Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

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  Determining the Biochemical Mechanisms and Binding Activities of a Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas DinG Helicase

  Matt Armbrust

  CRISPR-Cas systems are adaptive prokaryotic immune systems that enable host cells to defend against attack from foreign nucleic acids such as phage infections or plasmids. CRISPR-Cas systems are diverse and encompass 2 classes, 6 types, and 33 subtypes. The Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas system from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 83 is composed of five different genes (csf1, csf2, csf3, cas6, and dinG). Type IV-A systems are poorly understood, and currently there is little research detailing their biological and biochemical mechanism of immunity. CasDinG, an ancillary protein within the Type IV-A system, is required for an immune response in vivo. However, the role of CasDinG at the molecular level is still not understood. In this research, I present recent advances detailing the biochemical function of CasDinG. To elucidate these data, various biochemical methods were used including: bioinformatic analyses, helicase assays, and fluorescence anisotropy.

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  Determining the Nucleic Acid Binding Affinities of CRISPR-Associated DinG (CasDinG)

  Matt Armbrust

  CRISPR-Cas systems are adaptive prokaryotic immune systems that enable host cells to defend against attack from foreign nucleic acids such as phage infections or plasmids. CRISPR-Cas systems are diverse and encompass 2 classes, 6 types, and 33 subtypes. The Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas system from Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 83 is composed of five different genes (csf1, csf2, csf3, cas6, and dinG). Type IV-A systems are poorly understood, and currently there is little research detailing their biological and biochemical mechanism of immunity. CasDinG, an ancillary protein within the Type IV-A system, is required for an immune response in vivo. However, the role of CasDinG at the molecular level is still not understood. In this research, I present recent advances detailing the biochemical function of CasDinG. To elucidate these data, various biochemical methods were used including: bioinformatic analyses, helicase assays, and fluorescence anisotropy.

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  Working With Your Brain: A Case Study of the Writing Processes of Women Writers With ADHD

  Claire Atwood

  Adult women with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are diagnosed at a significantly lower rate than adult men and children. As children, ADHD presents itself in classroom behaviors, like a difficulty in concentrating, staying on task, and interrupting the lesson. For girls and especially adult women, these symptoms are not as obvious as they are in men, which results in a significant lack of research about women with ADHD. In Women with ADHD, Roberta Sanders notes that “there is a tendency for girls to be diagnosed with [the ADHD Inattentive type] more than boys and it prevails in older children and adults rather than younger ones.” According to a study entitled “Symptom Level Associations Between Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and School Performance,” researchers found children between 8-17 years old have a more difficult time with reading and writing comprehension than other subjects. This data was higher among girls with the ADHD Inattentive type. This study on focuses on college women in writing-intensive programs, 18 years and older attending Utah State University, who have been diagnosed with ADHD. The methodology includes an anonymous and voluntary survey sent through the university Disability Research Center (DRC) and a case study of an English major who self-identified as having ADHD, and an interview with a DRC staff member. Writing requires the integration of multiple skills. While writing processes are unique to each writer, ADHD women may face additional challenges. ADHD brains process information differently and writers may have to “work with their brain” to develop a writing process that will help them. Because a lack of research exists about women writers with ADHD, we believe this study has the potential to provide valuable insights and to find a correlation in writing processes and ADHD. This study is in compliance with IRB standards for classroom research.

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  Analysis of ASLA Awards: Building a Stronger Landscape Architecture Program

  Corinne Bahr

  Every year the American Society of Landscape Architects, otherwise known as ASLA, issues awards for exceptional designs and research in the field of Landscape Architecture. These awards include both Professional and Student awards. Our study analyzes 13,000 award-winning project images over the last 15 years to discover the common trends that create award winning projects. Recognizing these trends enables the USU Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning program, or LAEP, to set the bar high and help our students enter the field equipped to change the world. Our analysis of the creative flow, graphics, and styles in award winning projects can guide decisions for strengthening the LAEP program to benefit students. As a developing LA, I now have a comprehensive understanding of what makes the highest quality design work and have seen the effects in my desire to learn and my quality of production. My hope is that this study and database will equally benefit my fellow students.

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  Imperialist Tourism

  Aubrey Ball

  My three pieces of art explore how Imperialistic advertising works to create a positive view of Empire and colonialism. Throughout history imperialism has spread as societies have sought to expand their borders through force and more subtly through manipulation of the public mindset. Tourism posters are just one example of how positive publicity can gently influence general opinion towards support for Empire.

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  These Are the Droids You're Looking For: Tagging and Content in Fanfiction

  Virginia Beikmann

  What do fanfiction readers look for when given the ability to specifically seek certain content through tagging? Fanfiction is often broadly defined by a variety of definitions, but the easiest way to understand it is simply by the name: It is fiction of existing works/media of any sort, expounded upon by fans of the content to create something original, while still using characters, plots, themes and so on of the original work. For instance, a fanfiction may take characters and write them out in new scenarios but having the original content having still happened in that character’s background, or fanfiction may write a ‘fix-it fic’ where the writer seeks to rewrite a canon event in a way they prefer. Fanfiction exists almost exclusively on the internet. Thus, sites that host fanfiction collections will often employ a ‘tagging’ system. Tagging is the method of authors attaching key-words or phrases to a work to help readers find content that contains those ‘tags’ in it, thus customizing their reading experience. Using an ethnographic approach to survey English Majors, the researcher sought to produce a better understanding of how readers choose fanfiction, what they choose, and why. We discovered more information to answer these questions, including asking students to list their tag choices and explain why they feel they seek those tags specifically, as well as asking if their choices as a reader have changed over their time as a reader and why they think this is. This research will both help expand knowledge on reader trends of interest, as well as expand on knowledge of fanfiction and the many facets of reader interaction with content in those spaces.

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  Microaggressions Experienced by LGBTQ Individuals in CJCLDS Contexts

  Jane Bell

  Relative to heterosexual and cisgender individuals, sexual and gender minorities (SGM) have elevated rates of minority stress and heightened chances of health problems, including mental health disorders and suicidal ideation. This process can be exacerbated in a conservative Christian religious setting, such as in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (CJCLDS). Although CJCLDS doctrine embraces love for all, LGBTQ+ individuals experience discrimination, sometimes through subtle verbal/nonverbal barbs called microaggressions. There is limited research on this intersection of experience, which makes it difficult to understand how to help the individuals being adversely affected. This study seeks to fill that gap with qualitative interviews with 19 parent/child pairs, where the parent is an active member of CJCLDS and the child is an SGM individual. The surveys consisted of questions about specific microaggressions experienced in CJCLDS settings and their effects. The answers from the open-ended survey questions were analyzed by a coding team using thematic analysis. Codes were organized in three broad categories: 1) microaggressions, 2) impacts of microaggressions, and 3) coping mechanisms used to deal with the microaggressions/impacts. Microaggressions were found both that are common to other settings such as “being a SGM is a choice”, as well as CJCLDS doctrinally specific ones: “you won’t be able to be in the celestial kingdom”. Impacts ranged from emotional responses such as feeling hurt, sad and angry, to verbal or action-based responses like leaving the situation. Coping mechanisms included positive affirmation or distraction and relying on support systems.

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  The Power of BookTok: An Analysis of the Influence of TikTok on College Students' Leisurely Reading

  Mya Bethers

  Social media is an ever-growing and present tool in the lives of college students. One of the most popular social media apps among young adults is TikTok. Its short video gratification keeps viewers scrolling well beyond their expected app use, and in consequence, exposes them to a variety of brands, commercials, and products (purposefully marketed or not). Over the pandemic, thousands of TikTok users have shared their book recommendations on the app, which created the side of TikTok known as BookTok. This study analyzes the power and influence BookTok has had on college students’ leisurely reading choices. The methods used during this study included participant surveys and an in-depth interview with an owner of a popular BookTok account. Not only will this data provide a scope of the impact social media has on college students’ leisurely reading, but it will create a connection between social media influence and book sales.

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  Estimating Cattle Density Using Wildlife Cameras

  Emily Bonebrake

  Quantifying the abundance and distribution of animal populations is critical for effective wildlife research and management. Due to their cost-effectiveness, wildlife cameras have become an increasingly popular tool for estimating population densities. Previously, this technique relied on ‘capture-recapture’ models that utilized re-sightings of individually marked animals, but in recent years methods have been developed to estimate the population densities of unmarked animals. One such method is the random encounter and staying time (REST) technique, which does this by assuming that the cumulative time animals stay within the view of the camera scales linearly with the number of individuals. This allows for a density estimate without the need to determine individual identity. To evaluate the accuracy and precision of the REST method, I compared cattle (Bos taurus) density estimates based on trail-camera photos to the actual number of cattle stocked on a U.S. Forest Service (USFS) grazing allotment. Photos were collected across 96 motion-activated cameras distributed across a single grazing allotment in Spanish Fork, Utah. Based on the USFS grazing plan, the allotment operated under a rest-rotation grazing system, and therefore was divided into three pastures, only one of which held cattle at any given time in the year. Based on this plan cattle numbers also varied throughout the year according to a set schedule. For each stocking period and pasture, we generated REST-based abundance estimates, including empirical confidence bounds derived using either spatial or temporal averaging. Our results indicate very poor agreement between REST-based estimates and USFS stocking rates, where, at the allotment level, the former are typically 50-350% higher than the latter. Whether this indicates REST-based estimates are biased or inaccurate is hard to say; there is no doubt our cameras had detected cows (sometimes a lot of cows) in places and times that no cows should have been in based on USFS records. We thus have little confidence in the reliability of these records. As for precision, coefficient of variation values for our estimates ranged between 0.1 and 0.5 (depending on the number of active camera days used to calculate the estimate, and on whether densities were averaged across space or across time). This indicates that REST-based estimates are at least precise enough to be reasonably consistent across time (and to a lesser degree, space), and may hence be a valuable tool at the hand of wildlife managers.

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  Battle of Algiers Movie Posters

  Grant Bowcutt

  Incorperating moments in the film I found significant and impactful led me to design movie posters that have deep symbolic elements.

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  Measuring Irregularity Via Approximate Entropy: How Does Perceived Human Instability Affect One's Own Stability?

  Madi Braunersrither

  In a study performed at Utah State University, participants were prompted to evaluate the stability of pictured human postures while standing on a force plate. The force plate was used to collect the center of pressure of the subjects by recording measurements in the vertical and horizontal directions. The way these factors fluctuate over time and the irregularity in this fluctuation, specifically, can give insight into the subject’s postural stability. Rather than working with summary statistics such as means and variances of fitting parameters of a distribution as commonly done in statistics, we want to measure irregularity through analyzing the presence of patterns, or lack thereof, in the sequential center of pressure values. To measure such recurrent patterns, approximate entropy (ApEn), a time series statistic, was developed in the field of biomedical data analysis. There is compelling research that ApEn is a reliable statistic in measuring human stability. For instance, approximate entropy has been shown to be a more reliable measure of recovery time in concussed athletes and sitting ability in infants with cerebral palsy. We apply approximate entropy, along with time series and visualization techniques, to analyze the previously mentioned force plate data. Similar to the score in a horror film causing physical reactions such as sweaty palms or goosebumps, the external factor of viewing more or less stable postures could affect the subjects’ individual stability. This relationship could have implications for modeling the progression of motor skills, understanding human development, and the design of environments for rehabilitation.

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  Explicit Synchronized Solitary Waves For Some Models For the Interaction of Long and Short Waves in Dispersive Media.

  Bruce Brewer

  Four systems have recently been proposed for the study of the interaction of long and short waves in dispersive media. This poster establishes the synchronized solitary wave solutions for one of these systems.

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  Film and the British Empire

  McKenna Broadhead

  My research focused on film and the way it has changed because of imperialism, more specifically the imperialism of the British Empire. During the time of the British empire, film became an important form of propaganda. As a result, many of the cliches we often see in movies, like 'Gunga Din' were created. These cliches were used to emphasize the importance of Britain's role in shaping foreign lands and their people.

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  Effectiveness of Cannabidiol and Resveratrol Against Diesel Exhaust Particle-Induced Lung Cell Cytotoxicity

  Emily Brothersen

  Environmental air pollution poses a significant health risk to individuals across the world. Diesel exhaust particles (DEPs), a major component of air pollution, have been shown to cause lung damage leading to cancer, respiratory infections, and premature death. Antioxidants, such as resveratrol, have previously demonstrated protective properties against DEP-induced cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species. Cannabinoids extracted from hemp species have also been found to have powerful antioxidant properties, though these properties have not been thoroughly explored. In this study, A549 human lung carcinoma cells were used as a cellular model to determine the effectiveness of cannabinoids’ antioxidant properties against DEP-induced oxidative stress and cytotoxicity. Traditional measures of cell viability and oxidative stress including flow cytometry assays were used along with non-traditional Raman spectroscopy measurements. Raman spectroscopy is a non-invasive means of analyzing individual molecular changes in cellular components, such as DNA, lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates, without damaging the original cell samples. As the Raman spectral emission data is label-free, various forms of machine learning analyses were used to explore potential relationships between the antioxidants, DEP concentrations, and the resulting molecular compounds within the cell. The Raman spectral data was then compared to the traditional flow cytometry data to determine if Raman spectroscopy can be effectively used to determine the health of individual lung cells.

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  Opportunities and Challenges of Qualitative Research as a Young Researcher

  Alyssa Burton

  After joining a sociological research project—one well outside the bounds of my current major in music therapy—I have been introduced to the opportunities and challenges of qualitative research. To encourage other students in their research pursuits, this presentation will discuss qualitative research in general, my experience implementing it, and its implications for both the current project and my future. Every student, no matter their discipline, deserves the opportunity to participate in research.

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  Characterization of the ATPase Activity of CasDinG

  Christian Cahoon

  The battle between bacteria and phage has been ongoing for eons. This battle has generated the evolutionary pressure necessary for the development of microbial immune systems. Characterization of these systems has led to the discovery of molecular tools such CRISPR-Cas systems. This system uses a genetic memory of past viral infections coupled with associated proteins to form ribonucleoprotein complexes which seek out and destroy foreign genetic elements. These systems have been repurposed by scientists to create powerful gene editing tools such as Cas9. With such powerful molecular tools being discovered, we have pursued the characterization of a relatively unknown system, the Type IV-A CRISPR Cas system. Previous work has shown that the Type IV-A CRISPR-associated proteins form a ribonucleoprotein complex, and that an ancillary gene casdinG is required for immune function. The research in this presentation shows the characterization of the ATPase activity of CasDinG, an XPD family helicase. We show that ATP hydrolysis is substantially increased in the presence of nucleic acid.

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  Abstract Marketing of the British Empire

  Rachel Campbell

  A critic on the British empire using their own marketing tactics in a abstract way.

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  Digitization of Entomological Collections at USU, Eastern Using SCAN (Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network) Data Portal and Seek! iNaturalist App

  Alexandra Cartwright

  Pollinators, including bees, provide valuable ecosystem services for native plants and agricultural species. Phenology, or the timing of biological events such as flowering of plants, is changing as a result of climate change. The digitization of specimens allows for insights into species distributions, seasonality, and phenology in 60-70-year-old collections. The entomological collection at Utah State University, Eastern houses approximately 3,000 individual specimens and over 100 bees. The oldest specimens date from 1953, many from the 1960s, 70s, & 80s and the majority of specimens are from Carbon and Emery Counties. Digitization of entomological collections can provide: species distributions: Which species are no longer present that historically occurred here? Are they specialists on a particular plant host species? Seasonality: At what month was this species in a specific stage? Phenology: Have the dates of pollinator activities? We hope to answer some of the questions we have posed and ones posed by other researchers (Meiners et al. 2020). We also aim to provide information for other scientists to answer questions through the SCAN data portal (Wood et al. 2020).

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  A Look Into Indigenous Perceptions of Oil and Gas Companies in the Uintah Basin

  TiSean Chapoose and Josie Tollefson

  Our research is centered around the opinions of the Ute Indian Tribe in regards to Oil and Gas development in and around their land. This tribe is one of six hundred federally recognized indigenous tribes in the United States. However they are particularly of interest due to their working relationship with oil and gas companies and development. Setting them apart from previous surveys on indigenous peoples opinions as none before had such close relations to oil and gas. We collected qualitative data through in depth interviews, based loosely around a pre-written questionnaire, as we wanted these interviews to be a casual conversation rather than a question and answer. Once done we analyzed the interviews looking for the natural trends, but also focusing on 6 different categories ranging from crime to education. Overall our results did not yield a particular set of negative or positive views but rather a split down the middle.

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  Understanding How Changes in Precipitation Intensity Will Affect Vegetation in the Western U.S.

  Cristina Chirvasa

  Precipitation events are becoming more intense as the atmosphere warms, but it remains unclear how precipitation intensification will affect plant growth in arid and semiarid ecosystems. There is conflicting evidence suggesting that larger precipitation events may either increase or decrease plant growth. Here, we report the growth responses of herbaceous and woody plants to experimental manipulations of precipitation intensity in a cold, semi-arid ecosystem in Utah, USA. In this experiment, precipitation was collected and redeposited as fewer, larger events with total annual precipitation kept constant across treatments. Results from the first two growing seasons revealed that more intense events ‘pushed’ water deeper into the soil, leading to an increase in woody plant growth. To provide a longer-term and more mechanistic understanding of this response, here we will be analyzing an additional two years of shrub stem radius growth, soil water content, new root growth, root area, and herbaceous plant growth. Additionally, we performed a depth-controlled water tracer experiment to describe grass, forb, and shrub rooting distributions in different treatments. Results have implications for understanding the increase in woody plant abundance around the world in the past 50 years, a phenomenon known as shrub encroachment, and for forecasting semi-arid ecosystem responses to climate change.

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  Violent Crime With the Influx of Immigrants Along the Southern US Border.

  Jesse Clark

  The United States citizens have a perception that the foreign-born, especially “illegal aliens,” are responsible for the carnage and the reported increase in violent crime rates along the U.S.and Mexico border, and the media and popular myth often perpetuate this mentality. But these perceptions are not supported empirically; instead, they are proven wrong by the scientific evidence. If we understand “carnage” to mean criminal violence and killings, state and national crime data doesn’t support this narrative. Although an increase of property crimes, due to the sheer number of border crossers, have been attributable to traveling migrants — like break-ins, cut fences, and car thefts — violent crime is relatively steady compared to last year. Today an estimated twelve million immigrants are unauthorized, or 30 percent of the foreign-born population of the U.S. Since the early 1990s, over the same time period as legal and especially illegal immigration was reaching historic highs, crime rates have declined in cities and regions of high immigrant concentration (Lee et al., 2001). Research and scientific evidence will show that the purported increase of violent crime along the U.S. Mexico border is not “caused” or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The following are the main research questions this project seeks to answer: Are migrants causing “carnage” at the U.S. southern border? Is there a link between illegal immigrants and rising U.S. crime rates, and if so, how are the two related statistically?

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  Mental Health Literacy and the Impact of Gender

  Nathan Clay

  Purpose of the study We examined associations between gender and components of Mental Health Literacy (MHL). The baseline assumption, based on prior literature, is that women will have a higher knowledge related to mental health compared to men.

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  Not All Lawyers Read John Grisham: An Exploration of the Reading Habits of Pre-Law Students and Attorneys

  Ryan Collins

  This project aims to explore the reading habits of a small group of pre-law students at Utah State University and three attorneys. The first goal of this project was to understand how USU students required academic reading has influenced the way they read for pleasure. The second goal of this project was to explore the reading lives of three attorneys, including a self-evaluation of their past academic reading, their current professional reading, and how their professional reading has influenced the way they read for pleasure today. A mixed methodology consisting of online surveys and interviews was used to approach these research questions. A Qualtrics survey was sent to the USU students, while a face-to-face meeting, a Zoom meeting, and a phone interview were used to interview the three attorneys. This project questions if the amount of reading required of pre-law students and attorneys diminishes their desire to read for pleasure if they even have time for such leisurely activities. The data gathered in this study suggests that students and lawyers do not lose their desire to read over time because of the amount of reading they do in their academic and professional lives. Simultaneously the data gathered from this research shows that not all lawyers read John Grisham for fun.

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  Book Worms? A Profile of the Reading Lives of English Majors

  Ryan Collins, Claire Atwood, Virginia Beikmann, Josephine Rivera, Mya Bethers, Kerrin Mountcastle, Sam Richens, and Cayla Cappel

  What are the reading lives of a group of upper-division English majors in terms of their autobiographies, their processes of reading, and their preferred texts? How do they manage required reading and reading for pleasure? Although university students who major in English Studies read consistently, often reading behaviors are taken for granted, particularly the long-term reading lives of these students. How did they develop as readers? What strategies have they developed to be successful? What are preferred tools and technology? How has their various cultures influenced their reading? By using an autoethnographic approach that describes and interrogates their processes and products, the goal was to develop a profile of the reading lives of upper-division English majors at a land-grant, research university. Upper-division English majors with an emphasis in Literature were surveyed as a primary target group of participants, and one English alumna as well as one English professor who teaches Literature classes were interviewed. This is a collaborative research project performed by students enrolled in English 3470, Approaches to Research in English Studies.

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  Re-Envisioning Transforming Communities Initiative

  Alyssa Cronin

  Have you ever seen a large problem you wished we could just solve already? There are many: poverty, homelessness, racism, hunter. The list goes on. Huge issues like these require people to step up to the plate and dismantle oppressive systems and construct better ones. Social workers have been doing this since their conception; however, engagement in these areas have been dwindling over the past decades. TCI was born in 2014 to help combat this by training the next generation of civically engaged social workers while conducting research and working with communities in Utah to create change. It is now overdue for an evaluation so can grow and better serve people. To do this we needed to find out what challenges communities are facing and what kind of assistance they need to create change! Also, we needed to find out why students are not engaging in macro practice and what we can do to enhance their experiences with macro practice. Building upon a quantitative survey study, we opted to conducted semi-structured group interviews with decision makers in each community in which USU serves, current USU social work students and the alumni. Participants in these interviews selected their top issues for discussion during these interviews. We did all the fun processing and coded our data by categorical theming. The communities that had enough interest to conduct an interview Blanding, Logan, Moab, Price, Tooele, and Uintah Basin. There was some overlap between the communities especially on; however, each community is different so there isn’t time to go over them all. To give an idea of the type of data we gathered I will be using Logan! Housing was found to be a large issue. There is a low stock of affordable housing available, high rental rates often prevent saving people from saving for homeownership, and substandard housing disproportionately impacts immigrants and refugees.There was a large concern with people from different backgrounds feeling welcome. There is a lot of fear of people who are different from the dominate culture, a dismissive political climate is increasing ignorance and negative beliefs and stereotypes, and there is a strong desire for there to be more outreach and engagement in this area. Also, mental health problems are rising or the recognition of them is at least. A lack of access to quality mental health is noted, and there is a strong desire for barriers and mental health stigma to continue to be removed. For the engaging students in macro practice, we found that there is also a stigma there to macro practice being difficult and that there will be few jobs available. Interest from students has increased when they received hands on assignments and real-life experiences in and out of class. Things that they would like to see to make macro social work learning better include things like increasing awareness of macro practice options for work and having more practicums in the area available. In addition, the curriculum could be improved by evening out macro and micro practice focuses and offer an increased opportunities for engagement with macro practice, the community and research. Since there is a need in the communities and students seem to show interest in having macro practice experiences, TCI will be using the data gathered for strategic planning to assess ways that they can engage students in ways by offering more experiences that assist the communities in which they live.