May 3, 2024 | Digital Showcase | Humboldt Library
All Presenters & Abstracts
Investigation into Cyanide Levels at the Arcata Wastewater Treatment Facility
Presentation Year: 2022
The City of Arcata Wastewater Treatment Facility (AWTF) was issued a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit in 2019, which set a water quality objective for cyanide of 1.0 µg/L to protect saltwater ecosystems. Since enactment, the AWTF has exceeded the daily maximum effluent limit. This study used distillation and colorimetric analysis to investigate cyanide formation by comparing the cyanide levels in preserved and unpreserved samples taken concurrently with monitoring samples that were sent to a certified lab. Results found that found that unpreserved samples had no detectable levels of cyanide while preserved samples demonstrated a cyanide concentration of 0 to 1.7 µg/L.
Isolation & Nanodisc Assembly of Submitochondrial Particles
Presentation Year: 2022
The mitochondrion is a subcellular location for varied metabolic processes and pathways relevant to undergraduate biochemistry courses at Cal Poly Humboldt. At the core of such pathways are integral membrane proteins (IMPs) whose structure and enzymatic activity can be examined to better understand not only their overall function, but also the role of specific subunits. One such enzyme is cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV). Nanodiscs are invaluable tools for examining IMPs. In this experiment, we isolated mitochondria and submitochondrial particles for incorporation into nanodiscs. Future work will include purification and selection for nanodiscs containing only cytochrome c oxidase.
It's like, I have to feel guilty cuz I'm white' : Fear and Frenzy around Critical Race Theory in K12
Presentation Year: 2022
Since 2020, Critical Race Theory in schools has become a controversial topic nationwide, particularly among conservatives. Despite this, most public schools are not teaching or talking about CRT - So, where does this misinformation originate? This presentation explores the origin of this issue, common narratives of opposition and their sources, and examines who the people opposed to CRT are - behind the Facebook comments. This presentation expands on the roots of resistance to CRT to understand obstacles to implementing future liberatory, anti-racist curricula in predominantly conservative communities and learning environments.
Kenosha Mural Project
Presentation Year: 2022
Working with photographer Ron Larson from the Kenosha Creative Space, a nonprofit organization in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Following the BLM protests, artists took to the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin to express their feelings and emotions. Ron Larson began photographing the art around the city. We are here to share an interactive story map created to showcase the art around the city.
Kinetic Evaluation of Putative Cellulase Enzymes for Cellulosic Biofuel
Presentation Year: 2022
Cellulose composed of glucose monomers is the most abundant biopolymer on earth, as the primary component of the plant cell wall. The enzyme cellulase breaks down the polysaccharide through hydrolysis at the β-1,4-glycosidic linkages. As cellulose is the most ample renewable biological resource and has a low-cost energy source based on energy content. The objective of this study is to evaluate clones of putative cellulases for their activity compared to commercially available products and identify potential cellulase protein activity found in cow rumen in order to optimize biofuel production.
Lineage Tracing of HoxB5 Cells of the Yolk Sac and their Contribution to the Adult Hematopoietic System
Presentation Year: 2022
Understanding the origins of hematopoietic stem cells has been a challenge due to the lack of a marker specific to this cell type. Recently, our lab has functionally proven that HoxB5 is a unique marker for long-term HSCs in adult murine models. Whether HoxB5 is also a marker for HSCs in development, has not been studied. Here, we are labeling HoxB5+ cells found in the yolk sac blood islands at E7.5 by using a genetic tool we generated. We will then analyze all marked cells at several time points during development and adulthood. This project will discover if HoxB5+ cells from the yolk sac contribute to the adult hematopoietic system and the LT-HSC pool.
Mapping Species Ranges in the California Floristic Province
Presentation Year: 2022
The California Floristic Province (CFP) is a global hot-spot of biodiversity. Creating a database of plant distributions for the CFP is pivotal to define species’s conservation status. Students associated with the Herbarium used R to create precise polygons for the range of 62 species in the CFP. We accessed publicly occurrence repositories for our target species and used a protocol to remove outliers. Using these cleaned coordinates, we created polygons of the ranges and inferred the area in square kilometers. This information was used to create a preliminary histogram for CFP plant distribution, highlighting a high percentage of plant taxa with ranges smaller than Humboldt county.
Mediated Representations of Romance in Popular Culture
Presentation Year: 2022
The concept of romance is mass produced in American popular culture. Television audiences consume a myriad of mediated representations of courtships and relationships in fictional, and often unrealistic, tales of true love. Over the past 25 years, reality dating shows have blurred the line between fact & fiction, creating a new platform for delivering the mediated messages that shape the hearts and minds of viewers across the country. This study utilizes content analysis and survey research to examine portrayals of romance on reality TV.
Meds to Beds
Presentation Year: 2022
Hospital readmissions that occur within 30 days of discharge due to medication adherence are largely preventable. CMS, the largest insurance payer, does not cover hospital admissions that occur within 30 days of discharge. Our rural area lacks critical access to pharmacies. Frequent hospitalizations and medication non-adherence increase patient mortality and reduce the quality of life for the patients and their families. Providing patients with a 30-day supply of their medications prior to leaving the hospital, along with patient education and a nurse follow-up phone call 48 hours later, can reduce ER visits and 30-day hospital readmissions.
Minority Stress and Psychological Adjustments Moderated by Stress Appraisals
Presentation Year: 2022
During the pandemic, students experience a series of academic, structural, social, and personal stressors. For example, some students experienced abrupt closure of colleges and universities; some students’ households did not have access to needed resources such as an internet connection, and limited resources for remote online learning. Students of color experience these stressors in addition to ethnic minority stress which may have been exacerbated because of the current social climate. The current study examined associations between minority student achievement stress on self-esteem and academic sense of belonging and the possible moderating effects of challenge-focused stress appraisals.
Mock Codes, Emergent Scenarios, Nursing Confidence and Team Performance
Presentation Year: 2022
Critical care nurses specialize in caring for human responses to life-threatening problems. Nursing confidence in codes has shown direct correlation in improved patient outcomes, reduced time to compressions and adherence to American Heart Association guidelines. Currently, in a high-acuity critical care unit in Northern California, mock code scenarios and simulations are not a common practice. A quality improvement program is being developed to improve resuscitation efforts on this unit. It will include a self-assessment, mock codes and emergency scenario days. The goal is to increase nursing and staff confidence in resuscitation efforts, as well as improve team performance.
Modeling Pregnant Elk Presence in Alberta, Canada
Presentation Year: 2022
The aim of this research is to better understand pregnant Cervus elaphus relationship to climatic and topographic elements.
Nano Adventures: The Role of Adventure in the Lives of Humboldt Students & Beyond
Presentation Year: 2022
When was your last adventure? How did you know it was an “adventure”? If you felt like it was an “adventure” that’s a good start and likely means that it was! That is because the meaning of the term adventure is fairly personal and based on what you personally perceive as unique, unusual and exciting. It may also include a certain level of risk, potentially some dangerous risk, such as swimming with sharks in Australia or riding a motorcycle on a mountainous road in Italy. But risks don’t need to be life threatening or thousands of miles away.
Nanodisc assisted terbinafine transport into Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Presentation Year: 2022
We wish to answer whether or not nanodiscs make an effective means of transporting medication, specifically in the treatment of fungal infections, seeing as research is currently examining its effectiveness in the transport of chemotherapy drugs to prevent collateral cell death. We tested nanodisc transport of the antifungal terbinafine, which is often used as a topical ointment for direct application, to determine if naondiscs improve its effectiveness as a fungal killer. We treated cultured samples of Brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) with DMPC lipid nanodiscs wrapped in Apo-A1 protein and loaded with terbinafine and observed fungal cell death, as compared to direct application.
Novel Tests of Gravity Below Fifty Microns
Presentation Year: 2022
Physical processes regarding gravity are well understood on the scale of planetary
distances but pose challenges in measurements at very short distances. Theories
such as the Inverse Square Law (ISL) and Einstein’s Weak Equivalence Principle
(WEP) of General Relativity have been tested over distance scales from 1 cm to
infinity [1]. Reliable measurements of gravitational forces at scales smaller than a
centimeter carry significant challenges. The non-gravitational forces that are
generally negligible at the scale of everyday objects have a much more substantial
effect in the sub-centimeter regime. Our experiment seeks to measure gravity at these close distances.
Old Town Eureka: A Historic Tour and Photo Collection
Presentation Year: 2022
We have been working directly with the Humboldt County Historical Society over this past semester in an effort to offer them a way of gaining the community's attention and ultimately producing more members of the society. By making a Story Map, we offer the local communities in and around Eureka, California a way to digitally and physically make their way through Old Town Eureka so that they can compare the historical photos of the area to what is now there. We hope that this educates our local communities of the history that surrounds them, and encourages them to visit and support the Humboldt County Historical Society whenever and however they can.
Pacific Banana Slug Habitat Selection using occupied and paired-random microhabitat analysis in the Arcata Community Forest
Presentation Year: 2022
The Pacific banana slug (Ariolimax columbianus) is a key detrivore and herbivore in Pacific Northwest forests. Understanding how this species utilizes different habitats in a heterogenous forest is important from a management perspective due to their wide distribution, abundance in the Pacific Northwest, and significant ecological roles in nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, and endemic predators. I hypothesized that banana slugs will show habitat selection within a heterogenous forest and tested this using an occupied and paired-random sampling method in four sites within the Arcata Community Forest. My results showed evidence of selection for several habitat variables.
Perceiving immigrants as American and its Relationship to Attitudes Toward Immigrants
Presentation Year: 2022
We examined the relationship between intergroup contact and intergroup threat on measures of discrimination against Hispanic/Latino immigrants in the United States. Specifically, we are interested in if contact and threat can predict perceptions of immigrants as "American". Our results found that negative contact experiences with immigrants predict perceiving immigrants as threats and categorizing them as not American.
Plastics in the Gut's of Leach's Storm Petrels in Humboldt County, California
Presentation Year: 2022
For this project, we looked at the plastics that were found in the Guts of Leach's Strom Petrels in Humboldt County, CA. In 2020, 57 of these storm petrels were found dead of natural causes and stored at Cal Poly Humboldt. In my project, I analyze if these storm petrels had plastics in their stomachs at the time of their death, and if so, how much plastic. This is the first of such studies done on Leach's Storm Petrels on the Pacific Coast. The results help to contribute to the ever-growing knowledge of how plastics in our oceans are affecting wildlife.
Plethodontid Salamander Proximity to Surface Water Relative to Ocean Distance
Presentation Year: 2022
My research was conducted on the coast of Humboldt County, where I measured salamander proximity to a freshwater source relative to the distance to the ocean. I used two study sites, one in the Arcata Community Forest and one in Trinidad. I found 38 salamanders while sampling 60 1x1 meter quadrats.