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  Lesbian Visibility and Censorship in Early Twentieth Century New York City

  Aimee Clouse

  On the brisk night of February 9th, 1927, New York City Police crammed the casts of two Broadway plays, one of which Edouard Bourdet's The Captive, into the back of a paddy wagon. These arrests and the legislation that enabled them were just one step taken by institutions to hide lesbians from the public. The eclectic nature of New York City in the early twentieth century fostered a growing scene of gender and sexual expression unlike anywhere else in the United States. Here, lesbians found freedom to express their sexuality and explore a growing subculture.

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  Peripheral Blood Cell Counts as Potential Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease: A Look at Polygenetic Risk Scores

  Melika Cummings, Yimei Lu, Joan Manuel Cue, Neel Patel, and Jenifer Do

  Blood-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been extensively researched. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurological illness whose progression has been ascribed to gene expression. However, the pathophysiology of these disorders and its relationship to other abnormalities remain unknown. AD has been connected to PBCs, which include erythrocytes, platelets, and leukocytes and have a complicated interaction with the brain system. The pathogenesis of PBCs has been related to a negative influence on established neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's. Candidate gene association studies have become more common as progress in mapping the human genome has increased their viability. The plurality of candidate genes were selected based on their function or expression in disease-related systems (e.g., dopamine neurotransmitter systems), and this strategy is crucial for defining the nature of internal disturbance. It has increasingly been postulated that, in addition to cell-cell signaling inside the brain, dynamic crosstalk between the brain and systematic mechanisms such as circulation of blood cells may be crucial.

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  An Illustrated Metamorphoses

  Alexandria Devlin

  This project was a comic consisting of five different myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses. My goal was to make it easier and more enjoyable for audiences to read classical myths, and give these stories a way to shine in the 21st century. Myths from many different cultures have been adapted into comics, but direct depictions are much less common than shaping mythological figures to fit a new story. I have yet to find a direct comic adaptation of Metamorphoses. Ovid's Metamorphoses is full of rich and interesting stories and deserves to be represented alongside other mythological tales.

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  How Children and Adults Make Judgments About Who To Trust

  Rachel E. DeWald, Jennifer L. Rennels, and Kindy Insouvanh

  "Beauty is Good Stereotype": Higher attractive individuals are thought to be more intelligent, more successful, and happier overall. They also obtain more visual attention and are deemed more trustworthy.

  Making a choice based on a person's appearance and attributes might lead to dangerous consequences and lead to being deceived.

  We investigated how the appearance of male and female experts influence whether children and adults trust statements made by the expert, establish what that expert knows and determine that expert's attributes (warmth and competence). The results of this study will help us better determine what cues children and adults use when making trustworthiness decisions.

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  Electrochemical Inactivation of Tobacco Mosaic Virus: A Novel Vaccine Method

  Angelica Diaz

  We tested the effectiveness of using electrochemistry to irreversibly damage Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV). Hypothesis: By utilizing the acidic properties of DNA and RNA, viral genetic material can be irreversibly and selectively damaged using electrochemical methods. Technique could assist in development of highly targeted and effective vaccines.

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  Horizontal Ladder Task: Assessing the Effect of a Walking Intervention on Mobility in People with Lower Limb Amputation

  Chelsea Domingo

  Hundreds of thousands of people struggle with mobility due to lower limb amputation. Learning how to do something you have never done is a difficult task for anyone. Practice is important when person with amputation uses a prosthesis because each environment they encounter could vary. Across settings, different textures such as even and uneven terrain require different skills to maintain balance. The purpose of this research is to determine if practicing walking on uneven terrain will help people with amputation improve their ability to walk in different environments. We will use a horizontal ladder task (Christie et al., 2020) to test this ability.

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  The Relationship Between Masculinity & Friendships: A Thematic Analysis On The Qualities of Male Friendships

  Dulshi Fernando, Valeria Aguilera, Kristin Vierra, and Diana Gutierrez

  Certain masculinity norms such as toughness, emotional stoicism, and homophobia appear to be barriers to forming intimate friendships between boys and men.

  Boys and men who do not successfully build close connections may experience low self-esteem and impaired psychological health.

  Boys and men who effectively build intimate relationships benefit from peer support and companionship as well as a decrease in anxiety and depression levels.

  Scholars have yet to conduct a meta-synthesis exploring the relation between masculinity and friendship.

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  Correlational Analysis Between Self-Esteem and Selective Mutism

  Janelle Ferraris, Karina Carrillo-Juarez, Alexandra Caballero, and Melanie Rede

  These results demonstrate that children who score higher in being self-conscious or easily embarrassed are may be more likely to present more severe symptoms of selective mutism. These results also suggest that, in treating or identifying children with selective mutism, it is beneficial to understand the severity to which these children feel self-conscious or embarrassed.

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  Portrayals of Characters of Color in Teen Media

  Janelle Ferraris, Lindsay Denecker, and Kristin Vierra

  Some teen television shows are actively addressing race and racism.

  Teen television shows are highlighting the development of ethnic-racial identity. This is promising considering scholars label the development of ethnic-racial identity to be an essential product of the development of older children and adolescents (Syed & Azmitia, 2008, Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014).

  Teen television shows are emphasizing factors in a person of colors' community or interactions with peers that may influence their overall well-being. This is encouraging considering research suggests that hearing stories from individuals of various backgrounds can help individuals better recognize systems of oppression and discrimination (Freire, 1995).

  Future research should continue to explore how race and racism are depicted in teen television.

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  A Comparative Analysis of Community College Governance in the Mountain West and Policy Proposals for Nevada

  Peter Grema

  Purpose of Research: 1) To explore the role of community colleges in workforce development. 2) To understand the current structure of higher education in Nevada. 3) To compare Nevada's community college governance and administration to neighboring Mountain West states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah). 4) To offer policy recommendations for updating Nevada's workforce development capacity for its community college system. 5) To present findings to Nevada policymakers during the AB450 Study Committee period.

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  Trapping and Cooling of Ca+ for Cold Ion-Radical Collisions

  Bernardo Gutierrez

  Free radicals are molecules that contain an unpaired valence electron which induces high reactivity. Ion radical reactions are typically exothermic and have low (or zero) activation energy. It is for these reasons that ion-radical reactions are believed to dominate in interstellar clouds where temperatures hover around 3-10K. State-to-state measurements require precision control of both reactants.

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  An Exploratory Factor Analysis of Climate Friendly Purchasing Choices

  Susan E. Gutierrez, Fred Vincent Y. Margallo, and Zihan Gong

  Climate change is negatively affecting the environment and all its inhabitants. People's increased awareness have made them more willing to adopt more climate friendly purchasing choices. The Climate Change Action Inventory measures how often individuals take actions that can reduce climate change. We focused on the Climate Friendly Purchasing Choices Domain. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the Climate Friendly Purchasing Domain to help us examine the factor structure.

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  You're So Harsh On Me: Meanness in Psychopathy and Perceived Family Criticism

  Jordan E. Hayes and Kayla McGinty

  Overall, the lack of research on percieved criticism, especially within populations that display meanness, show a need for research because just like mood, percieved criticism may change throughout the day. Understanding the relationship between psychopathic meanness and momentary patterns of percieved criticism among family members could provide helpful insight into social interactions and elucidating patterns of family dysfunction involved in the most antagonistic features of psychopathy.

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  The Global Effects of Climate Change: Detrimental Impacts on the Environment, Ecosystem, Coral Reefs, Human Health/Well-Being, and Global Economy

  Lucky Heng

  Despite criticism, scientists have been continuing to find more evidence to prove that the threats on the coral reefs around the world are real. The impact of rising climate temperature, pollution, ocean acidification, etc. has been leading to increasing amounts of mass bleaching and a massive decline in coral reefs in past decades. This research study utilizes a systematic literature review and secondary research to collect, analyze and provide evidence that climate change impacts the ecosystem, and marine life (coral reefs) species on the planet. By addressing the impact of climate change and its significance on the ecosystem and global economy. The research also shows the detrimental of climate change on coral reefs bleaching, health and its well being. Overall, the main objective of this research is to collect information regarding the causes, and effects, and study the impact it has on the ecosystem, coral reefs species and human well-being. By studying the detrimental factors that contribute to the cause of global climate change, greenhouse gases, temperature, and the ecological environment.

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  Growth of Pseudocotalpa giulianii Larvae in Sand from Different Dune Sources

  Cosset Hernandez Pena and Mandy Mountain

  Pseudocotalpa giulianii (PSGU) is an endemic species known to inhabit two sand dunes in Nye County, Nevada: Big Dune Recreational Area and Lava Dune. Differences in sand properties between Big Dune and Lava Dune could impact survival and growth of the larvae of P. giulianii. Use of permitted off-road vehicles (ORV) in Big Dune can impact its habitats and cause disturbances to local populations, including the Giuliani Dune Scarab as ORV activity is correlated with changes in dune vegetation. Lava Dune has no permitted ORV activity, however, differences in sand composition, including eroded basalt, have the potential to influence the life cycle of PSGU, specifically larval development as larvae reside beneath the surface of the dune sand for more than a year.

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  The Stability of the Speech-to-Song Illusion

  Jennifer Hsu, Brooke Booth, Jordyn Karns, and Rodica R. Constantine

  The Speech-to-Song (STS) illusion: when a listener is presented with multiple repetitions of a spoken phrase and begins to hear it as increasingly song-like. In the present study, we aim to verify anecdotal evidence that suggests the STS illusion is temporally stable and replicate existing evidence that excerpts transform to song by the third or fourth repetition and perhaps faster upon future encounters.

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  The Analysis of Radio and X-Ray Energetics of Fast Radio Bursts

  Emily Huerta

  Here, we analyze the graphs and figures presented in Laha et al. (2022) and compare their slopes to our figures. Laha et al. (2022) includes two graphs, one that shows a comparison between radio fluence vs. x-ray fluence and radio energy vs. x-ray energy. In these graphs, the slopes are anywhere from 3.3e-14 to 2e-5, which are much less than unity. Our figures are consistent with these values, also providing slopes anywhere between the same range. Strong limits on this ratio between radio and x-ray energetics can either support the magnetar progenitor model, or completely dismiss it. Since we found slopes much less than unity, our calculations strongly support the magnetar progenitor model for the 22 FRBs in this work.

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  Testing Wickelgren's Model of Interference and Decay

  Gabriel Hull and Isabella Lacy

  Two explanations have been proposed to explain forgetting: decay (forgetting occurs as a function of time) and interference (the mental activity can impinge on the consolidation of a recently acquired memory). Wickelgren (1974) proposed a model of forgetting which suggests that forgetting is a function of both decay and interference, best expressed as a power-exponential function. The present research will be the first to directly examine whether Wickelgren’s model accurately predicts the observed effects of these two components on forgetting. This research will further the study of human memory by improving current models, and helping to resolve the debate surrounding decay and interference.

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  Characterization of USP7 substrates in the brain

  Jose Itorralba, Sage Boss, Shahraiz Akbar, Hayley Baker, and Chinglan Chang

  Loss of function lesions in Ubiquitin-specific protease (USP) 7 are associated with intellectual disability, speech delay, autism spectrum disorder, and seizures. While the deubiquitinating activity of USP7 has been characterized in cancer, its role in neurological conditions is not understood. Here, we show that USP7 can regulate the development of the brain by localizing to synaptosomes in the hippocampus and stabilizing neural-specific substrates.

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  A Literature Review on Developments in Timber Design and Its Impact on Carbon Emissions

  Raquel Jackson

  Carbon dioxide emissions are a growing issue worldwide as urbanization and industrialization continues to increase (ie. Steel and concrete). Non-renewable resources limit steel and concrete production. Despite current methods to reduce greenhouse gasses, carbon emissions remain difficult to reduce from steel and concrete industries.

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  The Effects of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Exports to Italy

  Stephen Johnson, Ryder Hankins, and Nathan Carter

  Italy imported 122,000 tons of soft wheat from Ukraine and 72,000 from Russia. During the current events international food and feed prices have increased by 8 to 22% causing mass shortages around the world. On top of the ethical and moral dilemmas of continuing business with Russia, insurance premiums have jumped 400% for doing business with the invading country.

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  Teaching How to Recycle Through the Medium of Virtual Reality

  Nathan Kassai

  Students, especially children in elementary and middle school, have difficulty focusing and or absorbing information from their courses. The problem lies in the scarcity of hands-on/interactive elements in classrooms as most lectures contain topics most students would be interested in but are presented in a monotonous way. To properly educate and inspire students to work on improving their academic knowledge, alternative educational mediums must be sought. Such mediums like Virtual and Augmented Reality allow students to interact with virtual objects to learn more about a wide variety of subjects, hence increasing their engagement and enjoyment in any particular topic. The educational platform used for this research allowed students to engage and participate in activities that allowed them to learn more about a particular subject, in this case, recycling. Results showed that those who used this platform had retained information better than those who used traditional classroom methods to learn by comparing test scores between the two groups. Such platforms should be integrated into classrooms to enhance students’ learning experience. For this research project, an Oculus Quest HMD was used to place students in a virtual environment. However, this HMD was priced around $300-$400 and many other HMD’s on the market are priced in the thousands. Despite this drawback, other mediums exist to educate students such as Augmented Reality (AR) since these types of applications can run on any smartphone. Future research entails exploring the medium of AR and determining what types of educational applications can come from it.

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  The Role of Interference in Short-Term Forgetting

  Monserrat Leal-Arcos, Gabriel Hull, Francisco Sanchez, Rhiannon N. Soriano Smith, and William B. Ridgway

  Two explanations have been proposed to explain forgetting: decay (forgetting occurs as a function of time) and interference (mental activity can impinge on the consolidation of a recently acquired memory). Wickelgren (1974) proposed a model of forgetting which suggests that forgetting is a function of both decay and interference, best expressed as a power-exponential function. The present research will be the first to directly examine whether Wickelgren's model accurately predicts the observed effects of these two components on forgetting. This research will further the study of human memory by improving current models, and helping to resolve the debate surrounding decay and interference.

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  Recognition Memory for Auditory and Visual Objects

  Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Kevin Mohawk, and Laura Werner

  Visual object memory is superior to auditory object memory. Our past research showed that auditory memory was less sensitive to divide attention during study, which may be attributable to representational differences between auditory memory and visual memory.

  In the present study, we attempted to equate auditory and visual memory representations in order to adequately investigate the impact of dividing attention on recognition memory.

  Recognition memory is thought to rely on two distinct processes, recollection and familiarity. Recollection involves the retrieval of precise qualitative detail and is the most sensitive to dividing attention.

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  Investigating the impact of dividing attention on auditory and visual object memory

  Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Laura L.S. Werner, Kevin D. Mohawk, and Maggie McMullin

  Recently, we found that dividing attention reduced recollection and familiarity for visual objects, but a different pattern emerged for auditory object memory: auditory object recollection was not affected by dividing attention. This could be attributable to differing levels of baseline performance with visual memory far exceeding auditory memory. Thus, we attempted to equate baseline performance in both modalities in order to adequately investigate the previous findings.