Interdisciplinary – Page 34 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Interdisciplinary

The Seasonality of Measles Across the Globe

Although the United States has come very close to eliminating measles cases through widespread vaccination, measles outbreaks still occur in many low and middle income (LMIC) countries where vaccine distribution is more complex. The World Health Organization (WHO) has collected historical clinical case report data of measles across the globe for almost a century, but has yet to closely examine these data across time and space to identify the seasonal transmission dynamics of the virus and identify the factors responsible for these patterns. In our study, we analyzed monthly measles cases reported to the WHO from 1948-1977 across the world. This data was found in print documents and scanned into PDF format to be digitized using optical character recognition software. Next, it was assembled and organized into CSV format to be analyzed in R using wavelet analyses and general additive models for visualization purposes. We expect to find seasonal patterns in measles outbreaks for each location studied. Hopefully, we will be able to find correlations between case numbers and risk factors so that action can be taken to reduce further outbreaks. If we know seasonality in each location, we could optimize the timing of vaccination campaigns to maximally reduce potential cases, improving the health of individuals and achieving the goals of health experts.

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Whole Health Educational Resource Development and Evaluation for Veterans and VA Staff

Whole Health is a new system of care that focuses on holistic, integrative, and personalized medicine for Veterans. Current research in areas such as yoga, meditation, and other supplemental services has found some benefit in both mental health and overall well being for those who utilize these integrative health services. There may be further benefit from additional analysis of particular areas such as those noted above in the Veteran population. To examine this, an electronic survey through Qualtrics that focused on participants’ perception and utilization of various Whole Health services was distributed to Veteran patients, physicians, and other individuals associated with the VA. Once the results from survey participants were collected, they were analyzed in order to gain more of an understanding of the different experiences behind this approach to care. Obtaining this information could corroborate the effectiveness of this approach to care and lead to improvements in the Whole Health System for all individuals involved. At the time of publication of this abstract, the data has been collected and preliminary analysis is in process. Specific, detailed, and final results will be available at the time of the Symposium presentation.

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Whole Health Educational Resource Development and Evaluation for Veterans and VA Staff

Whole Health is a personalized health system run by the Veteran’s Healthcare System that focuses on care for the individual as a whole. Whole Health incorporates the individual in his or her care through a process of mindful awareness, self-care development, and connections to professional and preventive care and the community. So far, various studies have shown that modalities such as acupuncture, light therapy, yoga, mindfulness meditation, and diet are beneficial in improving a number of health problems. However, there will be a need to be further research studies as some studies are limited by sample size and lack of replication. For this reason, our research group has created a survey to assess the perceptions and effectiveness of Whole Health initiatives. The survey has been distributed to a diverse group of Veterans and staff. At the time of publication of this abstract, the data has been collected and preliminary analysis is in process. Specific, detailed, and final results will be available at the time of the Symposium presentation.

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Wearable Technology for Optimizing Athlete Training and Performance

The goal of this research project is to enhance performance by using and analyzing various kinds of wearable devices. The devices include Athos leggings and the Amazon Halo in comparison with the better known FitBit Charge 3. The Athos leggings utilize electromyography sensors, which measure signals generated in the muscles when they are moved/contracted. The Halo and Charge 3 are able to capture heart rate by measuring volume change in the wrist capillaries through light sensitive photodiodes. Additionally, they are both able to use this data along with movement, captured by an accelerometer that measures movement along the X, Y, and Z axes, to give information about sleep, active minutes, and steps. Data was collected via apps that accompany the technology and analyzed through said apps and/or spreadsheets. Dance, ballet in particular, was looked at, and we were able to see the breakdown of the use of the different muscle groups as well as any left to right imbalances. This information can be helpful to athletes, as it can help indicate ways that training and practice should be altered in order to optimize performance.

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Variance in the Evolution of Mimicry Behavior in Atractus Snakes

Variance in the Evolution of Mimicry Behavior in Atractus Snakes: Animals often adapt their behavior and physical characteristics to mimic another species as a method to deter predators. Previous studies have identified snake species that mimic the coloration and behavior of venomous coral snakes as a defensive mechanism. This study aims to examine the variance of mimicry in a single genus. The species Atractus elaps and Atractus flammigerus will exhibit different defensive behaviors due to a difference in the evolution of mimicry between the species. The snakes were caught in Peru, placed into an arena, and introduced to various physical and auditory stimuli, all while being video-recorded. Videos were examined by frame and any observed defensive behavior was recorded. The expected results of this study are that Atractus elaps will react with tail presentations that show the red striped underside of the tail, mimicking defensive tail curling in Coral snakes. Atractus flammigerus will have different reactions to the stimuli that do not involve a tail presentation. A difference in behavior between these two species would show that only Atractus elaps uses defense mechanisms that involve coral snake mimicry. The results of this study will further examine snake mimicry behavior and provide more data about coevolution of color and mimicry in the Atractus genus.

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Age-Dependent Anti-Predator Behavior in Leptodeira Snakes

Most animals display some form of anti-predator behavior, from expelling foul-smelling substances to making deafening noises. Snakes, despite their minimalistic form, have a wide variety of anti-predator behaviors. Previous studies surrounding the behavior of snakes have focused primarily on predatory and defensive behaviors of adult snakes. This study tests for differences in anti-predator behaviors between juvenile and adult snakes of the Leptodeira genus. Leptodeira are in the family Colubridae and are primarily found across Central and South America, living in a multitude of different environments. Snakes were captured and each was subjected to a variety of stimuli, including auditory, visual, and physical contact. The resulting responses were videotaped and analyzed to generate an ethogram for each video. The behaviors were then divided into aggressive and passive displays. The frequency and length of each behavior was compared between adults and juveniles. This study predicts that adult Leptodeira exhibit aggressive behaviors more frequently than juveniles. If this prediction is true, the difference could imply that aggressive behavior provides an advantage to adult Leptodeira due to their larger size, but not juveniles. This would mean passive attempts at hiding fail more frequently for adult snakes than for juvenile snakes. If the opposite trend is found, it could imply that juvenile Leptodeira, which have white heads that fade to grey or black at adulthood, are more visible than adults and therefore are incentivized to be more aggressive. This research will broaden understanding of how behavior can change after maturation in nonhuman animals.

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Virulent Hate: Media Coverage of Anti-Asian Hate in the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed a significant increase in anti-Asian rhetoric and harassment in the United States. This study tracks and analyzes how news media has covered anti-Asian racism and discrimination during the pandemic and how news coverage of this issue changed throughout 2020. Researchers used the Proquest and Newsbank news databases to identify news articles about coronavirus-related anti-Asian racism and to develop a database of incidents in which Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals experienced or resisted anti-Asian discrimination. Using this data, this study considers trends of reporting. In particular, it examines the frequency of news reports about incidents of racism against AAPIs in relation to the frequency of news reports about incidents of resistance to racism.

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Virulent Hate: The Dynamics of Gender in Anti-Asian Hate during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic has witnessed a severe increase in incidents of racism towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). To understand this occurrence further, this research project tracks incidents of anti-Asian hate reported in news media. Two newspaper databases, ProQuest and Newsbank, were used to harvest articles pertaining to the issue for every day of 2020, which were then coded into a spreadsheet based on the type of racism. Over 4,600 articles were collected, containing 1,176 incidents of anti-Asian racism. Using this data, this study considers incidents of anti-Asian racism specifically involving AAPI women, who were disproportionately targeted in anti-Asian incidents. AAPI women were the victim in 302 incidents of harassment, including 238 incidents of verbal harassment, 46 incidents of physical harassment, and 76 incidents of non-verbal harassment. 18 of these incidents included not only racist but also misogynistic terms.

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Hollywood’s Lost Celebrities: Live Performance in Classical Era Movie Theaters

Prior to the 1930s, “going to the movies” was a very different experience that consisted of either attending a vaudeville theater or a movie theater where short live acts would appear on the same bills as films, cartoons, and newsreels. However, most scholarships attests that after this point, theaters switched almost exclusively to showing only movies, possible due to a number of factors. The common belief is that this shift happened quickly due to the growing popularity of sound films and the looming Great Depression which rendered live performance too expensive to program. However our research suggests that this story of demise and the reasons for it are overly simplistic at best, and frankly incorrect at worst. We demonstrate that live performance in movie theaters did decline during this time, but it was still widely used in the largest theaters in the country. We have primarily used two methods to explain and track the changing use of live performance in movie theaters. We have constructed a database of theater programs printed in Variety by inputting data such as city, theater, and acts into a Google Sheets spreadsheet. This data allows us to visually demonstrate the number of acts performing in certain years and shows that the common narrative that the death of vaude happened suddenly. In order to at least partially account for the changing prevalence of live performance, we have also traced the decisions of major film studios regarding the use of live performance in theaters. My case studies of Paramount and Fox, for example, show that this was not an instant decision, but rather a back and forth process where they would increase or decrease the use depending on what was profitable at the time. More broadly, these conclusions might tell us that vaude did not simply disappear, but rather the studio’s usage of it shifted back and forth for much longer before it’s demise.

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Suppression of Heterotopic Ossification Using a TAK1 Inhibitor

Heterotopic ossification (or HO) is the abnormal growth of bone in soft tissues, such as muscles, tendons, and more which cause the subject to develop excruciating pain in their joints. After seeing how negatively HO affects a patient’s life, there is a clear need for prevention of the lesions to help improve the life of someone with HO. The host lab previously found that genetic or pharmacologic suppression of TGF-beta activated kinase 1 (TAK1) is efficient to mitigate HO. A next logical step of the study regarding HO is that the lowest possible dose of a TAK1 inhibitor, Takinib, with co-treatment of an anti-inflammatory drug, rapamycin, will suppress the growth of heterotopic ossification in mice. After induction of HO in our genetic mouse model for HO, a suboptimal dose of Takinib was orally administered with a range of rapamycin. Tissues with resulted HO were scanned by the micro-CT 500 microscopy scanner. CT scans of experimental mice with HO were investigated using a software called ITK Snap, which helps find the volume of the HO throughout the mice. The volumetric measurements revealed that combinations of suboptimal doses of Takinib and rapamycin effectively suppressed the growth of HO, or bone growth in soft tissues. Our findings suggest that co-treatment of TAK1 inhibitors with anti-inflammatory drugs, such as rapamycin, is the way to suppress the growth of heterotopic ossification with minimal side effects of each chemical. The study hopes to identify the lowest dose of the main anti-inflammatory chemical and how this dose will be effective in reducing the growth of HO. The identified chemical dose will ultimately serve as an efficient treatment for HO without adverse reactions not only in mice, but also in humans.

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