UNG Annual Research Conference 2022

My abstract is 1 out of 2 projects of mine I worked on over the summer. My project was called Marinf as mar means sea and inf is from infinity. Nevertheless, it's a microcontroller based on the Arduino and built myself. This project took research of course and engineering of the design which I would talk about more. I used PCB CAD software and CAD software. The project has not been made physical sadly as the parts are not in stock as it appears they’re still having problems with that. The designs exist of course, and I even made a 3D design showing it. These designs are my own and it does not look like an Arduino though it certainly basically is one. Then I would like to then talk about my next project perhaps, which is a radio transceiver. That one is still under research, so early stages, but I have made 3d designs for some of it.

34. CARRIND Laboratory (EE)

As the world moves further into a modern-day era, cyber offensive operations have seen a massive spike in warfare use. These massive spikes have led to an uptick of ransomware, denial of service, trojan horses, and brute force attacks. These attack vectors have forced sophisticated networks to move from outbound connections to air gapped networks. These networks only communicate within the facility and have no outbound connections. These facilities tend to be classified structures like nuclear reactors, SCIFs, or any other facility that needs to be heavily classified. However, these structures do have a weakness in their defense: physical access. Due to this weakness, the United States needs to shift their own operating procedures when dealing with air gapped locations. This new approach should equip soldiers with the necessary tools to collect intelligence off air gapped computers. These tools include Bash Bunny, Shark Jack, KeyCroc, USB Rubber Duckies, and even specially made devices. With a hint of the operating systems being used, from the United States’ intelligence community, the soldiers would have the proper tools to effectively and efferently acquire data from an air gapped computer or network. This research explains how using a USB Rubber Ducky and similar devices can be used to pull information from a computer, effectively replicating how an air gapped computer would operate when faced with a United States soldier. This new approach would further heighten the United States’ cyber capabilities while being detrimental to the opposing force, leading to information advantage over our adversaries.

Panel A: Physical Access: An old solution to a new cyber threat. Equipping soldiers with USB Rubber Duckies to collect intelligence from air gapped networks

The recent #MeToo movement highlighted how pervasive male-on-female sexual assault has been in our society; specifically, that a large majority of women in particular have experienced qualifying events in the previous 2 decades (Bongiorno, Langbroek, Bain, Ting, & Ryan, 2020). One common theme emerging from this movement is women's reluctance to report sexual assault, specifically based on the (also common) victim-blaming often encountered when they do, especially from men. The current study explores factors (sexual preference of victim (heterosexual-identifying, non-heterosexual-identifying) and gender of rater (self-identifying as male, self-identifying as female)) involved in creation of empathy gaps around sexual assault events. University student participants (50, 18-22-year-old volunteers) read vignettes describing the scenario surrounding a male student’s assault on a female student, varying only on the victim’s identified sexual preference. Data has not yet been analyzed, but it is expected that assaults on heterosexual-identifying and non-heterosexual-identifying victims will elicit different levels of empathy from both male and female raters, possibly displaying an interaction between the two variables. Results will be discussed as a function of victim experiences of perceived blame, guilt, and isolation following sexual assault.

39. Sexual preference, gender, and empathy following sexual assault

Estrogens are essential for normal growth and differentiation of the vertebrate oviduct. The observation that estradiol-17β (E2) initiated little or no response in isolated mammalian uterine cells has led to the hypothesis that paracrine growth factors mediate E2-induced proliferation and differentiation of uterine cells. Several polypeptide growth factors including insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) have been implicated in this process. In a preliminary study, Mediterranean geckos, Hemidactylus turcicus, were ovariectomized. Following ovariectomy, animals were implanted with E2, IGF-1, or control pellets. After a fourteen-day treatment period oviducts were removed, fixed, embedded in paraffin, and mounted on slides. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of E2 and growth factors, specifically IGF-1 and EGF on endometrial gland growth in these reptiles. We stained tissues from the preliminary study with hematoxylin and eosin. The glands were measured using Fiji-ImageJ software and analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc comparisons. Results indicated a significantly higher endometrial gland circumference in both E2- and IGF-1-treated animals compared to the control animals, but no significant difference was found between EGF-treated animals and control animals. In this novel research, we found that IGF-1 appears to mediate E2-induced changes in the reptilian oviduct; however, other growth factors or hormones must be involved in the process since IGF-1 alone did not elicit a full estrogenic response. Future studies will investigate additional growth factors in an attempt to construct a more complete model of the hormonal control of reptilian oviductal development.

07. The Effects of Polypeptide Growth Factors on Oviductal Growth in the Ovariectomized Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus

Interdisciplinary collaborations are a great way to bring people together to share and learn about joint interests. For this project, we brought media and science together to create promotional videos for Elachee Nature Science Center, a local environmental education and conservation organization. While completing this project, I gained valuable experience that improved my filmmaking ability, bringing me a step closer to my career goals. Through the planning, recording, and editing of these videos, I strengthened the skills required for my future profession. I learned how to work with a client, making sure I listened to their needs to ensure I produced the content they wanted. I also learned how to better execute my preproduction process through proper planning. Working on this project also benefited the community. By producing promotional videos for the nature science center, I may increase the number of people that discover Elachee and their programs, leading to the spread of environmental and conservation awareness. This science and media collaboration, to bring attention to Elachee Nature Science Center, is an example of how media can partner with other fields to promote shared interests and ideas.

Panel B: Creating Videos for Elachee Nature Science Center

Environmental temperatures are rising in most environments due to global warming, and impacting activity and physiology for many species. Energy allocation towards growth and reproduction for ectotherms can be affected by environmental temperature fluctuations which can lead to early emergence from brumation when food sources are not yet available. Understanding climatic effects on ectotherms is critical as many ectothermic species, in part because of their high ecological efficiency, have large impacts on their environments. For example, turtles are significant contributors to environmental health through bioturbation, mineral cycling, seed dispersal, grazing, soil disturbance, and biomass production. Although most turtles are categorized as threatened by the IUCN, research towards environmental effects on turtle physiology and behaviors seems deficient but vital considering how significant turtle species are to the environment. To assist in understanding temperature influences on Box Turtle physiology, we are investigating a population of Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina) in North Georgia currently being studied using radiotelemetry. From 2019-2020, temperature data loggers (iButtons®) were placed distally on the turtle’s carapace as well as throughout the environment to record available temperatures. We predict that the change in yearly temperatures in early spring (April through June) might affect Eastern Box turtle thermoregulatory strategies and energy use by altering emergence patterns and metabolic rates due to changing temperatures.

01. The Effects of Environmental Temperature Fluctuations on Physiology of Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina)

Despite the importance of knowledge of the structure of the cosmic web to our understanding of dark matter, dark energy, and the development of the universe, a satisfactory method of identifying and classifying extragalactic structures in large datasets has yet to be developed. Datasets are too large for any researcher to be expected to thoroughly examine a catalog, and existing algorithms fail to identify structures that are apparent to human classifiers. Recently,the Galaxy Zoo project has shown crowdsourced identification to be effective when applied to the classification of large catalogs of images of galaxies. We now apply the same idea to the identification and classification of extragalactic structures using data taken from the ECO and GAMA sky catalogs, presenting plotted sections of data to volunteers through Zooniverse. With this project, we show that the same crowdsourced abilities of human pattern recognition are effective in the classification of extragalactic structures, and that this method is a viable technique to be used in the future.

33. Mapping the Cosmic Web: Capturing Extragalactic Structures with Zooniverse

Art and science are related and intertwined. One area in which art is important to the sciences is interfacing with the general public. Arguably, one of the most important topics for science to communicate with the public about is conservation. Across the Southeastern United States there are many wildlife refuges that work to provide habitats for local flora and fauna, preserve local ecology, and educate the public about conservation. I am working on an ongoing project to aid these refuges by providing materials such as posters that showcase the refuges’ wildlife conservation efforts. Collaborating with the refuges has been a great learning experience. Being my first project using digital art as a medium, I have learned valuable art skills such as how to use the program Procreate and its various layering tools. I have also learned about communicating with clients from large organizations such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Interacting within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service chain of command helped me find the right individuals to connect with about projects, and, develop my scheduling skills. Lastly, I have learned that it is important for an artist to research subject matter to properly represent the science, landscapes and refuge species for this project. Overall, this project has taught me how symbiotic art and science truly are and that both are necessary for the betterment of our world.

Panel B: National Wildlife Refuge Poster Project

There are about 3,000 prisons and detention centers in the United States and even more around the world, but few of them are equipped to treat the percentage of their population that suffer from a mental illness. While concerns about mental illness issues is on the rise, conditions like depression, anxiety, and PTSD existed before there were clinical names for them and therefore went unrecognized as a clinical condition for years. Even with our advancements in this field, nearly 20 percent of inmates, in the United States, suffer from mental illnesses, and aren’t getting the vital treatment that could potentially save their life or the lives of those around them. Although there is the “Competency to Stand Trial” law, someone can be sane enough to stand trial but still suffer from mental illness. This paper will illustrate the hardships that people with mental disorders face when seeking professional help, how people with mental illnesses are treated within the criminal justice system and what we can do as a society to better understand mental illnesses and what we can do to help. If mental illnesses were accepted more easily in the criminal justice system and programs were put into place to treat those in need, then the population of inmates in the prison system could decrease, because they are getting the proper care they deserve.

Panel D: How Mental Health is Treated in Prisons

The interaction between Sub-Saharan Africa and the Victorian Occult is not one that has been deeply explored by Historians, instead choosing to focus on Egypt and India. This paper explores the interactions between the Victorians and Sub-Saharan Africa and its influence on the Occult. The Victorian’s interest in Africa came alongside the rest of Europe in the so-called “Scramble for Africa” in the late colonial age. To the average Englishman, Africa was a place filled with jungles, mystery, and adventure. Many explorers of Africa never outright denied the existence of mythical creatures inhabiting this land, and other writers made up stories publishing them as fact. These tales ran wild in the imaginations of Victorians, as did accounts of religious practices of local tribes. From simple tales of cursed items to extravagant accounts of cannibalism, the Victorians were hooked. Accounts from Africa even dug their fingers into the clutches of the Freemasons, only strengthening their preexisting beliefs. Through fascinating tales and colonial experiences, Sub-Saharan Africa influenced the Victorian occult by introducing new mythical creatures and practices of rituals and magic while reinforcing pre-existing beliefs.

UNG Annual Research Conference 2022

Items in this collection

34. CARRIND Laboratory (EE)

Panel A: Physical Access: An old solution to a new cyber threat. Equipping soldiers with USB Rubber Duckies to collect intelligence from air gapped networks

39. Sexual preference, gender, and empathy following sexual assault

07. The Effects of Polypeptide Growth Factors on Oviductal Growth in the Ovariectomized Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus

Panel B: Creating Videos for Elachee Nature Science Center

01. The Effects of Environmental Temperature Fluctuations on Physiology of Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina)

33. Mapping the Cosmic Web: Capturing Extragalactic Structures with Zooniverse

Panel B: National Wildlife Refuge Poster Project

Panel D: How Mental Health is Treated in Prisons

Panel G: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Victorian Occult

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Items in this collection

34. CARRIND Laboratory (EE)