Interdisciplinary – Page 20 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Interdisciplinary

Bioinformatics study on genetic diseases

Missense single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are single point mutations that alter the amino acid produced. By changing the amino acid, protein stability, pathogenicity, or chemical properties of the protein can change. These mutations can also cause various diseases, specifically diabetes, intellectual disability, and speech-language disorder. However, not all mutations are pathogenic. This study’s objective is to research the properties of these mutations by looking at the change in free energy, amino acid change, and pathogenicity and to determine whether or not it’s harmful to humans. The study specifically focused on the forkhead transcription factors, a set of DNA-binding proteins involved in regulating gene expression. Data was gathered from the Uniprot database, and PyMOL was used to determine protein to DNA contact. EvoEF was used to calculate the change in free energy, and SIFT and Polyphen-2 were used to predict pathogenicity. The results showed common trends among most pathogenic mutations such as high ??G values, no DNA contact, and a high damaging score. Therefore, the data collected is useful for making predictions about mutations.

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The Seasonality of Infectious Diseases Across the Globe

Dysentery is an infection causing inflammation of the intestines and bloody diarrhea. It is often spread via contaminated food and water and was a prevalent public health concern throughout the twentieth century and still today to an extent. Data provided by the World Health Organization from 1944-1977 categorizes dysentery as either amoebic or bacillary. Amoebic dysentery is caused by the parasite, amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, and bacillary dysentery is caused by the Shigella bacteria. Dysentery cases were examined in a variety of countries around the world from 1944-1977. This data was first scanned from World Health Organization record books, and PDFs were converted into Excel files using optical character recognition (OCR) software. The cumulative data over the entire timespan was then graphed and visualized using the R programming language using time series to determine if any trends in seasonality existed for either or both forms of dysentery. These visualizations will help doctors and public health professionals better understand the seasonality of dysentery as well as where and when it is most prevalent. This will provide vital information that can improve timing and delivery of treatment in parts of the world with high incidences of dysentery.

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The Historical Seasonality of Paratyphoid Across the Globe

Paratyphoid fever is one of many bacterial infectious diseases shown to exhibit seasonal dynamics, likely influenced by environmental conditions. However, a complete understanding of the seasonal patterns and identification of environmental factors which drive disease transmission have not been fully studied. We compiled and analyzed global data from the World Health Organization spanning from 1932-1957 and provincial level Thailand data from 1980-2020. Both of these datasets report monthly clinical cases and deaths of paratyphoid that occur in the given area. We used optical character recognition software to transform the data from pdf format to a format conducive to statistical analysis with R. Based on previous studies and initial findings, it appears that paratyphoid cases spike during hot weather months which vary depending on hemisphere. Other environmental factors, such as rainfall and variation in temperature have also been shown to influence paratyphoid spread and seasonality. Understanding the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases such as paratyphoid fever is imperative for public health officials to develop comprehensive guidelines and policies. The nuances of infectious disease transmission are also important to understand to reduce the size of epidemics and prevent the inundation of healthcare systems that would stop an otherwise treatable condition from being treated.

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Civic Resilience and Neighborhood Resilience Projects and Hubs

As the climate crisis accelerates, emergency and civil services increasingly are overstretched. Resilience-based programming provides relief by empowering individual citizens, neighborhood organizations, and local institutions to share the planning and preparation on behalf of their communities. Settlements become more resilient to the impacts of climate change when they develop the capacity of neighborhoods to endure, quickly recover from, and renew after extreme events. To aid these processes, we developed “A Pattern Language for Neighborhood Resilience” as a starting point. This book contains a number of guides – or patterns – on how to invest in skills, small-scale infrastructure, relationships, and supplies that increase a neighborhood’s resilience. The book is currently in draft form and soon will be pre-tested before being released. As a living document, it will undoubtedly be modified and expanded throughout its adoption.

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Women’s Wave: Participation and Success by Candidates in Congressional Elections, 2014 to 2020

Despite the plethora of analysis on individual candidates of all political affiliations in national elections, it is unknown which identities are most salient in determining the successes or failures of congressional candidates. This study has examined the success of women in elections. We investigated whether female candidates present themselves as activists, which we defined as taking part in protests, volunteering for a cause, or founding a group to solve an issue. This study recovers biographical, financial, and experiential information on every documented Congressional candidate in the election years 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. An analysis of these candidates reveals characteristics of importance when predicting the outcome of an election: 1) affiliation with the main political parties; 2) campaign expenditures; and 3) experience as an activist. The results expressed by this study highlighted attributes to pay attention to in future election years when predicting wins for female candidates.

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Women’s Wave: Participation and Success by Candidates in Congressional Elections, 2014 to 2020

Despite the plethora of analysis on individual candidates of all political affiliations in national elections, it is unknown which identities are most salient in determining the successes or failures of congressional candidates. This study has examined the success of women in elections. We investigated whether female candidates present themselves as activists, which we defined as taking part in protests, volunteering for a cause, or founding a group to solve an issue. This study recovers biographical, financial, and experiential information on every documented Congressional candidate in the election years 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. An analysis of these candidates reveals characteristics of importance when predicting the outcome of an election: 1) affiliation with the main political parties; 2) campaign expenditures; and 3) experience as an activist. The results expressed by this study highlighted attributes to pay attention to in future election years when predicting wins for female candidates.

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Creating a Hybrid Education Program: Best of Both Worlds

Due to COVID, educational programs have had to quickly change to an online format and many were unprepared for the drastic change. During this past year many of us have personally experienced the pros and cons of online learning, and nobody knows what the future will be like. My project for 826michigan was to find, through data collected from participants, what the strengths and weaknesses have been for both the online and in person versions of their programs in order to create a hybrid version for the future.

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The Resilience Project: Earthquake threats to Mid-west and Northeastern regions of U.S.

Whereas the number of earthquakes per year remain steady, modern society faces increasing threats to life, infrastructure and economic activity. In order for communities to improve their resilience against inevitable earthquakes, information is needed on how they will affect their regions and how they can build resilience against a largely unstoppable natural disaster. Using public data, this undergraduate research study investigates the earthquake patterns and threats to both Midwest and the broader northeastern regions of the U.S, with a focus on the societal impacts of earthquakes in these regions. Earthquake data over a 45 year period establish that the number as well as magnitude of earthquakes in this region is quite small, compared to regions of the western US. The data reveals that the average annual injury and the earthquake damage costs for this region are relatively low. It is expected that, with this information, people can reliably predict earth occurrences and decide whether their regions need to build a costly earthquake resilient infrastructure, which may exceed the regional damage of natural events.

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Architecture of Dwelling: Considering Design, Social Relations, and Policy in Single and Multi-Family Housing

Supportive housing is a cost-effective combination of affordable housing with services that helps people live more stable, productive lives. Having such housing options are vital especially in cities undergoing rapid re-development because rising property values displace low-income households from their homes and sources of income. New Hope Housing is a non-profit organization that aims to provide such housing to individuals and families. A case study by the Urban Land Institute offers a comprehensive analysis on one of New Hope Housing’s apartments, highlighting the unique structure of their development model and operating timeline. Building on an integrated approach between a debt-free development model and single room occupancy (SRO) design, this research project looks for solutions to how SROs can re-define housing and positively impact the neighborhoods surrounding low-income housing.

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To Make the Slave Anew

To Make the Slave Anew: Art, History, and the Politics of Authenticity is a book that aims to discern how our modern understanding of slavery and the life of the slave came to be. It explores the memory of slavery and racism in the United States through the lens of music, visual studies, literature, ethnography and folklore. Each chapter achieves this by studying various figures, events, and pieces of work that impacted the cultural conception of slavery by including pictures of art and excerpts from literature, scholarly work, journals, etc. Through the exploration of various methods of cultural memory, To Make the Slave Anew argues that our contemporary perceptions of slavery are based on more recent””largely late nineteenth and early twentieth century””myths regarding the life of the slave and slavery in the South. With recent questions on the memory and relics of racism and slavery in the United States gaining more attention, To Make the Slave Anew offers a way of understanding how society comes to remember such concepts, and how those memories can shift with time.

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