Undergraduate Research & Collaborative Scholarships
Awards
Presenters and Abstracts-
Paul Armstrong
FOREIGN POWERS AND MOVEMENTS FOR REFORM AND INDEPENDENCE IN POLAND, 1772-1830Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, many parties vied for influence and control of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the Poles themselves; this state was dominated by foreign, in particular Russian, imperatives long before the actual Partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. Yet the Poles made attempts, both
before and after this tragic Armageddon of the Commonwealth, to rebuild their country and reform it into the power which it had once been. Generally, these movements, both those which advocated peaceful reforms, and those which sought revolution as a means to enact their programs, all sought support, if not patronage, of foreign nations. Chronologically, these movements tended to increasingly reject traditional Polish measures in lieu of Western, liberal ideas. Additionally, the most successful of these movements proved to be the ones had the patronage of Russia, due to the hegemony of that state over the fate of Poland, both directly prior to the Partitions, as well as after them. These two key trends of revolutionary and reform movements of this crucial era in Polish history brought with them significant consequences, for the nation and the continent. A representative form of government, unique to Poland, was destroyed. Peaceful, legitimate attempts to replace the decrepit system with a more efficient, egalitarian and modern one were stifled by foreign intervention; had this not happened, the example of Poland would serve as a bloodless counterbalance to the violent American and French revolutions of the era. What is more, Russia was able to become a significant player in European politics, and the dominant one in the region, extending its territory deep into the Europe, especially after the Congress of Vienna. Yet most importantly, successive Polish attempts at reform and revolution proved that, perhaps with the exclusion of the Ottoman Turks, all of Europe was either unable or unwilling to successfully contest Russian power and influence, allowing that country to become the world power, which it still is today. -
Kendall Beck
YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A NATURAL WOMAN: THE EFFECT OF SELFOBJECTIFICATION AND CONNECTEDNESS TO NATURE ON WOMEN’S ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORSAccording to social psychologists Fredrickson & Roberts (1997) and McKinley & Hyde (1996), our culture routinely sexually objectifies women, training them to take an observer’s (critical) perspective on their physical selves. This “self-objectification” preoccupies women with evaluating how they fall short of the feminine beauty ideal portrayed in media. This ideal requires substantial modification of women’s natural bodies and discourages women from activities that make them sweaty, messy, dirty, and muscular—which, of course, describes most outdoor recreation. In other words, the feminine beauty ideal separates women from their natural bodies and from nature-embedded experiences. We believe this separation disconnects women from nature in general. Recently, researchers have found that being connected to nature is positively related to environmental concern and proenvironmental behavior (Clayton, 2003; Schultz & Tabanico, 2007). Therefore, we hypothesize that women in a state of heightened selfobjectification will have lower environmental concern and engage in less proenvironmental behavior. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis by experimentally manipulating women’s self objectification and their connectedness to nature, and then measuring the impact on their self reported environmental behavior.
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Meghan Davy
BEYOND THE SECRET ANNEX: AN ARGUMENT FOR INCORPORATING VOICES BESIDES ANNE FRANK’S INTO THE DISCUSSION OF HIDDEN CHILDREN IN THE HOLOCAUSTIn the realm of Holocaust child memoir, The Diary of Anne Frank has remained the undisputed canonical work for over five decades. Indeed, the viewpoints and feelings expressed by its young author express an undeniable wisdom beyond her fifteen years. Yet there is a danger in referencing only Frank’s diary when reading and discussing the child’s experience in the Holocaust, namely because the diary represents only a single viewpoint, and additionally because Frank’s overall outlook on her present and future situation is so optimistic that it threatens to lead readers to a false sense of positive closure on the experience of the child in the Holocaust, if read without the supplemented context of other child memoirs. For the purposes of this project I chose to focus on Frank’s diary as it reveals the experience of a Jewish child in hiding during the Holocaust, comparing and contrasting the text with Trains, the recently published memoir of former hidden child Miriam Winter. Winter’s circumstances and viewpoint differed greatly from Frank’s, but bear similarities to the experiences of many other hidden children. I examined the likenesses and differences between the two girls experiences in hiding— Frank in an attic with her family and Winter under a false identity among Christian strangers— and the impact of the hiding experience on their relationships and sense of personal identity. I also examined the differences in tone and personal outlook within the two texts: Frank’s optimism and sense of eventual survival while writing the events as they unfolded, and Winter’s sense of terror, loneliness and loss while writing about her experience decades after the fact. Through juxtaposing Winter’s memoir with Frank’s diary, I argued that the diary, though a poignant recollection, should not stand as the single definition of the hidden child’s experience during the Holocaust.
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Nate Devroy
SHADES OF BLACKNESS: AN IDEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE GOOD IN CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S BATMAN“Sometimes…the truth isn’t enough” a stoic Batman tells police commissioner Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight before assuming responsibility for deceased district attorney Harvey Dent’s crimes, saving Gotham city from certain anarchy. This research attempts to explore Batman’s sacrifice, his history as an anti-hero, and the socio-symbolic order he protects. Through a critical analysis of the two latest Batman films - Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) – this work analyzes the dynamic of good and evil in Batman’s final sacrificial act and the ideological fantasies that sustain his position. How do the film’s plot and themes reflect global and political constellations framed by ideologies of today’s Late Capitalism? Content consists of critical research of the two films, using theories formulated by scholars including Slavoj Zizek to connect themes of anti-heroism, belief, and power with Batman as both a vigilante hero and hunted villain. The results explore the hero’s history, a mapping of the “background” essential to an effective ideology, and the ways in which power creates excesses it must destroy in order to survive.
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Matthew Eldred
THE CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?Only three days after Super Tuesday, Jim Willis, a political commentator and author said, “Change won this election already. …Change won and now they’re competing to see who is going to be the agent of change.” Unique in its historic diversity of candidates, extraordinary length, and vigor in its ability to mobilize voters, the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contests paired three major Democratic candidates with at least one unified message: Change. While all three major candidates lobbied a message of change, Americans now associate a young senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, with Change and the infamous phrase: The Change We Can Believe In. One may expect that this association could be drawn from the influence of the many television advertisements during the early nominating contests. Through content analysis of a sample of Clinton, Edwards, and Obama campaign television advertisements in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, we can analyze the relative frequency of the words like change and believe, and similarly, references to issues and proposed solutions. Testing this, we would expect to find a high amount of change phrases and issue proposals in the Obama campaign advertisements, which would correlate with the association made by American voters. We would also expect to find fewer similar phrases in the competing candidates’ advertizing, which would indicate the same correlation. This study’s findings indicate that television commercials were an important factor in facilitating the associations with change made by voters. In the end, this research will serve as an important case study of the power of television advertising to establish the relationship between political identity, campaign agenda setting, and the candidate.
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Mary Hammer
IDENTIFICATION OF UNKNOWN PFC METABOLITES USING MASS SPECTROMETRYPolyflourinated Compounds (PFCs) are used for stain repellant materials (e.g. scotch guard) and are frequently dumped into landfills. The PFCs are water soluble and accumulate in the groundwater and in many lakes. A large amount research has been done on PFCs as they are emitted into the environment, but little research has been done on the degradation of PFCs as they react with other compounds in the environment. PFC extracts from water, plants, forage fish, and predator fish have been taken from Lake Johanna and concentrated to about 1 mL. These extracts were studied using an ESI-QTOF instrument and unknown peaks were found at 419.162, 239.145, 232.052, 327.229, 281.265, and 215.039. The elemental composition was determined and potential structures were found using the compounds’ exact masses.
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Renee Huset
USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) TO IDENTIFY DEGRADED FOREST LAND FOR UST CARBON OFFSET PROJECTSThis project stems from President Dease’s signing of the Presidents Climate Commitment that obligates the University of Saint Thomas (UST) to “initiate the development of a comprehensive plan to achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible.” This project seeks to locate degraded forest land in Minnesota that can be purchased and restored by UST to offset the University’s Carbon footprint, or sum of annual Carbon emissions, which has been calculated as 71,271 metric tons based upon figures from the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology will be used to identify the most desirable land for purchase and restoration based on factors including travel time to UST, cost effectiveness of the parcels, and the Carbon-absorption potential of each landscape. As stated in the UST motto, students are to learn to “…work skillfully to advance the common good.” By purchasing and restoring degraded forests near UST to reach their Carbon-sequestration potential, students will be given the chance work closely with the environment in a laboratory setting for the common good of present and future generations.
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Ryan Irey
MUSICAL ELEMENTS OF COGNITION IN “WOHIN?”Franz Schubert’s song cycle of poems by Wilhelm Müller, titled “Die Schöne Müllerin”, is widely adored within Lieder repertoire, a genre of song that is characterized by its extensive musical enhancement of poetic imagery. The scope of this research presents a method for measuring how a musical setting either reinforces or changes our perception of a poem. Through an analysis of two settings of “Wohin?” I will compare the works of Schubert and English composer Edward Loder to see how their music either burgeons the affect of Müller’s text, or how the synergy of text and music produces a different conceptualization than that of the text by itself. A complete harmonic and contextual analysis of each setting, research on cognitive linguistics and music, and the application of recent research by Lawrence Zbikowski involving the use of conceptual integration networks to show how music and text interact has put forth valuable insight on the cognitive application of text painting inherent to Lieder.
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Alexandria Johnson
CHANGES IN COGNITIVE APPRAISAL AMONG FEMALE MUSICIANS SURVIVING BREAST CANCERThis is a preliminary study looking at how one specific group of breast cancer survivors experienced changes in their cognitive appraisals during and after breast cancer treatment. This qualitative study uses coded transcripts from 20 female musicians who survived breast cancer to measure themes related to changes in cognitive appraisals. Preliminary results show that most women engaged in some form of cognitive reappraisal. A few of the most common cognitive shifts included: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “Seize the day,” and “One day at a time.” A traumatic life event like breast cancer can initiate various outcomes, one of which may be cognitive reappraisal, as a means of coping.
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Mikhail Klimstra
THE DIETARY BALANCE OF CARBON AND NITROGEN CORRELATES TO CHANGES IN THE COMPOSITION OF CUTICULAR HYDROCARBONS IN THE INVASIVE ANT SPECIES, LINEPITHEMA HUMILEArgentine ants, Linepithema humile, were used as a model to investigate possible changes in hydrocarbon profiles as a function of dietary modification. These ants are an invasive species that display extraordinary social organization and communication. Previous research that examined how nutrient balance affected colony behavior and fitness in L. humile showed that an increasing ratio of nitrogen to carbon was detrimental to fitness. A significant metabolic consequence of this diet was drastically altered quantities of storage lipid between colonies fed high and low carbohydrate to protein ratios. In addition to being essential fuel molecules, hydrocarbons are used in chemical communication. Hydrocarbon molecules used in chemical messaging are synthesized in a path shared with fuel lipids; therefore, abundance of communication cuticular hydrocarbons may also be affected by the dietary balance of carbon and nitrogen. Dr. Adam Kay’s research group previously reared sample colonies of Argentine ants that were fed different diets varying in carbohydrate and protein content. These colonies were monitored, collected, and preserved. Cuticular hydrocarbons were isolated through solvent extraction and then quantitatively analyzed by Gas Chromatography with detection by Flame Ionization. Examination of colonies at the extreme ends of the dietary range (high carbohydrate: low protein & low carbohydrate: high protein) revealed a significant difference in the abundance of specific hydrocarbons in the ant’s hydrocarbon profile. Additionally, certain hydrocarbons showed a greater difference than others. The observed difference in specific hydrocarbon abundances, as opposed to a global overall shift in the hydrocarbon quantity, suggests that ants may have preference towards maintaining particular hydrocarbons on their cuticles.
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Abigail Krause
CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM IN THE MINNESOTA RIVER WATERSHEDThe Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) works with environmentally sensitive farmland voluntarily submitted into the program by farmers. Participants apply and compete to secure their land in a ten to fifteen year contract with the CRP, during which they are financially compensated for the land they have volunteered. In order to determine what lands are eligible, the CRP uses a list of criterion known as the Environmental Benefits Index (EBI). Using standard geospatial operations embedded in the discipline of the Geography Program, I am seeking to determine what physical criterion makes the best CRP land in the Minnesota River Watershed. In order to do this, I will to look at current CRP land in the watershed and compare it to land enrolled during previous years. Furthermore, I will explore the EBI and its factors. Finally, to bring this project into a larger context, I want to determine the effects the price of corn has on CRP lands. Comparing CRP land enrollment to annual corn prices will give me an indication of whether farmers are discontinuing their contracts in order to replant corn, or if the financial compensation of the CRP is still more beneficial to them.
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Jeremy Leavell
INVESTIGATION OF THE SOLID-STATE STRUCTURES OF ACID FLUORIDES AND THEIR ISOSTERIC ANALOGUESAlthough the crystal structures of a variety of derivatives of carboxylic acids have been described in detail in the crystallographic literature, relatively few crystal structures of acid fluorides have been published. This is presumably due to their high reactivity (being easily hydrolyzed to the carboxylic acid) and to their relatively low melting points, which make them difficult to isolate in solid form. We are interested in acid fluorides because the acyl fluoride group is isosteric (closely similar in size and shape) to the nitro group; we wish to determine whether acid fluorides could be co-crystallized with their nitro analogues to form interesting and useful new materials. Co-crystallization would occur most readily if the acid fluoride and nitro compound happened to be isostructural, assuming the same molecular packing arrangement in their respective pure crystals, so we have been attempting to prepare acid fluorides for analysis by single-crystal X-ray diffraction to find out whether such isostructural pairs exist. Another functional group isosteric with the acyl fluoride group is the carboxylate group; here the necessity of a counterion to the carboxylate might present an obstacle to isostructuralism, but choosing a carboxylate with the charged atom incorporated into the molecule itself might overcome that obstacle. We have attempted to prepare acid fluorides from the parent acids by metathesis with sodium fluoride; we have also attempted recrystallization of acid fluorides from commercial sources. Although our attempts to prepare X-ray quality crystals of these compounds have been unsuccessful thus far, further samples we have prepared await X-ray analysis.
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Amanda McClellan
YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A NATURAL WOMAN: THE EFFECT OF SELFOBJECTIFICATION AND CONNECTEDNESS TO NATURE ON WOMEN’S ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORSAccording to social psychologists Fredrickson & Roberts (1997) and McKinley & Hyde (1996), our culture routinely sexually objectifies women, training them to take an observer’s (critical) perspective on their physical selves. This “self-objectification” preoccupies women with evaluating how they fall short of the feminine beauty ideal portrayed in media. This ideal requires substantial modification of women’s natural bodies and discourages women from activities that make them sweaty, messy, dirty, and muscular—which, of course, describes most outdoor recreation. In other words, the feminine beauty ideal separates women from their natural bodies and from nature-embedded experiences. We believe this separation disconnects women from nature in general. Recently, researchers have found that being connected to nature is positively related to environmental concern and proenvironmental behavior (Clayton, 2003; Schultz & Tabanico, 2007). Therefore, we hypothesize that women in a state of heightened selfobjectification will have lower environmental concern and engage in less proenvironmental behavior. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis by experimentally manipulating women’s self objectification and their connectedness to nature, and then measuring the impact on their self reported environmental behavior.
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Alisa Schilmoeller
THE ROLE OF VISUAL IMAGERY IN THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURERecent psychological research has found that some of the same cognitive mechanisms that are engaged in thinking about one’s personal past (i.e., their autobiographical recall) are also used when one thinks about future events. One such set of mechanisms is working memory, which is responsible for temporarily storing and manipulating information. One component of working memory is the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is the part of working memory responsible for forming visual representations in the mind. D’Argembeau & van der Linden (2006) found that the ability to visualize future events is related to one’s individual capacity for visual imagery. The current research attempts to determine whether this relationship is based in the spatial or visual aspect of visual imagery. The working memory model describes visual and spatial memory as two independent mechanisms. While doing visual or spatial distraction tasks, participants imagined doing either challenging or non-challenging activities in the future and reported the vividness of their mental representation. If the ability to generate future events is more related to visual or spatial memory, then distracting the components of the visuo-spatial sketchpad should affect the subjective experience of future events.
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Louis Sigtermans
SELECTION OF RESISTANT BACTERIA WITHIN AN ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITY IN RESPONSE TO LOW-LEVEL EXPOSURE TO AN ANTIBACTERIAL AGENTThe emergence of bacterial strains resistant to antibacterial compounds is a growing concern worldwide. Because of the possibility of resistance genes transferring between bacterial species, the rise of resistance in environmental bacteria is of interest. This study explored the effect of exposure to low levels of triclosan (a widely used antibacterial agent that is included in many consumer and personal health-care products) on the selection of resistant bacteria in environmental communities. The project had two main objectives. The first objective was to determine current resistance levels to triclosan among bacterial communities collected from several natural water sources that vary in their land use and human impact. Bacterial samples from the Mississippi River, California coast, and Lake Superior were spread on Petri plates containing agar media spiked with varying triclosan concentrations. Resistance levels did not vary significantly when bacteria obtained from highly impacted areas were compared with those from more pristine areas. The second objective was to observe the impact of low concentrations of triclosan on bacterial communities over time. Bacteria collected from a natural water source were grown in bioreactors known as chemostats, exposed to low concentrations of triclosan, and tested periodically. Resistance was monitored by growing samples of bacteria from the chemostats in media containing lethal levels of triclosan. The bacteria were also analyzed over time for community composition of a highly variable DNA region via Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis (ARISA). Our results indicate that significant community shifts are likely to be observed only with exposure to triclosan concentrations well above those observed to date in natural waters, but that subtle effects may be observed at lower concentrations. Future studies include isolating resistant strains for further DNA analysis.
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Amanda Stemig
ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF PHARMACEUTICALS TREATED WITH POTASSIUM PERMANGANATEThe overall goal of this project is to provide important information about the potential impacts of various antibiotics in natural water systems. Ciprofloxacin, trimethoprim and lincomysin are all antibiotics used to treat various bacterial infections in humans. Once excreted, these pharmaceuticals will find their way into wastewater treatment plants. If they are not removed in the wastewater treatment plant, they eventually will end up in the environment and when the effluent is released into natural waters. The purpose of this project, a collaborative effort with a research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is to develop a water treatment technique that uses potassium permanganate in an attempt to remove each pharmaceutical from the water. This portion of the project studies the antibacterial activity of ciprofloxacin, trimethoprim and lincomysin both before and after degradation with potassium permanganate. To date, we have found that the degradation products of ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim have little to no activity thus this technique shows promise for removing these compounds from wastewater or drinking water without creating undesirable byproducts. Studies on lincomysin are ongoing.
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Katelyn Terry
EFFECTS OF POWERPOINT HANDOUTS ON LEARNING OUTCOMESMethods for lecturing in university classrooms range from using chalkboards or discussion based lecture to convey information, to the increasingly popular Microsoft PowerPoint. The popularity of PowerPoint presentations raises questions about the effectiveness of taking notes off of the slides. Some professors choose to provide a handout to allow the students to take notes on, while other choose not to give the students a handout. This research examined the effects of PowerPoint handouts on student learning by using a two-section psychology class. One section was given a
PowerPoint handout to take notes on, while the other section took notes using their notebooks. Students from both classes answered 16 multiple-choice and two short-answer questions based on information provided in the lecture. Half of the multiple-choice items were “factual” questions, and half were “application” questions. Students provided with PowerPoint notes performed better on the multiple-choice items, regardless of the type of question. The results from the short-answer items and the quality of notes are still pending, but the preliminary findings provide some evidence that providing PowerPoint handouts may facilitate student learning. -
Sarah Wozniak
EMOTION, PAIN, AND PERCEIVED CONTROLThis study explores the relationship between mood, perceived control, and pain tolerance. Positive mood as well as perceived control lessen pain, while negative mood and lack of perceived control enhances it. Perceived control, measured by the locus of control scale, measures the extent one believes he or she has control over the environment. An individual with an internal locus of control perceives he or she has more control, while an individual with an external locus of control feels less in control. In order to induce mood, the International Affective Picture System will be used to prepare a slideshow of either positive, neutral, or negative images. Afterwards, participants will complete a cold pressor task in which they will submerge their hand in four degree Celsius water, and report when they feel pain. It is hypothesized that group exposed to negative images will have the lowest pain tolerance, while the group exposed to positive images will have the highest tolerance. Furthermore, individuals with an internal locus of control will have higher pain thresholds and tolerances than those with an external locus of control. This research has implications for the treatment and management of chronic illnesses, such as rheumatoid arthritis, and painful injuries.
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Taylor Zumbusch
BROOD-RAIDING AS AN ADVANTAGEOUS PROTEIN SOURCE FOR PAVEMENT ANTSInvasive ant species have immense environmental and economic impacts due to their diverse ecological roles. Research aimed at predicting which species are likely to be invasively destructive has focused on a variety of traits, including nutritional requirements. Invasive Argentine ants rely heavily on carbohydrate-rich diets. Our research from last summer indicated a trade-off between carbohydrate and protein intake; colonies fed more carbohydrate-rich diets had high activity levels and worker longevity, while colonies fed protein-rich diets produced more brood (immature ants). Another key competitive aspect that might assist Argentine ants in being so invasively successful is brood raiding - the collection and consumption of brood from other colonies after being overrun. In this study, I propose to compare the nutritional value of ant brood to that of other protein sources for supporting colony growth. Ant colonies will be fed one of four diets with different protein sources. The prediction that colonies fed soft ant brood would grow faster than those fed adult insects (with hard exoskeletons) was incorrect. Colonies fed crickets had significantly more final brood than colonies fed fruit flies, brood, or no proteins. Colonies fed fruit flies or brood had significantly more final brood than those no given protein. There was no significant difference in final workers between the four diet treatments. Further research will be conducted to compare protein preferences to colony success between Pavement Ants and the invasive southwest Argentine Ants.
