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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ctenophores (comb jellies), a family of marine zooplankton, are the largest animals in the world that swim using cilia. Using high-speed video tracking, we compared the displacement of the cilia tips vs. the body attachment point of cilia in swimming ctenophores. Our data suggest that the frequency of the moving body wall is similar to the cilia tip; this synchronicity may carry implications for the overall hydrodynamics of swimming in ctenophores.

The loss of estrogen during menopause is associated with a reduction in the vascular protective molecule, nitric oxide (NO). The present study determined if beetroot juice (BrJ), a rich source of nitrate (which is converted to NO) can reduce adverse (oscillatory shear) blood flow patterns in post-menopausal (PMW) women. We found that 7 days of nitrate-rich BrJ consumption reduced oscillatory shear to a greater extent (time x treatment) in early-PMW than in late-PMW (p=0.047).

This research aims to study how to create a scaled reconfigurable testbed for hybrid aircraft, emulating different propulsion configurations. We have developed a dynamic simulation of the testbed in MATLAB/Simulink, modeling each component separately and then connecting them together. The simulation was used to determine ideal sizes and specifications of hardware to order for the experimental system. CAD models of the testbed were designed, analyzed and are currently being developed.

Various concentrations of Magnesium (Mg) were added to citrate-based biodegradable biomaterials enriched with glutamine to test Mg effects on bone regeneration. Material characterization studies included mechanical testing, long-term degradation (2-24 weeks), and rapid degradation (2-12 hours). Cell studies included cytotoxicity and proliferation studies in 100% degraded material solutions and on the biomaterial composite. Moderate Mg performed best in cytotoxicity and mechanical load bearing studies while the highest Mg concentration showed the most proliferation on biomaterial.

An nth-order Eulerian perturbation theory (nEPT) can model the power spectrum of the dark matter density field accurately only beyond certain scales. We infer σ8, which is the amplitude of dark matter density fluctuations, from the power spectrum data in N-body simulations by forwarding the power spectrum with nEPT. We determine the critical scales below which the inferred σ8 becomes biased and conclude that σ8 is insensitive to the systematical error in nEPT power spectrum. 

Project Chat (P-Chat) is a drinking intervention for parents of incoming first-year college students. Motivational interviews were conducted with parents to assess permissiveness in relation to underage alcohol consumption (N=171, 84.2% Caucasian, 78.9% female). During each interview, parents exhibited a wide range of behaviors to analyze. This project utilized a qualitative coding analysis to define, code, and compare parents’ permissiveness, self-efficacy, engagement, and level of concern pertaining to underage drinking. 

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to human health. A tetrazole-based compound, KKL-55, inhibits Â

Lipoproteins are bound to the cell membrane through an acylated N-terminal cysteine residue and are present in most bacteria; yet, the structure is unknown. Mammalian innate immune system recognizes lipoproteins for infection defense. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) recognizes the acylation pattern. Clostridium coccoides was isolated, confirmed by 16S rRNA Sanger sequencing, and used to extract lipoproteins through detergent partitioning. The acylation pattern could be characterized and tested how it influences the pro-inflammatory TLR2 signaling cascade.

Running can lead to injuries due to high-impact loading on the feet, but changing foot strike (FS) may help some runners avoid this. Using tibia-mounted uni-axial accelerometer data from 58 runners, two machine-learning models (Neural Network (NN) and Short-Term Long memory (LSTM)) were developed to identify FS. Further optimization through Keras Tuner, leave two out, max voting, and random splitting, the NN achieved an average of 86% testing accuracy, and the LSTM model achieved 66%.

Chinampas are a raised field, or “floating garden,â€

Carbon credits propose a financial benefit to implementing cover crops in a changing climate. Carbon credit verifiers use differing methods to determine the amount of carbon a farm has and comparison of their estimates against 10 years of data for soil carbon sequestration in a given land parcel determines the accuracy of their measuring methods. Comparing the financial reward for sequestered carbon across multiple companies determines the optimum platform for carbon credit trading.

One of the consequences of a nuclear war is the destruction of the ozone layer. This creates UV stress for plants growing under extreme conditions. Can we still harvest a crop and get viable seeds?This trial was to evaluate the germination and morphology of newly germinated wheat plants-post UV treatments. The plants from which seeds were harvested for this trial were subject to four UV radiation treatments at four different times during their growing season.

Although extensive research has been conducted on quantifying drought resilience around the world, a comprehensive study of the indicators used in drought resilience models has not previously been made. In an attempt to do so, an international consortium of researchers supported by the Belmont Forum created a survey for drought risk and resilience experts to rank the indicators. As a part of this research group, I will review the process of survey design, from the beginning brainstorms to group discussions to the reiterations after feedback. This project is two-fold, as I created a Decision Support System using early survey data during the survey-design process. The research contribution involves organizing and manipulating survey data, as well as the construction of an interactive tool which allows the user to manipulate visuals of the data through a webpage.

To increase the effectiveness of vegetated bioswales, this study examines what characteristics make different plant species better equipped to remove excess nutrients from stormwater runoff. Four different treatments were tested: Schizacharyium scoparium, Pynanthemum muticum, a mixture of each plant species, and an unvegetated control group. The treatments were watered with synthetic stormwater which was later collected and sent to a lab where Total Phosphorus and Nitrogen were determined. Root characteristics and soil microbiome will be assessed at the experiment's end. These assessments will allow for conclusions to be made regarding characteristics that aid plants in removing excess nutrients. 

While dam removal has accelerated across the US in the interest of reducing human safety hazards and restoring stream integrity, few studies have evaluated long-term effects. We selected the former McCoy-Linn Dam site (Spring Creek, Centre County, Pennsylvania) to analyze long-term response of habitat and benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. Outcomes of this study will help inform monitoring programs that seek to evaluate the effects of dam removal on stream ecosystems. 

Cocoa butter is essential to the chocolate and cosmetics industries, making it a highly valued commodity. Research has mainly focused on the predominant lipids in cocoa butter, triglycerides. This project aims to determine if composition differences due to genotype, growing season, and fermentation time on triglycerides apply to minor lipid components in cocoa butter, thereby increasing our understanding of the composition of cocoa butter to aid in future efforts to create new cacao varieties.