2023 Undergraduate Exhibition

Cover crops are used in agricultural systems to perform ecosystem services. While it is well established that the plant community can affect soil microbes, and that microbes in the soil can influence seed germination and increase seed mortality, it is not clear how cover crop communities affect the germinability and viability of weed seeds. This study further analyzes this relationship between cover crop communities and weed seed viability and germination.

I compared the distribution and shade tolerance of five Rubus species in central Pennsylvania. T-tests of shade levels over each species determined that the invasive R. phoenicolasius (wineberry) competes most directly with R. allegheniensis (Allegheny blackberry), a key early-successional species that is important for forest regeneration. These are supplanted by R. occidentalis, hispidus, and flagellaris as the canopy develops. Understanding these successional patterns can help foresters develop more effective strategies for encouraging native biodiversity.

Mass mortalities of reef-building corals have facilitated research on the mutualisms between cnidarians and their dinoflagellate endosymbionts. Competition experiments using three host-compatible symbionts found that while both the homologous native and the host-generalist symbiont cohabitated the host, each competitively dominated over a fast-proliferating symbiont from a different host species. At increased temperatures, the thermally sensitive native symbiont outcompeted the thermally tolerant non-native symbiont, indicating that co-evolved mutualisms are better adapted to function under stressful conditions.

Detecting concrete defects in industrial environments can be difficult due to the lack of reliable detection methods. To address this issue, we propose the development of an autonomous drone that uses YOLOv8, an advanced object detection algorithm, to accurately and rapidly detect and locate concrete defects. The drone will acquire data and navigate its environment with exploration and pose estimation capabilities, enhancing its ability to identify defects.

This project seeks to describe three pre-verbal markers shi, coo, and caa in the Anii language (Ghana-Togo Mountain, Togo and Benin).  The markers shi and coo target the aspectual reference of the clause they mark, with shi providing emphasis and coo providing a sense of certainty or importance. Caa marks a sense of violated prohibition in a non-future context and in the future provides a sense that an obstacle is preventing something from being done. 

Theobroma cacao (cacao) is an economically significant tropical crop facing diverse challenges and whose breeding is limited by time- and resource-intensive processes. While genetic transformations hasten target gene evaluation, cacao currently has low transformation efficiency. I attempted to improve cacao transformations by using cellulase and pectinase treatments. We found a cellulase treatment of 20 mg/mL increased GFP expression in callus. With this data, we hope to use these treatments to develop transgenic embryos. 

Our aim for this literature review was to investigate the importance of adolescent assent in medical context. We explored the role of adolescents in research or medical treatment and bioethical considerations of including this population. Of the 5712 articles screened, our review yielded 9 relevant papers. We found that adolescent research or medical treatment should include the assent, increasing feelings of bodily autonomy for adolescents, independent from their parents’ consent.

trans-Translation is a unique and vital pathway in bacteria that rescues stalled ribosomes during protein synthesis. ArfA and arfB are alternative rescue pathways to trans-translation found in E. coli. Stressors like bacteriophage may require the use of ribosome rescue pathways for cell survival, which can be evaluated by testing the susceptibility of mutants defective in ribosomal rescue pathways against different phages.

The primary purpose of this research was to examine the difference in eye tracking performance across different sport athletes. Using the RightEye eye tracking system, data was collected on measurements such as reaction time, tracking ability, contrast sensitivity, etc. Athletes from baseball,tennis, volleyball, soccer, softball, and basketball were participants in thisstudy. The data was used to offer insight on what the results mean in terms ofan athlete’s sport performance.

This study explores methodology for relating eastern bluebird cognition with metrics of reproductive success. Individual cognitive abilities of nesting birds were measured using a problem-solving task. Each box was equipped with a series of levers, allowing the bird to open the door to the box by perching on the correct lever. Cognitive assessments will be paired with metrics of nest success. Future research will examine the link between cognition and reproductive success using this methodology.

Purseweb spiders are a family of cryptic arachnids closely related to tarantulas. Here, we explored radio telemetry as a means of locating the heretofore undescribed females of a newly discovered species of the genus Sphodros. Males were collected from pitfall traps and successfully outfitted with VHF transmitters. The spiders survived several days following application, and their locomotion was unimpeded. While the males ultimately died before reaching female webs, subsequent visual searches for webs were successful.

The effects of health inequities on antimicrobial resistance are not well documented. Caenorhabditis elegans and Orsay virus presents an ideal model to study the effect of treatment access on antimicrobial resistance. Orsay virus was passaged through 10 sequential generations of worm populations combined in different ratios of “treatedâ€

Eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina), a species of special concern in Pennsylvania, have declined across their range in recent decades. The objective of this research is to understand how thermal interactions affect habitat selection. The results from this research will quantify the micro-sites that turtles seek out based on their sex and help to determine what habitat management, especially in the understory, can be done to boost the population of this species of concern. 

This project empirically tests the factors affecting democratization following a civil It includes 92 conflicts and studies each of the ten years following a civil war. I study four explanatory variables: length, casualties, war type, and outcome. The dependent variables are democracy scores and whether the country increased in democracy from the previous year. I test this using OLS and logit linear regression.

The main research question was whether covariates could be a big factor on birds’ migration routes. This exploration was possible through an archetype analysis, which is a statistical nonparametric approach that represents each individual as a mixture of multiple estimated archetypes. We developed a new approach where covariates are considered, in order to be fitted using Bayesian methods and MCMC. This showcases a new proposal for such databases and optimizes processes in ecological research.

The data being presented is based on the thesis I am completing for honors in Biobehavioral Health. The first aim of my thesis was to understand the current infant and young child feeding practices in indigenous Guatemalan communities. The second aim of my thesis was to understand the current barriers to achieving optimal nutrition for infants and young children. Feeding practices and barriers were assessed through data from semi-structured interviews, household meal observations and participatory community workshops. 

Cells need access to sulfur sources in their environment to survive, for example sulfate. To import sulfate, YfbS, a sulfate importer that contains two TrkA_C domains, is utilized. The function of these domains is unknown, but it is hypothesized that they serve as a plug to control sulfate import. This poster aims to show the TrkA_C domains are conserved across the Vibrionaceae family, while using V. fischeri to determine their function in future research. 

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a developing manufacturing process that provides unique capabilities compared to more traditional manufacturing, producing components not previously possible without assembly or additional processes. Metal AM specifically has a promise of huge impacts in automotive, aerospace, and other industries reliant on high-quality and complex metal components. A form of metal AM known as Directed Energy Deposition (DED) has additional unique strengths like metal alloy abilities, and sight-specific deposition and repair on existing parts, in addition to the typical advantages of AM over more conventional manufacturing methods. The main issue with DED and other metal additive manufacturing processes like it stems from the inability to maintain strict quality control of manufactured parts. Current manufacturing attempts to optimize process parameters of DED prior to manufacturing to ensure quality control, but can require iteration, and due to the nature of AM can depend on the geometry of the given part. Using real-time monitoring has the potential to monitor the effects of DED process parameters as a manufacturing process is actively being done. Based on this challenge, the authors proposed a methodology that monitors the geometry discrepancy of  DED additive manufacturing using the characteristics of process parameters. The parameters considered in this study are exposure time, a distance of scanner, reflection, and spread of powder. Real-time monitoring can effectively be done using laser line scanner technology.. The ability to actively record geometrical data of specimens produced during the DED process creates the ability to further investigate real-time control of DED process parameters for quality control of specimens

Previous studies have found a positive relationship between body size and perch height in Anolis lizards. We measured these variables in adjacent forested and anthropogenic habitats. Longer-legged anoles perched higher in the forest but lower in the anthropogenic habitat (cabins, lawn, and sparse vegetation). We propose that longer legs are better suited for maneuvering upward in the structurally complex forest habitat but less suitable for utilizing the highest perches on building walls in anthropogenic areas.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the utilization rates of mammograms and Pap smear tests among low income African American women, and to identify some barriers that lead to utilization rates such as education, income, and insurance status. This was done through a literature review and quantitative analysis using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Data. The results indicated that income and insurance status have an impact on the utilization of both tests. 

We combine data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) with sources detected in the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) to construct the HETDEX-LOFAR Spectroscopic Redshift Catalog. Starting from the first data release of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey, we extracted 18,267 spectra. Using an automatic  algorithm, we assigned a classification and distance measurement. We supplemented these classifications with the continuum and emission line catalogs of the internal, third data release from HETDEX (HDR3).

An alternative sigma-54 factor, encoded in V. fischeri, regulates the activation of dependent genes whose expression results in functional traits. Transcriptional regulation provides fitness advantages to the cell and symbiotic species must regulate phenotypic resistance to colonize with the host organism (Euprymna scolopes). Our focus is to determine the levels of rpoN in which regulation processes are altered. The study of s54-dependent regulation will reveal specific pathways and processes that acclimate to the host environment.

Host-affiliated microbiomes are abundant and diverse in nature, but how they initially assemble is widely unknown. The squid-vibrio model system, where marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri colonizes Hawaiian bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes’s light organ, is utilized to study host-microbe symbioses. Here we report that co-isolated strains of V. fischeri’s ability to establish symbiosis in a single squid are likely due to each strain’s swimming ability in conjunction with when they initially encountered the animal.

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed healthcare services, including breast cancer screening, in the United States. Using real-world electronic health records from over 1.8 million women since 2017, we observed a temporary decrease in screening utilization, followed by a rebound within 6 months of the pandemic. However, the rate of follow-up screening within 24 months of a previous screenings decreased from 77.88% in pre-COVID to 77.41% during COVID-period, with variations across demographic subpopulations. A logistic regression also showed an 6.15% decrease in probability that a woman receives a follow-up screening during COVID-19.