Student Academic Conference 2020 Presentations

Numerous previous studies have investigated the role of confirmation bias in determining guilt in a courtroom setting. However, few studies to date have examined the intersections of defendant race and religion. This research sought to understand how these demographic factors interact to influence verdicts for the suspect in an ambiguous crime. College undergraduates were first asked to complete a demographic survey. They then analyzed the description of an ambiguous crime, and read a corresponding suspect demographic sheet, which included the suspect’s religion (either Lutheran or Muslim) and other basic information.  This information was accompanied by a picture of the suspect, which depicted either a black man or a white man. After analyzing the case information, participants recording their judgments of suspect guilt or innocence; however, we did not detect any significant differences in the guilt perceptions of the four suspects with varying racial identities and religious affiliations.  Potential avenues for future research include investigating different suspect demographic combinations in the context of varying crime severity scenarios.

Acetabular labral tears are becoming a more prominent injury for athletes. The acetabular labrum is important to the hip joint both anatomically and biomechanically. Little research exists on acetabular labral injury because its prevalence has increased over the last decade. Acetabular labral tears are present in 22-55% of individuals with hip and groin pain (Reiman, Matherlll, Hash ll, & Cook, 2014) making it hard to diagnose and ultimately difficult to treat due to the anatomy of the hip and its surrounding structures, such as the adductor muscle group. This literature review examines the occurrence of acetabular labral tears within an athletic population, how they are diagnosed, managed, and return to play guidelines. Ten articles were reviewed for this literature review. Clinical features, diagnostic testing and imaging can optimize the diagnosis of acetabular labral tears. Arthroscopic management is the best option in treating acetabular labral tears and maximize return to play. Awareness of acetabular labral tears and their frequency has allowed medical practitioners and athletic trainers to become more knowledgeable in the diagnosis and treatment of acetabular labral tears in athletes.

Researching sub-concussive forces in sport is a relatively new concept, therefore, evidence is limited at this time. A sub-concussive force is when the brain is shaken but not violently enough to damage brain cells severe enough to elicit symptoms. Further research can help sports medicine professionals understand sub-concussive forces and develop rules and regulations to decrease these forces. These forces can cause damage to the brain and other parts of the body. Learning how to diagnose and treat can help to understand how to detect them during a game or practice. The purpose of this literature review was to examine sub-concussive forces in sport and how they affect the body. A common research finding from the review found that most impacts occur during practices versus games. These forces were found to occur most frequently to the front of the head. Female athletes were observed to experience body impacts more frequently during play than males suggesting that a difference in the style of play may contribute to higher overall impact frequencies in females. Helmet and other equipment research includes examining a decrease in linear and rotational acceleration. In the future the information gathered on sub-concussive forces could be used to adapt the rules and regulations for sports such as; football, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, and men’s and women’s soccer. Additional research on sub-concussive forces would be beneficial in order to fully understand the impact of these forces and how they affect the brain.

A Grimoire is conventionally defined as a textbook of magic, especially one that codifies talismans, spells, charms, and summoning.

“Magick” (as opposed to magic, the art of stage illusion) is as ingrained in humans as language, art, and desire. The oldest forms of magick were probably used to predict or influence a successful hunt, or to heal sick and injured people. The oldest written magick appears in cuneiform on tablets from ancient Mesopotamia. With the development of alphabetic language, magick evolved into more complex health and protection charms as well as methods to predict the future. When the cultures of ancient Macedonia and Egypt intertwined, more specific spells and charms, or even curses emerged. As magick evolved, it spread to nearly every culture around the world.

Recording magick expanded the art profoundly and its evolution is captured in grimoires. I will be addressing the influence grimoires and magick have had on civilization, and pose the following questions: How have grimoires affected society? What information may have been lost when witches and mystic healers were hunted? Did any of this information survive in grimoires? How can we carry this valuable knowledge into the future?

Incomes for teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) continue to rise as the sport gains in popularity. The NBA has less parity compared to other major sports leagues,  so teams that have historically been successful have continued to and teams that have been unsuccessful continue to do so. The purpose of this paper is to study the factors that influence both the income of an NBA team and that team’s winning percent. This research will analyze the factors that impact both income and winning percentage of a National Basketball Association team. Using publicly available data from 2000-2019, variables concerning team performance, demographics and economics are analyzed to determine in team income and team winning percentage are influenced by the same factors. Results of this research are beneficial to owners who are deciding whether to invest in their team and to free agents who may be more likely to sign with a team whose owner is shown to improve the quality of the team.

I will be exploring the question of how the change of climate over a seasonal cycle affects the abundance of Northern Cardinals in the Fargo, ND area. The Northern Cardinal is most abundant in the Southeast of the U.S. but have been expanding more north over the last couple decades. The data that I will be exploring comes from the eBird basic data set from eBird science. To answer the question, I will be using exploratory data analysis to see the Cardinals abundance over 10 years in our local area of Fargo, ND and then comparing that data to the climate over the last 10 years as well. I will answer this question in hope to observe any patterns related to climate change, and the abundance of Northern Cardinals will increase in the north.

Oral health pertains to everyone and is important to maintain as it can affect an individual’s overall health and well-being. Oral diseases are one of the most common chronic diseases and are linked to socio-economic status where the disadvantaged have less access to quality care. I want to determine whether or not there is a correlation between access to dental care and quality of life in Minnesotan counties. The data set that I will use for this project is the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps raw data from 2019 (accessed from countyhealthrankings.org). I will be preforming an exploratory data analysis in which I will compare the number of dentists per county and number of uninsured individuals per county to factors that quantify the quality of life such as: poor or fair health, poor physical health days, poor mental health days and low birthweight. For those who do have access to dental care, I hope that this study will encourage them to use this advantage to maintain or increase their quality of life.

The chronic disease of diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that causes serious concern. There are multiple types of diabetes known with the most popular being type-1, type-2 diabetes, and neonatal diabetes. Type-1 diabetes is when the body does not produce enough insulin. Type-2 diabetes is when the body produces enough insulin, but the body doesn’t respond to it. Neonatal diabetes is a diabetes that develops before 6 months that has two subtypes: transient and permanent. Diabetes is a multivariable disease with many factors affecting it. Two factors that determine how susceptible and severe the disease will be in an individual include genetic predisposition and age of the individual. In individuals with type-1 diabetes, 3 genes are looked at for susceptibility. These are HLA-DR, HLA-DP, and HLA-DQ which can account for over half of the genetic risk of developing type-1 diabetes. For type-2 diabetes family members were followed over generations and only associations between calpain 10 and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha and type 2 diabetes were found. Neonatal diabetes has a gene that is responsible for two thirds of all TNDM cases. This gene is known as chromosome 6q24. Neonatal is also age related because only people under 6 months can get it. Age of diagnosis of type-2 diabetes is independently associated with macrovascular events and death. The papers demonstrated that genetics has a big role to play in the development of diabetes. It also provided evidence that age has an impact on diabetes prevalence and severity.

American Cooking Shows: How Gender Stereotypes are Reinforced in Chopped

Gender roles and related stereotypes are a large part of American society, influencing our everyday lives in both positive and negative ways. With the Food Network channel drawing in an average of one million viewers a day, cooking shows have become even more relevant in American popular culture. Examining the representation of gender stereotypes present in cooking television provides a unique insight on gender representation in America in general. Using content analysis of the first and last aired seasons of the popular American cooking show Chopped, the study codes for instances of gender stereotype reinforcement (such as the chefs’ motivations for preparing their meals) and the progressive inclusion of women as competitors and judges on the show. We hypothesize that the last season of Chopped will not have as many stereotypical gender role reinforcements as its first season, and that it will also be more inclusive of gender. We recognize that there are many different types of cooking shows that air in America, but our study will only look at the most viewed competition cooking show in the country.

Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) involves multiple professions working together to reinforce positive learning experiences to expand the knowledge of individuals while providing better care. Evidence suggests that academic programs that include content on IPE prepare students who understand the role of team members in patient care processes. Faculty members have a significant role in planning, designing, and implementing new curriculum changes in health programs. Purpose: This research project aimed to explore attitudes and perceptions of faculty members towards inclusion of IPE in health care programs at a university setting. Methods: This study utilized a qualitative research methodology where participants were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Efforts were made to collect data from faculty members who have been working in different health programs at a public university in Minnesota. The interviews consisted of open-ended questions that aimed to explore: (a) how faculty at a public university located in Midwest US define IPE (b) importance faculty members place on including IPE in the curriculum in health profession programs (c) resources available to implement IPE in online & on-campus programs (d) challenges faced while including IPE in curriculum. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the collected data. Results: Initial data analysis suggests that faculty members consider IPE extremely important for preparation of the future generation of health care leaders. By including IPE in curriculum, faculty members have been able to emphasize that effective teamwork requires a mentality of collaboration and the fresh outlook that all team members can contribute to patient well-being.

Antipyrine, a 5-membered pyrazolone ring including two nitrogens and a carbonyl, has been identified as an early-stage drug candidate for treatment of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).  Our group is synthesizing analogs of antipyrine to better understand and optimize the spatial and polarity dimensions of the drug for improved IPF treatment.

Procedures were developed using precursors with similar structures to antipyrine. One being 5-methyl-2-phenylpyrazole. This precursor was used in aldol condensation reactions using aldehydes or ketones to produce novel products. The EDDA catalyst was removed by filtration through silica. The aldehyde products formed as E/Z stereochemical mixtures as evidenced by NMR and GC-MS.  Ketone products formed effectively; however, use of a sterically larger ketone resulted in <50%. Another series of experiments were done on a different starting molecule, aminoantipyrine. N-Acylations were done with four different acyl chlorides to produce previously reported products with varying levels of success. A completely general workup procedure was not developed, due to varying tendency for products to crystallize out of solution; all of the products were solids. Results and procedural details will be presented.

The changing environment in Arctic Alaska due to climate change is a threat to the people living there as well as the various ecosystems which are being drastically altered. The encroaching shorelines and loss of permafrost is permanently altering the landscape. Soil samples taken at four different sites in Alaska between 2016 and 2018 and an exploratory data analysis in Rstudio will be used to analyze the soil microbial community concentrations. The purpose of this analysis is to answer the question of if there is a higher fungal concentration in the soil microbial communities in the tundra compared to marsh and shrub land. Understanding the composition of the soil in different land covers gives us a reference to how much the landscape is changing and what we can expect with the increasing temperatures.

When mice lack CD4+ T-cells, the antibody, IgA, was secreted in the respiratory tracts following an infection (Sealy et al., 2017). IgA is used to protect surfaces with mucosal surface present (Jacob et al., 2008). When mice are exposed to the Aspergillus fumigatus, we predict the female mice to have a stronger immune response, therefore, more production of the IgA antibody compared to males. Relevance for this prediction is evidence of females having a stronger immune response than males due to differing hormones: testosterone and estrogen. We will expose mice (10 male, 10 female; 6 weeks old) to Aspergillus fumigatus each day for 28 days. On the first day before exposure we will take the first blood sample (day 0; control group). The second sample will be taken at 3 days and a third sample at 28 days. We will use the blood samples to determine the IgA antibody concentration using an IgA specific ELISA. The average IgA concentration in male and female mice will be computed for each sample, and then compared individually (day 0, day 3, and day 28). To analyze the statistical results, a two-way ANOVA will be performed. Our expected results would be the female mice exposed to the Aspergillus fumigatus would have an increase in IgA at day 28 compared to the male mice since IgA is an adaptive immune response. Knowing that IgA attacks against foreign pathogens in mucosal areas, we want to further investigate this between mice genders to determine if the presence of more estrogen (females) or testosterone (males) affects the amount of this antibody that is produced. Evidence has shown that there is a difference in immune responses based on sex (Klein & Flanagan, 2016).