2017 Archaeological Excavation – Ataruz, Jordan

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Aaron Schade, Department of Ancient Scripture In January 2017 I received a MEG totaling $20,000 to conduct a multi-faceted project associated with the excavations at Khirbat Ataruz in Jordan, including capturing images of ancient artefacts and inscriptions using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). I am happy to report that the project was a success, and that […]

Combating Obesity Through Gut Microbiome Targeted Bacteriophage Therapy

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Gongze Zhao, Dr. Laura Bridgewater, Micro & Molecular Biology Introduction The human gut consists of approximately 1.5 kg of bacteria, and 50% of the biomass in our fecal matter is bacterial cells (Nicholson, 2005). Diet is a major factor in shaping the composition of the gut microbiota, (Zhang, 2010) which in turn influences the body by […]

Analyzing a Corpus of President Trump’s Public Statements to Reveal Possible Media Bias

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Kevin Zalewski, William Eggington Introduction In recent years, America has become extremely politically divided. As political polarization has increased, so has distrust of the media, especially during President Trump’s current term of office. The Media Insights Project reports that “just 17 percent of Americans give the news media high marks for being ‘very accurate.’” In […]

The Role of Nr4a1 in β-cell Growth and Onset of Type 2 Diabetes

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Adam Wynn, Jeffery Tessem, Ph.D. Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science Progression to type 2 diabetes (T2D) includes a loss of functional pancreatic beta cells (β-cells), which are responsible for secreting insulin and maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. Nr4a1 is a gene that has been shown to be involved in fuel utilization in the liver, muscles, and […]

Do Support Groups for Medical Patients Reduce Risk for Mortality? A Meta-Analytic Review

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Connor Workman, Dakota Jake, Daniel Rallison, Timothy Smith, PhD; Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, Psychology Recent scientific findings show that loneliness is found among the highest predictors of mortality. This information could prove to be a major influence on future interventions for medical patients. However, the literature is inconclusive on how best to implement these findings in the real […]

Acoustic Phonetic Analysis of Tol

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Micah Wood, Dr. Chris Rogers, Linguistics Tol is one of the languages belonging to the language family referred to as Jicaquean in the linguistic literature. It has roughly 200 speakers remaining in a single community in northern Honduras, called Montaña de la Flor. Some relatively recent grammatical descriptions of the language provide useful but incomplete information […]

How to Get the Attention of Government Officials: A Test of the Effectiveness of Social Proof Treatments

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Aubriana Wolferts, Darren Hawkins, Political Science Social proof treatments—informing people about the behavior of their peers—have generally been shown effective in influencing subjects to engage in behavior due to a psychological desire to conform.1 Social proofs are more effective when they describe what peers typically do rather than what peers generally approve of, and when the […]

The Role of Nrf2 In Prevention of Oxidative Stress Caused by Valproic Acid

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Madison Wilson and Jason M. Hansen, Physiology & Developmental Biology Introduction Valproic acid (VPA) is a common drug used to treat epileptic seizures as well as bipolar disease. Over the past decade, the use of these drugs has increased dramatically as they are now being prescribed as antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and are currently being tested […]

The Financing of Transportation Firms Using Rail, Truck, Air and Ship to Test Capital Structure Theories

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David Wilson and James Brau, Finance Our project sought to test traditional theories of capital structure (e.g., Ang & Peterson, 1986, Rajan & Zingales, 1995, Titman, & Wessels, 1988 DeAngelo & Masulis,1980, Leland, 1994, and Modigliani & Miller, 1958) through the analysis of a naturally occurring experiment produced among various transportation industry sectors (i.e. rail, […]

A Blueprint for Change: How Punk Music in Belfast Affects Activism Today

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Hannah Williams and Jacob Hickman, Anthropology Though art can be found in all walks of life, it lends itself particularly well to the expression of political frustration. During the deeply rooted religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as the Troubles, many artists and musicians used their creativity to […]