Within multi-planet systems observed by the Kepler mission, a trend has been discovered correlating the sizes of adjacent planets and orbital period ratios of adjacent planet pairs within the same system. I analyze how this “peas-in-a-pod” architecture manifests in simulated super-Earth exoplanet systems governed by different pebble/planetesimal accretion models that vary in limiting embryo isolation mass. I aim to identify discontinuities that arise in these architectures and their implications for each formation model.

I aim to analyze the relationship between the voter's most important issues (e.g., reproductive rights, economy, inflation) and their candidate preferences. Using exit poll survey data, I explore how voters' priorities influence their electoral choices, shaped by rational policy alignment and social identity factors. This analysis employs statistical methods to uncover these connections, providing insights into voter behavior.

The Radio Neutrino Observatory, located in Summit Station, Greenland, is an array of radio frequency interferometers consisting of several independent stations that targeting the detection of extremely energetic neutrino events. Plotting the field of view and effective area over a period for known objects in the sky such as TXS-0506+056 or SWIFT J1644+57 for RNO-G can allow calculations via expected flux's’ from the objects, estimating the number of neutrino events per year.

This study attempted to understand how caregivers’ stress and psychopathology influenced self-reports of their child’s well-being. Participants were recruited from the Children, Intimate Relationships, Conflictual Life Events, and Stress (CIRCLES) study. Male caregivers' reports were more influenced by their psychopathology when compared to female caregivers' reports. In conclusion, male caregivers’ reports are unreliable due to fluctuating stress levels, while female caregivers’ reports are more reliable, even though their psychopathology causes changes in their child’s health.

Since the 1980s, Costa Rica has successfully increased its forest coverage from 21% to over 60% by ending legislation contributing to deforestation and introducing new programs to protect the environment. These programs have also positively impacted endangered species, reduced poverty, allowed for economic growth, and shifted the public’s opinion of natural resources. In the modern world, Costa Rica offers insight into the far-reaching impacts of conservation and hope for positive change in other countries.

Many animals rely on long-term symbiotic relationships with bacterial communities that are essential for normal physiology, however, traditional methods such as CFU plating have high limits of detection and fail to accurately quantify strain-level abundance. This project addresses these limitations by leveraging qPCR as an alternative quantitative. Here, we demonstrate that qPCR provides a more sensitive approach to determining bacterial abundance in vivo; providing a valuable tool for studying microbiome dynamics.

Racial disparities in healthcare have been extensively researched, yet the impact of these disparities on cognitive outcomes post-traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been understudied. This study utilizes a biobehavioral framework to examine the relationship between race and discrimination on executive functioning and processing speed in Black and White participants with TBI. Data from 57 adults (15 Black participants and 42 White participants) with moderate to severe TBI from the Pennsylvania Health Study was analyzed. The primary independent variable was race, with discrimination being measured via the Everyday Discrimination Scale and Major Experiences of Discrimination. The primary dependent variables were executive functioning and processing speed, which were measured via various neuropsychological tests. Multivariate analysis of variance and linear regression analysis were used to understand the relationships among the variables. Results indicated that race significantly predicted processing speed disparities; however, race did not significantly predict executive functioning disparities. Furthermore, the discrimination scores were not significantly associated with race nor any neuropsychological outcomes, potentially due to the lack of validity of these tests to measure racial discrimination specifically. The findings of this study emphasize the existence of racial disparities even when controlling for socioeconomic factors, highlighting the need to create targeted rehabilitative care and promote cultural competence among the neuropsychological workforce.

Shuihu Zhuan ??? (otherwise known as The Water Margin, Tales of the Water Margin, or Outlaws of the Marsh) is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, celebrated for its vibrant depiction of rebellion, loyalty, and justice during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Despite its significance, English translations of this monumental work often fail to capture its key themes, cultural context, and linguistic specificity. Existing translations—by Pearl S. Buck, Sidney Shapiro, and Alex and John Dent-Young—are marked by omissions, abridgments, or stylistic alterations that obscure the text's original meaning. This project bridges these gaps by making an attempt at a new translation of Tales of the Water Margin. Conjoining a critical analysis of Tales of the Water Margin’s core themes, historical background, and existing translations with a sample translation of Chapters 7 and 8, this project serves as an initial exploration of the complexities of translating vernacular Chinese fiction into English. Through this process, I aim to equip myself with the foundational skills necessary to embark on the first step of my lifelong project of translating the entire 120 chapters of Tales of the Water Margin.

To further understand the role of self-focused constructs in prosocial responding, the present study investigated the relationship between self-compassion and prosocial tendencies. It was hypothesized that composite self-compassion would be correlated with prosocial tendencies, and particularly that the common humanity subscale of self-compassion would be correlated with prosocial tendencies. Results showed that the self-compassion composite did not predict prosocial tendencies. However, common humanity was correlated with prosocial tendencies, which supported the secondary hypothesis.

A presentation on the research design process of a project with the goal of increasing our understanding of how soil greenhouse gas respiration is affected by the seasonality and spatial distribution of saturated, anaerobic soils by utilizing hydrologically manipulated soil cores.

When presented with both non-native and native speech, listeners with a shared language background experience enhanced intelligibility, known as the Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB). This study focuses on Puerto Rican intelligibility when listening to Spanish speakers from four different geographical regions. The results show that transcription accuracy was highest for the Mexican speaker and lowest for the Puerto Rican speaker when background noise was present, which disagrees with the predictions of ISIB.

Synthetic microbial communities offer an opportunity to conduct reductionist research in tractable model systems. However, deriving abundances of highly related strains within these communities is currently unreliable. 16S rRNA gene sequencing does not resolve abundance at the strain level and quantitative PCR (qPCR) is resource prohibitive. I present StrainR2, which uses shotgun metagenomic sequencing and a k-mer-based normalization strategy to provide high accuracy strain-level abundances for all members of a synthetic community, provided their genomes.

Streptococcus bacteria are a fundamental part of the human oral microbiome. Using a competitive mapping approach with ancient DNA from British populations dating 2100BCE-present, we found major shifts in streptococci communities occurred after the Post-Medieval period. While Streptococcus sinensis now has reduced diversity, Streptococcus sanguinis remains abundant in healthy modern populations where it has acquired genes involved in membrane transport and stress response. These evolutionary histories provide important insights into humanity’s changing oral health.

Decarboxylation is an abundant yet unique reaction that is often unfavorable and requires a catalyst. In this work, the favorability of decarboxylation was studied through analysis of the change in Gibbs Free Energy (?G) in relation to changing substituents around a carboxylate group. To quantify the impact of substituents on the ?G of decarboxylation, natural bond order (NBO) analyses were calculated for each reaction using the NBO 7 program hosted in Gaussian 16. Statistical analysis evaluated the relationships between elements of the NBO calculation, such as bond occupancies, bond energies, and orbital information, and the ?G values for each reaction. Leading candidates from the NBO calculations have emerged as predictors for more favorable decarboxylations, providing future insight into the mechanism of decarboxylation.

Caenorhabditis elegans mutant strain RB2045 (ok2703) exhibit a superworm phenotype which is increased thrashing rate (swimming speed) in liquid media. Dopamine is known to play a critical role in motor control, especially regulating swimming behavior. A swimming-induced paralysis (SWIP) assay was performed to assess if the superworm phenotype is regulated by dopamine signaling.

Symbolic execution helps check programs by exploring different paths based on symbolic inputs. Tools like KLEE are commonly used because they can automatically detect bugs and create test cases. In this project, we wanted to see if a large language model like GPT 4o could simulate the kinds of outputs that KLEE generates. The idea was to explore whether LLMs could one day replace parts of symbolic execution to save time and resources. One specific goal was to have GPT-4o identify the most constrained path in a program—this is the execution path with the most symbolic conditions. These paths are especially important because they often represent edge cases that are harder to test and more likely to contain deep bugs. However, figuring this out usually requires fully running KLEE, which can be expensive. So, we tested whether GPT-4o could predict the KLEE outputs and the most complex path using a dataset of 100 C programs. Our results showed about 20% accuracy in generating KLEE-like outputs and identifying the most constrained path. While not highly accurate, this early work helps show what current LLMs can and can’t do when it comes to simulating symbolic execution.

Childhood maltreatment is significantly prevalent and is known to contribute to increased levels of adverse outcomes such as depression and changes in the brain (such as variations in gray matter volume). It is still unknown though which brain regions may be affected by depression and childhood maltreatment, and how childhood maltreatment may increase risk for developing depression. It is essential to know which regions of the brain are impacted by child maltreatment, depression, or both to further understand different behavioral and health outcomes (such as depression) that result from different regions being affected. The question of interest was, “does the effect of child maltreatment on depression look different based on gray matter volume?” To answer this, a narrative review was conducted using primary research articles identified in PubMed and the Penn State Library's online platforms. The primary search terms used were “childhood maltreatment and depression and gray (grey) matter.” The final sample included 11 different studies exploring the association between all three topics concurrently. Based on this literature review, the brain areas impacted by childhood maltreatment and depression included the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex (PFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), amygdala, insula, and cingulate cortex as common sites of structural alteration. It was found that there was a correlation between depression, childhood maltreatment, and gray matter volume. Specifically, as childhood maltreatment occurred, there was increased rates of depression, and decreased volumes of gray matter volume. These regions of the brain are associated with control of emotions and memory. Without adequate gray matter volume, deficits in these processes occur and increase the risk of depression. Different therapies and interventions can alleviate some depressive symptoms, yet interventions must continue to be researched and tailored to the individual. This review provides critical new information on the alterations in brain architecture caused by childhood maltreatment (CM) and depression, specifically in areas of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, memory, and stress response which is associated with increased risk of depression.

This study examines how different types of photo-taking—selfies, landmark photos, or mental photos—impact individuals’ connection to nature, with self-awareness as a potential mediator. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions during a nature walk, then complete measures of self-awareness and nature connectedness. Results suggest that taking selfies increases public self-awareness and reduces nature connectedness, while mental photos foster deeper connection. Findings highlight how technology use shapes psychological experiences in natural environments.

RNA Binding Motif Protein 8a (RBM8A), a component of the exon junction complex, regulates gene expression and influences embryonic development. While expressed in neurons and astrocytes, its role in GFAP-positive astrocytes remains unclear. To investigate, we generated a conditional heterozygous knockout (KO) mouse line using a GFAP-cre model. KO mice exhibited reduced RBM8A expression, increased mobility, and sex-specific anxiety changes. This study further highlights the impact of Rbm8a deletion on CNS pathology and neurodevelopmental disorders.

By analyzing how popular LLMs such as ChatGPT-3.5, ChatGPT-4.0, and Microsoft Copilot categorize loan applicants into “strong” and “weak” profiles, this study evaluates the potential demographic biases in these models. The results of this study reveal that significant biases are expressed by these models, with strong profiles being overwhelmingly assigned to white, male, U.S. citizens while weak profiles were disproportionately non-white, female, and non-citizen.

This study examines the behavior of an interfacial layer of paramagnetic particles. Using a rheometer whose motion is unaffected by a magnetic field, a shear force is applied to the particles, both in the presence and absence of a magnetic field. This method allows us to analyze both the stiffness of the particles and any possible patterns in their arrangement when subjected to a deforming shear force.

Active travel, such as walking or biking for transportation, has many physical and mental health benefits for college students. This study analyzed results from a survey completed by Penn State students and found many positive links between active travel habits and different health variables. The data found that increased active travel contributes to an overall healthier lifestyle. We hope to use these findings to further the development of active travel programs and infrastructure for college communities.