Daniel F. '65 & Ann H. Sullivan Endowment for Student/Faculty Research

“The Digital World and The Modern Undergraduate” discusses research conducted on effects of digital information, assistant software, and generative AI on modern undergraduate students when compared to previous generations. My research considers both the positive and negative aspects of the transition to the digital world, in an attempt to present a full picture of these changes. Some of the programs examined in the paper are Google, Perusall, and ChatGPT. 

This summer I devoted my SLU Fellowship opportunity to immerse in a new art medium. As a double major in Environmental Studies and Studio Art, I am passionate about finding space for intersection between both of my interests and  paper making felt like a perfect opportunity for the exploration of sustainable practices. I was mentored by Velma Bolyard and Melissa Schulenberg in learning the craft. We focused on the use of readily available materials for the production of quality paper. More specifically we utilized paper scraps, plant fibers and recycled cotton t-shirt.

Today, 75% of residential land in the United States is zoned for detached single-family homes. This means that anything other than detached single family homes including apartments, low-income housing, senior living, and student housing are prohibited in these areas. Zoning regulations are the foundation of city planning, making them a fundamental aspect of society to evaluate when assessing the future of our nation.

The goals for this project were to train a convolutional neural network to be able to label game camera images taken in the North Country. Once trained the hope was to use it for Nature Up North projects that involve labeling thousands of images taken each year. Currently these images are labeled by volunteers and this network would be able to at least help sort them faster. At the conclusion of my project, I was able to train two networks – the first sorted images based on any animal presence, and the second sorted images based on animal species.

Ferritin is a kind of protein that exists in the human body with a mix of two different types of molecules called H and L. Diseases such as anemia, cancer, and Alzheimers have been linked to the malfunction of Ferritin in the body. Therefore, research is being conducted to further understand how Ferritin works. We have 2D images of Ferritin, which thanks to a software called Cryo-EM, can be combined to form 3D models of the protein. Unfortunately, the pictures that we have are blurry.

The research conducted for "You're a [Data] Wizard, Harry!" was done through the program of R. Through R, we started with text mining and cleaning of the first Harry Potter film script. From this script and data, we conducted many sentiment analyses for the course of the film and for each individual character. We then applied the sentiment analyses to networks, working to understand the sentiment of dialogue interactions and relationships. Through these analyses, we were able to see the overall connotations for each relationship's dialogue in the first film specifically.

Although they are challenging to see with the naked eye, zooplankton do serve a vital role in an ecosystem. More specifically, we focused on copepods and the nature of their appearance. The pigment that contributes to their coloration is astaxanthin, the purpose of which is possibly for UV protection. We wanted to see how the levels of this pigment related to the location, as well as the time of the year of sampling. It was also important to be able to create a reproducible method for the extraction of astaxanthin, in order to prevent the wasting of material.

Network analysis is the process of analyzing the structure of a network through graphical and statistical procedures. In other words, network analysis looks at how a set of units (nodes) are connected to one another through directional or non-directional links (edges). For my research project, I explored network analysis and investigated through statistical methods how the directional relationship of assists to goals influences winning percentages for Division III Liberty League soccer teams from 2013-2021.

My research this summer studied a portion of the morphine molecule using the Wagner-Jauregg reaction. The final goal of this research is to use the Wagner-Jauregg reaction to synthesize a morphine-like molecule, that could have reduced addictive properties and allow people to use morphine without the risk of addiction. The Wagner-Jauregg reaction involves a double Diels-Alder reaction between a diene and dienophile. This reaction allows us to use cheaper and readily available molecules to synthesize more complex molecules, such as morphine.

Using China’s national and regional data (i.e. Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong), this project studied how Covid-19 affects China’s housing market. Main findings included:

I propose that the practice of chemistry often reduces its subject matter into a vacuous form of itself; that we erroneously equate truth values assigned to states of matter with forms so mitigated or changed that they are no longer ontologically dependent on—nor can they feasibly describe—the original substance in question. During this fellowship, I examined objects in general and how their identities and demands on existence affect the types of ontological commitments we can justifiably devote ourselves to.

In Kenya, only 6% of rural women have access to land titles, even though they make up approximately 96% of the agricultural labor force. This gap is critical because, in Kenya, the land is an indicator of social status. Moreover, agriculture in Kenya contributes to almost a quarter of the national GDP. This research aimed to understand the significant impacts of the gender gap in land ownership and control on Kenyan rural women’s economic and personal empowerment.

I analyzed the theme of psychological repression in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Zadie Smith’s NW, exploring how, despite the apparent progress in British society during the nearly 90 years between their publications, the same problem still surfaces.

During the duration of her fellowship, Sam read and analyzed six of Shakespeare’s Roman and Greek plays. She also researched a variety of methodologies including, feminism, new historicism, and marxism. Her research into various methodologies showed her a variety of critical methods from which to approach writing her article, so that she could combine them to create her own unique methodology.

For my Fellowship this summer I produced and published a collection of four short fiction stories that explored the experience of a Romanian family as they immigrate to the U.S, assimilate, and grow apart as time passes. These stories were inspired by a piece I created for my advanced fiction class in the fall 2021 semester, as well as my own personal experience with my Romanian-American family.

Robber flies (Order: Diptera, Family: Asilidae) are a widely distributed family of predacious flies. They are considered to be top-level predators crucial to suppressing various insect populations, however the ecology and behavior of the species Lasiopogon currani has received minimal attention. We conducted a study of L. currani underneath a disturbed powerlines area in Pierrepont, St. Lawrence County to determine insect diversity, potential prey, and behavioral patterns. We found that the insect diversity of the powerlines study site included representatives of eight orders.

Robber flies (Order: Diptera, Family: Asilidae) are members of a widespread family of predacious flies. Lasiopogon currani are a small species within this family, active in late spring to early summer and commonly found perching on exposed sticks or rocks. We conducted daily surveys at Glen Meal State Forest, combined with a mark-resight technique to measure their phenology as well as collect observational data. The first L. currani were surveyed on May 2nd, with the population peaking in abundance on May 9th and plateauing for 9 days before decreasing, with no L.

This project is a study of still life painting which combined Dutch still life painting style with traditional Chinese fine brushwork paintings. Due to the Coronavirus, I did research and composition design from late May, but started to actually paint until Early August. Since I believe quality is much more important than the quantity, I created only one but highly detailed painting at last. For the subject and composition, I specially focused on the bottle flowers (the western-style floral compositions) with traditional Chinese wooden window frame.

This project intended to proposing a well-founded and viable total synthesis of a recently isolated natural product molecule. This molecule is structural challenging and interesting, and it has been tested to be potentially antibacterial. Thus, it is important for us to discover a synthetic route of this molecule. During the eight weeks of this summer (2020), we analyzed the structure of this molecule theoretically, and proposed a well-founded synthetic route of this molecule.

The reviewed mechanism, kinetics, and thermodynamics of proton-coupled electron transfer reactions work as the basis for electrochemical degradation of azo-dye. Cyclic voltammetry is applied for the electrochemical studies of this project. A review of metal-organic frameworks and their synthetic routes helps to design better catalysts work for degradation reaction.

The Syntactic View, the Semantic View, and the Pragmatic View, three historically prevailing approaches to the structure of scientific theory, each had crucial successes and failures. This paper outlines each of those views, addresses those successes and failures, and suggests a way to synthesize the useful formal rigor of semantic approaches with the practical concerns of pragmatic approaches. This is done through a recharacterization of the notion of surplus structure in the Semantic View. The end result is a scheme for formalizing important pragmatic structures of theory.

The Greencafe website would allow the Greencafe staff to create events and would allow customers to reserve seats. This website would also allow customers to access the menus. Most importantly it allows the staff to manage all the reservations accordingly. They are also able to send invitations and reminders to their customers.

This project is to create computer generated music and to make comparisons between the two deep learning models. One is the LSTM (long short term memory) model and the other is the MuseGAN (generative adversarial network) model. MIDI and npz are two forms that are used in each model for datasets. MIDI is a form which people use to process music with programming because it can be easily read by computers. Npz files are able to group numbers into arrays, then save them in the files. It is a form made by numpy package in Python.

This is a less conventional alternative to a traditional research paper. It follows a family who has a son suffering from a rare, non-life-threatening genetic disorder during the time that widespread genetic testing was entering the mainstream. Along with explaining and attempting to teach the reader about this complex FOXP2-plus mutation, this paper tells the story of a young man, R, and his life from early childhood to young adulthood.

The purpose of this study is to further examine the relationship between academically-focused character strengths (positively valued personality traits) and positive academic outcomes among college students. Over 320 SLU students took an online survey. Results demonstrated (1) a new grouping of character strengths, (2) links between character strengths and academic outcomes for all students, and (3) important differences between groups of students on these relationships.