Dr. Alisha Rankin Poison Trials: Testing Antidotes in Early Modern Europe

Session A – 15 minute talks Pożydowski: Formerly Jewish Robin Levine | Interdisciplinary Art | Masters Student The Polish word pożydowski describes a post-Jewish nation, where former Jewish belongings are viewed as communal property. Beginning in the 1940s and up to the present day, Jewish gravestones have been stolen, Polonized, and re-purposed by the Poles as paving stones, and Catholic headstones. This project examines how Poland and Lithuania, countries that both had substantial Jewish populations prior to the Holocaust, have internalized the concept of a postJewish nation, which has come to include the desecration of cemeteries. As a recent recipient of the SMFA Montague Travel Grant, I travelled to southeastern Poland, in order to understand the complexities of my cultural heritage as American Jew of Polish descent. This research draws upon correspondences and books, as well as documentary and fine art photographs taken while in Poland. This project highlights the importance of contextualizing historical memory and further investigations into contemporary post-Holocaust issues. Ratiometric Singlet Oxygen Detection in Water using Acene Doped Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles Fanny Frausto | Chemistry | PhD Student While fluorescent probes for the detection of singlet oxygen (O2) has been an active area of research, most reported luminescent probes that function in water rely upon change in intensity of a single band. Herein we report a FRET-based, O2-sensitive aqueous suspension of a donor conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs) poly[{9,9-dioctyl-2,7-divinylene-fluorenylene}-alt-co{2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene}] (PFPV) doped with an acceptor, a O2-sensitive thienoacene 5,12-Bis(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-butyltetraceno[2,3-b]thiophene (DA-TMT). Our probe shows a rapid, high brightness ratiometric response to photosensitized O2 in water in both cuvettes and 96-well plates that compares favorably to commercial O2-sensitive dyes. The response to irradiation of even nanomolar concentration of photosensitizer demonstrates the sensitivity of our ratiometric probe. Social Behavior and Invasion Biology in Polistes Wasps Julia Pilowsky | Biology | Masters Student The genus Polistes is a model system for studies of social behavior in insects. I investigated geographic patterns of social behavior and interactions between native and invasive species in this genus, using field observations, behavioral experiments, climate modeling, and demography. I identified temporal factors as important climatic factors associated with the frequency of cooperative behavior in P. fuscatus and P. dominula. I found that P. dominula is more aggressive in its invasive range in the U.S. than its native counterpart, P. fuscatus, and better able to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates. I observed the impact of P. dominula on the demography of P. fuscatus in the epicenter of the P. dominula invasion in the U.S., whereby the reproductive output of P. fuscatus declines with increasing proportion of P. dominula at the site. I show that analyzing social behavior in context contributes to our understanding of interactions between invasive and native species. “The Arabic Hour”: Archiving an Arab-American Counterpublic Noah Habeeb | Urban and Environmental Program | Masters Student This project comes out of participatory action research working with a community partner to produce a digital archive of an important Arab-American community television show, the “Arabic Hour”. The Arabic Hour is an example of how Arab-American activists reacted to a dominant culture that depicted Arab-Americans stereotypically, by forming a subaltern counterpublic outside of the public sphere, telling their own narratives, and producing their own media. The Arabic Hour can be seen as a Foucauldian “insurrection of subjugated knowledge,” the production of untold narratives that have been “buried and disguised” or “located low down on the hierarchy.” The media that they created shows various typically invisible articulations of Arabness, including the process of deassimilation of young Arab Americans, and how diasporic transnational identities are formed “here” in relation to U.S. imperialism over “there.” Key questions relate to the role of media production in community organizing. Chasing Waldo: Implicit Recovery of User Behavior and Intent from User Interaction Logs Dylan Cashman, Abigail Mosca | Computer Science | PhD Student In a Visual Analytics system, collaboration between a user and a machine allows for the soft knowledge of the user, gleaned over years of expertise, to create a more nuanced and sophisticated statistical model. One of the limiting factors of this human-machine collaboration is the bandwidth of communication from the human to the machine. In this work, we demonstrate that this bandwidth can be increased by mining the user interaction logs, which are implicitly gathered by the machine. We use machine learning methods to develop a model of user decision making throughout a visual search task. We then demonstrate the portability of our model by using it to predict user attributes on a different visual search task. By training a model on one task and having it predict a separate task, we show that abstract user intent is recoverable from record of basic interaction sequences. Understanding and Tuning the Performance of Critical Sections with Program Analysis and Software Visualization Tools Michael Shah | Computer Science and Engineering | PhD Student Understanding the behavior and performance of concurrent multithreaded Java programs remains a difficult problem for software engineers. As software relies on the addition of multiple processors to increase throughput and execution speed, software must become increasingly multithreaded to reap the performance gains. Multithreaded programs however have to coordinate and share resources, and where these resources are shared (known a critical section) becomes a potential performance bottleneck. A programmer wants to maximize performance by writing concurrent software, but also ensure that the time spent within a critical section is minimal. Often times programmers favor correctness, but do not pay attention to performance within critical sections. In this talk, I present one of my tools for assisting in understanding the performance of Critical Sections. Session B – 15 minute talks Infrared Light-Responsive Layer-by-layer Films Matthew Feeney | Chemistry | PhD Student Stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems have been studied for the development of delivering localized therapeutics. Layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembly, the repeated depositions of two materials having an inherent attraction to one another, allows for the build-up of ordered nanometer-sized films. The high structural order of the films allows for stratified materials capable of providing distinct responses to multiple stimuli. Additionally, high tolerance of substrate shape allows for miniaturized films, leading to the possibility of materials such as drug-loaded polymeric microcapsules. One stimulus that has been studied for the degradation of LBL films is ultraviolet (UV) light. UV radiation, however, is damaging to and scatters in human tissues, making it a poor stimulus choice for therapeutic settings. LBL films capable of degrading upon exposure to Infrared (IR) radiation, displaying enhanced penetration in tissue, would present a more relevant platform for biological systems. Antigone in Wonderland, or, Notes on the Political Efficacy of Being Lost in Translation Ali-Reza Mirsajadi | Drama | PhD Student While Iranian theatre is monitored and censored by the Islamic government, its directors have found ways to use translations of Western plays to disguise political messages in countless ways. In this paper, I explore Homayoun Ghanizadeh’s 2012 production of Antigone in Tehran, a 75-minute retelling of Sophocles’ drama that can be best described as an absurdist wonderland. The characters obsess over the healing properties of eggs, desperately cling to their hats as lifelines, and simultaneously speak in Estonian and Farsi. I argue that Ghanizadeh’s production uses translation as a method of obfuscating the piece in a veil of absurdity, using the “lost in translation” excuse to inhabit an aesthetics of ambiguity that is characteristic of much of the contemporary theatre in Iran. In reality, however, Ghanizadeh constructs layers of double meaning in his production which then walks the line of censorship and subversively criticizes Iran’s history of political oppression. Bird's-Eye View: Using Quadcopter Drones to Investigate Habitat for Birds Matthew Kamm | Biology | PhD Student When trying to protect or create habitat for birds, it can be challenging to know what cues the birds are using, as they see the world very differently from we do. Can we use aerial photographs from a remote-controlled drone to see what the birds see and evaluate the habitat from their perspective? Technical challenges and natural history observations will both be discussed in an attempt to quantify the differences between occupied and unoccupied nest sites of the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), our smallest falcon species. Measuring the Effectiveness of Biochar on Agricultural Practices in Rwanda Jamie Fanuos | Agriculture, Food, and Environment | Masters Student In parts of sub-Saharan Africa poor land use practices have led to an increase in soil erosion, land degradation, loss of vegetation, and an overall decline in agricultural productivity. This loss in productivity threatens existing nations facing rapid population growth, climate change, and food insecurity. Of the many strategies designed to sustainably improve agricultural productivity, the use of a carbon-dense soil amendment called biochar, is an innovative way to improve soil composition. This material has been implemented around the world as a method to build soil quality and improve agricultural yield, however it is not commonly used among sub-Saharan small rain fed farms. In partnership with Gardens for Health International (GHI) a community health organization in Rwanda, I designed an agricultural trial testing the feasibility of biochar production and application as a method to improve crop yield. Observational evidence of nonstationary extreme winds in coastal cities? Or not? Jai Chung | Civil Engineering | Ph.D. Student Extreme winds cause significant damage to infrastructure in the US. Climate change effects to extreme winds including increasing trends have been predicted in climate change scenarios; however, little evidence exists to support the hypothesis of increasing winds in US coastal communities due to climate change. In this study, we use the historical record of peak 3-s wind gusts from Boston and Miami to determine if nonstationarity exists in the historic record. We evaluate the commingled peak 3-s wind records as well as evaluating the observational record by storm types (e.g. thunderstorm, non-thunderstorm, tropical). We find evidence of nonstationarity in Boston consistent with decreasing wind speeds (i.e. atmospheric stilling), and no conclusive evidence of increasing wind speeds. We find evidence of nonstationarity in Miami with increasing tropical wind speeds. Using the GEV distribution and allowing its parameters to vary linearly with time, a nonstationary distribution is fit to the tropical 3-s wind gust data in Miami. In-Situ Examination of Phase-Change-Induced Flow in Gas Diffusion Layers using X-Ray Computed Tomography Andrew Shum | Mechanical Engineering | Ph.D. Student Fossil fuels are currently the primary source of energy on the market, but, there is significant motivation for research on alternate energy technologies. Two popular candidates are polymerelectrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) and redox flow batteries (RFBs). For both technologies, porous carbon papers (gas diffusion layers (GDLs) for PEFCs) are essential components. As a result, understanding the morphology and fluid transport in GDLs is critical to optimizing RFB and PEFC performance. For high-current-density performance of PEFCs, water transport is critical; especially phase-change-induced (PCI) flow. Despite previous investigations, evaporation and PCI flow within GDLs is still not well understood. This presentation discusses water distribution and evaporation/condensation under thermal gradients. In-situ synchrotronbased X-ray micro computed tomography (CT) was used to visualize the water front within GDLs for various thermal gradients, liquid water saturations, and GDL materials. Session C – 15 minute talks Inferring Moral and Social Rules from Behavior Daniel Kasenberg | Computer Science | Masters / PhD Student In order to behave ethically and function in social settings, robots must be able to learn new moral and social behaviors, both by natural language instruction and by observing the behavior of other ethical beings. To this end, we propose temporal logic as a language in which these rules may be expressed, and describe our work employing genetic algorithms to infer temporal logic rules from observed behaviors in environments with some randomness. Challenging notions of stable cognitive biases in undergraduate biology students Matt Simon | Education (STEM) | PhD Student Recent research suggests that stable patterns of intuitive thinking called ‘cognitive biases’ (aka cognitive construals) could account for the tendency in students to agree with biologically inaccurate statements. An alternative explanation for this agreement is that rather than being committed to construal-based thinking, students are simply noticing valid biological relationships. We conducted a survey study with undergraduate biology students and found that students’ agreement with construal statements decreased when they were cued to specifically consider the construal, indicating a lack of commitment to (or perhaps even a failure to notice) the construal. We also found evidence that students were considering multiple kinds of biologically appropriate relationships in their written responses, calling into question the prevalence and stability of construal-based thinking in undergraduate students. Joint Acquisition of Words’ Meaning, Word Order and Referential Intentions in an Incremental Bayesian Model of Cross-Situational Word Learning with Limited Access to Past Observation Sepideh Sadeghi | Computer Science | PhD Student Word learning in ambiguous contexts is intertwined with understanding the referential intentions of the speaker and is known to be guided by cross-situational learning and bootstrapped by syntactic regularities such as word order. Cross-situational learning can benefit from full access to all situations to arrive at the right hypothesis. However, it is cognitively implausible for children to remember all word learning situations they encounter. We study the interplay of the joint acquisition of word order, words' meanings and referential intentions in an incremental Bayesian model of cross-situational word learning with limited memory of past situations. Our results show that incremental acquisition of word order, from individual sentence examples with no prior knowledge of six word orders, or meaning of words is feasible. Furthermore, the results suggest that word learning benefits from concurrent acquisition of word order and that the benefit is more pronounced in ambiguous contexts. Comparative Effectiveness of Oral antimicrobials for Early Lyme Disease Associated with Erythema Migrans: a Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis Jung Min Han | Clinical & Translational Science | Masters Student This systematic review and network meta-analysis compared the relative effectiveness and safety of oral antibiotics for early Lyme disease with erythema migrans, concluding that penicillins may be the drug of choice for the management of this condition. Our results showed that penicillins demonstrated a significant benefit over macrolides and tetracyclines with regard to acute treatment response and a more favorable safety profile than cephalosporins and tetracyclines in patients with early Lyme disease. We found that all therapeutic classes of oral antibiotics were similarly effective in preventing dissemination of Lyme disease. Our findings should be of use for clinicians in balancing the risks and benefits when selecting oral antibiotics for patients who present with early Lyme disease associated with erythema migrans. A Chemically Cross-Linked Polymer-Supported Deep Eutectic Solvent Gel Electrolyte for Eco-Friendly Supercapacitors Huan Qin | Chemical and Biological Engineering | PhD Student Nonvolatile, ion-dense electrolytes, such as ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents (DESs), are attractive candidates for safe, high performance electrochemical/electrostatic energy storage devices. In this report, an inexpensive and eco-friendly DES (1:2 mixture of choline chloride:ethylene glycol) has been incorporated into a solid-state gel electrolyte using a chemically cross-linked polymer scaffold formed via in situ UV copolymerization of 2hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. The DES gel was tested in a activated carbon-based prototype and showed good performance as a potential supercapacitor. Session D – 15 minute talks Bayesian Inference Based Top Down Control of Morphogenesis Franz Kuchling | Biology | PhD Student Current approaches in regeneration and developmental biology to investigate morphogenesis focus on the structure of signaling pathway networks, but often neglect the information processing aspect that controls the precise shape determination and manipulation of pattern regulation. Bayesian inference has successfully been used in neurosciences to model an predict brain functions as determined by external input which is measured and compared to an internal model, which is then continuously updated. In this work we adapt the same modeling approach to generic pattern regulation in non neutral cellular networks and show that this approach allows for the control and manipulation of the outcome shape without changing the underlying target morphology, as determined thorough gene regulatory networks. An AMG Approach in Solving Graph Laplacians of Protein Networks Based on Diffusion State Distance Metrics Junyuan Lin | Mathematics | PhD Student In this presentation, protein networks from 2016 Disease Module Identification DREAM Challenge are analyzed. We redefined the Protein-Protein Interaction networks on a new distance metric, "Diffusion State Distance'' metric, and applied a modified Algebraic Multi-grid Method to calculate the distance between each pair of nodes. Finally, we applied spectral clustering to partition the protein network into functional modules. Consequently, we ranked No.1 out of over 50 teams over the world. Water Source Preferences and Water Quality Perceptions Among Women in the Eastern Region, Ghana Jhanel Chew | Civil and Environmental Engineering | Masters Student Use of improved water sources for drinking reduces morbidity for diarrheal diseases by 5-38%. Previous research in the Eastern Region of Ghana showed that nearly two-thirds of residents in one community who had access to improved water sources used unimproved water sources. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among a convenience sample of twenty-five adult female participants in four communities who had access to both improved and unimproved water sources. Each subject was asked about their beliefs regarding water sources in their community. The use of grounded theoretical approaches identified three themes that illustrated how perceptions of water sources, in addition to access issues, informed the use of improved water sources. Forty-four percent of participants thought that the river is "good." Seventy-two percent of participants encountered logistical issues when collecting water from improved water sources. As a result, 28% chose to use unimproved water sources. Evolutionary Analysis of a Gene Involved in Mate Preference in the European Corn Borer, Ostrinia nubilalis Gina Mantica | Biology | PhD Student Most organisms do not choose their mates randomly. Instead, they choose mates based on different signals that appear attractive to the receivers of the signals. For example, humans choose their mates based on differences in odor, and these differences in odor are due to genetic differences at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome six. The more genetically different you are from a person at the MHC, the more attractive that person smells to you and the more likely you are to choose that person as your mate. In the European Corn Borer moth (ECB), Ostrinia nubilalis, there is a lot known about the signals involved in mate preference, but there is not a lot known about the genetic basis of that preference. I investigate differences at a candidate gene for male response in a wild population of ECB to try to understand how differences at this locus may influence mate preference. Additionally, if differences at this candidate gene for male response is important in an ECB population for mate preference and successful reproduction, then I expect that natural selection has acted on this gene. Natural selection would select for these advantageous differences, causing them to spread throughout the population. Using statistical analyses and comparing the differences in my wild population to a neutral model where there is no selection, I can detect selection at various regions of the candidate gene for male response. Gender-Differences in Reports about Attitudes/Beliefs about Avoiding Alcohol Use and Receipt of Clinical Guidance among Adolescents with Chronic Medical Conditions Sarah Grill | Child Study and Human Development | Masters Student Introductions: Youth with chronic medical conditions (YCMC) are just as likely as their peers without chronic medical conditions to consume substances (Weitzman et al., 2016). Therefore, further investigation within this population of youth with chronic medical conditions is needed. Research on youth with chronic medical conditions who use alcohol shows that they will face the same potential harms as their healthy peers if not greater dangers. Main Study Methods: Participants filled out a self-administered questionnaire on a tablet computer configured with a polarizing screen to ensure privacy. Secondary Analysis: A logistic regression was used to examine gender differences for youth with chronic medical conditions at a given level of consumption, as well as participants self-report of clinical guidance. Findings: Gender differences are seen in attitudes and beliefs about avoiding alcohol use at a given level of alcohol consumption, and in participants self-report of receiving clinical guidance. Covert Robot-Robot Communication: Human Perceptions and Implications for Human-Robot Interaction Tom Williams | Computer Science | PhD Student As future human-robot teams are envisioned for a variety of application domains, researchers have begun to investigate how humans and robots can communicate effectively and naturally in the context of human-robot team tasks. An important open question in human-robot teaming is how robots should communicate information to each other when human teammates are copresent. In this talk, I will present an HRI experiment investigating the human perception of verbal and silent robot-robot communication as part of a human-robot team task. The results suggest that silent communication of task-dependent, human-understandable information among robots is perceived as creepy by cooperative, co-located human teammates. Hence, we propose that, absent specific evidence to the contrary, robots in cooperative human-robot team settings need to be sensitive to human expectations about overt communication, and we encourage future work to investigate possible ways to modulate such expectations. Session E – 5 minute talks Thermal Imaging & Honey Bee Fever Rachael Bonoan | Biology | PhD Student Honey bees use heat to protect their hive from both macroand micro-invaders. When an invader, such as a wasp, invades a honey bee hive, worker bees surround the invader and isometrically contract their muscles. As such, worker bees create a heated ball around the invader, and raise the temperature of this ball until the invader dies. Similarly, when a hive is infected with a heat-sensitive fungal pathogen, worker bees raise the temperature of the hive, and prevent disease spread. While we know how honey bees raise hive temperature in response to such a pathogen, we do not know where in the hive the temperate is raised, nor do we know how nutrition might affect this social immune response. Here, I present pilot data on tracking “honey bee fever” with thermal imaging. Flight Bans and the Ebola Crisis: Commercial Airline Policy Recommendations for Future Global Health Epidemics Chelsea Ferrell, Pulkit Aggwal | International Relations | Masters Student During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, countries responded by banning flights to “quarantine” the outbreak. Flight bans were not only ineffective in controlling the spread of disease but kept vital humanitarian assistance from reaching the epidemic, providing conditions for the outbreak to grow. This paper examines lessons learned from commercial airline and nation state behaviors during the Ebola outbreak to recommend how airlines can navigate between the constraints of their for-profit model and responses from nations during the next infectious disease crisis. To address these issues, we propose an Essential Air Corridor Policy (EAC) which would have the WHO organize an auction for airlines to bid on service to epidemic-affected areas while also providing a system of incentives to staff members and other airlines employees. A Simple, High-Throughput Method for Sampling Plant Volatiles in the Field Eric Scott | Biology | PhD Student Dynamic headspace sampling (DHS), the typical approach to sampling plant volatiles in the field, involves enclosing a plant in a chamber and pulling air through it and over a volatile trap using a vacuum pump. The chamber increases the temperature and humidity and blocks UVB light which can alter the volatile profile produced by the plant. We propose an alternative method, direct contact sorptive extraction (DCSE) that involves placing a magnetic stir-bar coated with a sorptive material on a plant leaf using a small magnet. Comparison with DHS shows this method has lower background contamination, can detect a wider range of compounds, and can be used to detect differences in volatile profiles in the field. Its ease of use and high sensitivity make it ideal for collecting volatiles from a large number of plants simultaneously in remote field sites. Joint Acquisition of Words’ Meaning, Word Order and Referential Intentions in an Incremental Bayesian Model of Cross-Situational Word Learning with Limited Access to Past Observation Sepideh Sadeghi | Computer Science | PhD Student Word learning in ambiguous contexts is intertwined with understanding the referential intentions of the speaker and is known to be guided by cross-situational learning and bootstrapped by syntactic regularities such as word order. Cross-situational learning can benefit from full access to all situations to arrive at the right hypothesis. However, it is cognitively implausible for children to remember all word learning situations they encounter. We study the interplay of the joint acquisition of word order, words' meanings and referential intentions in an incremental Bayesian model of cross-situational word learning with limited memory of past situations. Our results show that incremental acquisition of word order, from individual sentence examples with no prior knowledge of six word orders, or meaning of words is feasible. Furthermore, the results suggest that word learning benefits from concurrent acquisition of word order and that the benefit is more pronounced in ambiguous contexts. Domestic Dwelling and the Practice of Black Britishness Cornelia Photopoulos | English | PhD Student In my work, I look at the ways that authors represent the dwelling practices of black British subjects. Post-WWII, large numbers of black British subjects migrated from the Caribbean to England, thus expanding British culture in ways that some in the UK found alarming. I argue that through their different representations of subjects inhabiting domestic space, authors propose different possibilities for the relationship between black British subjects and the white-majority British nation. Novels written in the 1970s and 80s tend to depict black British subjects as thwarted in their attempts to belong through dwelling and home ownership, reflecting the economic hardship and violence black subjects suffered in Britain at that time. Novels written in the early 21st c., however, more often depict black subjects successfully belonging through dwelling, although some writers also depict the cost of belonging predicated on the capitalist paradigm of property ownership as the basis of home. Acid Gas Absorption Column Modeling Using a Computation-Efficient Linearization Technique Nyasha Madziva | Chemical Engineering | Masters Student Natural gas purification primarily involves selective absorption of the acid gases, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in aqueous solutions of alkanoamines. Mass transfer and simultaneous complex chemical reactions are typically accounted for in systems of non-linear ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The numerical methods which are typically applied to solve the ODEs and calculate reaction-enhanced gas absorption rates tend to be computation-intensive. This work successfully implements a linearization technique to derive approximate analytical solutions which reduces computation times with minimum loss of accuracy (<4%). Building and Actuating a Soft Fish Robot Michael Fath | Biology | Masters Student Soft robots have a number of advantages over stiff robots. However, it is often difficult to get soft robots to make rapid repeatable movements. The biological world is full of soft organisms which move quickly. For inspiration for our robot we looked to the rapid movement of fish exhibited during a behavior called a C-start. Here we built a soft robot and actuate it using pneumatic actuators. We used different actuation patterns to attempt to get a rapid movement from the robot.