hs3b enhancer is affected differently than when the hs4 is analyzed in isolation or by transient transfection. A polymorphism of the hs1,2 enhancer is correlated with autoimmune diseases like IgA nephropathy and Celiac disease. Hence modulation of hs1,2 enhancer activity by TCDD may influence the initiation or progression of these diseases. (Supported by NIEHS R01ES014676)

  This poster was presented at the Wright State University Campus-Wide Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 8, 2011