Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne
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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Judicial Review
No full textMy name is James Bradley Crump. I am a legal studies senior here at IPFW, and will begin a graduate program for a Master of Law in the fall of 2017. I also spent six years in the Army. I have held various undergraduate legal internships, some of which have been in the Fort Wayne area. These include Malloy Law LLC and the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office. I have also held various research positions. Regionally, I have conducted research with the Center for Social Research at IPFW. Nationally, I was recognized as a research assistant for The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. At The Federalist Society, my work included the National Lawyers 2016 CLE, extensive research into public discourse and cognitive scientist George Lakoff for grant proposals, critique of Akhil Amar’s The Constitution Today, and inter alia content edit of the newly released book, DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington. While in DC this past summer, I was also awarded a fellowship with the Fund of American Studies. I attended various lectures from bi-partisan and partisan think tanks, the South African embassy, the State Department, and a multitude of high-level executives and government officials. Additionally, I completed a course through The Fund of American Studies and the Reagan Foundation on Leadership and the American Presidency, which resulted in academic excellence and deeper appreciation for the uncertainties that face a presidency. Today, I am here to open all to a new world and deeper understanding of judicial review
The Relationship Between Personality Traits and Attitudes Toward Text Message Responses
No full textThe type of response (text based, emoticon based, or none at all) to a negative text message was assessed. Participants preferred text based, over emoticon based, over no response. Personality factors related to these preferences were also assessed. Thoughtful written responses appear to be the preferred way to communicate support
Microbial Diversity of Biological Soil Crusts of the Indiana Dunes State Park
No full textBiological soil crusts (BSCs) are microbial assemblages that play important roles in the areas they inhabit, and can influence aspects such as local nitrogen flux, water infiltration, and plant seedling germination. In the dune environment, BSCs can form close connections with sand particles to stabilize dunes at their surface. Despite their potential critical role within Indiana Dunes State Park, little is known about their diversity, ecology, or interactions with plant communities there. The objective of this study, therefore, was to examine abiotic and biotic factors that influence dune BSCs, using Illumina high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to characterize these microbial communities. We hypothesized that specific environmental variables would influence BSC microbial diversity. In this study we sampled every 50m along a 550m transect, moving from the Lake Michigan shore inward to the hind-dune environment. At each sampling point soil pH, PAR, UV, and chlorophyll and scytonemin pigments were measured, and plant community cover, richness, and diversity were assessed. Moisture, conductivity, and nutrient content (total N and P) were also measured at every 100m. Overall, our HTS effort recovered 1,214,542 bacterial sequences across our 30 samples, and five major phyla were found to dominate our BSC samples, these being Proteobacteria (~20% of all sequences), Acidobacteria (~17%), Actinobacteria (~16%), Bacteriodetes (~17%), and Cyanobacteria (~10%). While there were no significant trends observed for BSC diversity moving along the transect, we did note a significant negative correlation for biological pigments and soil pH, suggesting a shift in the microbial community structure in response to these environmental parameters. The tendency for pH to structure terrestrial microbial communities has been noted in many studies; therefore, we are currently carrying out additional analyses to examine BSC community composition changes across our transect in relation to measured abiotic variables, with pH being of special interest.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1039/thumbnail.jp
Biased Intergroup Memories and Personality
No full textIt has been established that the personality traits of openness and agreeableness are inversely associated with prejudice. We propose that these personality traits also influence group-based memories. In general, people have better memories for a person’s traits when those traits fit a stereotype (e.g., Linda the librarian was quiet). This is called the stereotype-consistency effect. Because people high in openness are less likely to rely on heuristic processing of information (quick, automatic thinking), we hypothesized that they would be less prone to the stereotype-consistency effect. In addition, because highly agreeable people tend to be interpersonally sensitive and non-judgmental, we hypothesized that they also would be less prone to the stereotype consistency effect. To test our predictions, we asked 282 participants to complete established measures of openness and agreeableness. They were then presented with a story about a White American, African American, or Hispanic American person (randomly determined). The person exhibited multiple positive and negative attributes that were stereotypical and non-stereotypical of each ethnic group. Lastly, participants were asked to recall the person’s traits. Our primary hypotheses were supported. Both openness and agreeableness were significant predictors of accurate recall of positive traits associated with outgroup members, and fewer errors when assigning negative stereotypic “decoy” attributes to the target person. Our research demonstrates that some basic personality traits may play a significant role in understanding memory biases associated with social stereotypes. Our research contributes to recent efforts to integrate personality and situational factors that influence intergroup relations
On the Relationship between Sleep, Stress, and Academic Achievement in Undergraduates
No full textBuilding on existing literature of the effects of sleep behaviors on academic performance, I examine undergraduate university students’ sleep behaviors including quality of sleep, duration of sleep, and stress as influences on academic achievement, measured by students’ self-reported grade point averages (GPA) and their score on their most recent exams. Data was gathered from 369 undergraduate students for analysis of self-reported GPA and 439 undergraduate university students for analysis of exam score. Findings of bivariate and multivariate regression analyses suggest quality of sleep and duration of sleep are not significant influences of academic achievement on either measure (self-reported GPA or score on most recent exam). Findings do suggest a significant negative impact of stress on the second measure of academic achievement (most recent exam score). Taken together, results do not support either hypothesis, thereby indicating other influences may affect academic performance of undergraduate students