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Fourth of July
Full text linkEliana Alzate is a Junior English Writing and Computer Science major at DePauw University. Her works explore the intersections of diasporic identity, political chaos, and artistic discovery. When she isn’t writing stories and poems, you can find Eliana filming vlogs and singing karaoke
GLUEing the World: The GLobal Urban Evolution Project and Its Importance to Urban Biodiversity Conservation in Ecology of Tropical Cities, Volume I
No full textIn recent years, there has been a notable increase in research projects aimed at understanding the ecology of cities. How and to what extent urbanization is responsible for species’ evolution is historically a much less understood topic, because urban evolutionary biology is a nascent science. Most of the empirical and theoretical investigation of this new branch of evolution has been published recently, that is within the last 15 years. Studies on urban evolutionary biology have relevant implications for the environmental design of cities and for conserving the evolutionary potential and ecological success of urban biota. There is a strong bias towards studies conducted in North America and Europe, and the literature lacks empirical studies that investigate how the greater biodiversity observed in the tropics responds evolutionarily to urbanization processes. Expanding urban evolutionary biology in tropical cities is a priority for urban evolutionary biologists. This perspective chapter explores how the Global Urban Evolution Project, the world’s largest scale study of urban evolutionary ecology, is contributing to understanding how urbanization is affecting the ecology and evolution of life, and how this knowledge can be applied to the conservation of the biological diversity of tropical cities
Sole Purpose
Full text linkDylan Copeland is a Junior Studio Art major at DePauw University. His photography focuses on themes of environmental sustainability and our relationship with the natural world. In his free time, he enjoys pole vaulting, skateboarding, and listening to music
Sexuality education, populism, and the promise of critical health education studies
No full textAcross disciplines, discourses, and borders, there is agreement among scholars that populism poses a serious threat to efforts to preserve and promote the humanity, legitimacy, and safety of individuals and populations who transgress traditional, Western, European, and patriarchal norms about sex, gender, and sexuality. Unsurprisingly, these contentions are often reflected and reproduced in debates about sex and sexuality education. This paper is concerned with the function of ambiguity in populist discourses, ultimately identifying it as a key feature not just of populist discourse but of sex education debates in general. I use a queer of colour critique as a framework for exploring how ambiguous and vague claims about ‘the people’ act as spaces for circulating sexist, racist, and xenophobic politics by focusing on how that ambiguity attempts to erase its politics. Queer of colour critique also illuminates liberalism’s own tendency towards depoliticisation. This suggests that sex education scholars would benefit from better understanding right-wing populist appeals to ‘the people’ as an attempt to depoliticise the political, by shifting discourse to questions of morality. However, I argue it is also necessary to reflect upon the use of this strategy within liberal spaces and question its ability to offer resistance to right-wing populism as a result. The paper ends by discussing the potential value of insisting, as researchers and activists, that sex and sexuality education be studied, imagined, and implemented as an explicitly political project, a project that might find inspiration in critical scholarship responding to the limits of traditional health education studies
Creating Environmental Curriculum through The Castle
No full textMy presentation focuses on the education of environmental sciences within the public school classroom. Partnering with The Castle I created Earth Day curriculum to educate middle school students on the environmental topics of Earth Day, carbon footprints, contact tracing, and recycling. I designed innovative activities allowing for a wide variety of engagement and exploration.https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/1220/thumbnail.jp
Navigating Permitting Reform: A Comparative U.S. Analysis with Illustrative Evidence from Indiana
No full textThis study examines the effects of permitting reform on infrastructure performance in the United States, highlighting the trade-offs between regulatory efficiency and environmental oversight. Using a comparative multi-case design, we analyze twelve transportation, energy, and public facility projects across six states—two each representing high, moderate, and low reform intensities. The analysis combines quantitative performance indicators (cost overruns, schedule delays, environmental oversight scores) with qualitative assessments of legal frameworks, administrative capacity, and political context. Findings show that moderate-intensity reforms—those that streamline procedural steps while retaining environmental safeguards—deliver the most consistent balance of timely delivery, cost control, and regulatory integrity. High-intensity reforms often accelerate timelines but create fiscal volatility and oversight risks, while low-reform states preserve strong procedural protections yet frequently face significant delays. To complement these national findings, the poster also includes an illustrative case from Indiana, where two infrastructure projects were examined using the same methodological framework. The Indiana results provide an additional point of reference, situating the state within broader national patterns. Overall, the study suggests that “smart permitting” approaches offer the most sustainable pathway for reconciling speed and accountability in infrastructure governance.https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/1236/thumbnail.jp
The Role of Temporal Predictability in Sustained Attention
No full textAttention requires sustaining focus on information and goals over time. Sustained attention performance is affected by time and temporal predictability. Specifically, previous research showed that performance in sustained attention tasks decreases when the focus of attention is required to be sustained over a longer period of time, and performance increases when the duration to sustain attention is predictable (known as temporal predictability). The current research examines the relationship between the duration of sustained attention and temporal predictability with two cognitive tasks. In the Sustained Attention to Cue Task (SACT), participants were required to sustain their focus of attention on a cued location to detect a subsequent target. In the antisaccade task, participants were required to fixate on the center of the screen until a cue appeared either on the left or right side of the screen, and asked to immediately shift their attention to the opposite side to detect the target. In the data presented here, 29 young adults (13 in the unpredictable and 16 in the predictable group) completed 10 sessions with both tasks. We predicted that longer wait/fixation times would be associated with decreased accuracy, and that increased temporal predictability would enhance their sustained attention and lead to increased accuracy. Preliminary results showed that SACT performance decreased over longer wait times, regardless of temporal predictability. In the antisaccade task, performance decreased from medium to long fixation times only when the fixation duration was predictable.https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/1202/thumbnail.jp
Ecology of Eupatorium altissimum galls: Extrapolating timing of oviposition using plant growth curves
No full textThis study aims to investigate the timing of oviposition by the gall fly Neolassioptera perfoliata on tall boneset (Eupatorium altissimum) populations throughout the DePauw University Nature Park. I initially measured the heights of 176 plants total in 5 different locations, out of which I randomly selected 12-17 plants per location to measure height on a weekly basis. When galls were spotted, their heights were recorded so that they could be compared to the plant heights to produce an estimate for when the egg was laid by the gall fly. I also collected galls from plants that were excluded in the initial measurements and dissected them using razorblades in order to identify and describe the development of the gall-forming fly and its predators. I fitted curves to the weekly height data from individual plants using Microsoft Excel, which were representative of the plants’ growth patterns. In turn, this indicates that my estimates of timings of oviposition by gall flies are reliable given that these insects lay their eggs in meristematic tissue, which is found at the tips of the plant. I was also able to photograph and identify and photograph the fly and two predatory wasp species in larval, pupal and adult stages under a microscope. These results help fill the gap in our knowledge on gall-forming insects and their ecology, which allows us to better prepare for the conservation of these species if and when they are threatened. Future studies that I plan on conducting will investigate the relationship between plant fitness and gall timing. Other work that should be done includes conducting controlled observations of mating and oviposition behavior in order to better understand how the different species interact in their adult stage. Funding for this project was provided by the DePauw Faculty Development Committee.https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/1218/thumbnail.jp
Therapeutic Silencing of Integrin α11 Attenuates Myofibroblast Activation in Vocal Fold Fibrosis
No full textVocal fold scarring (VFS), a fibrotic condition of the lamina propria, commonly results from prolonged intubation or laryngeal trauma and leads to impaired vocal function and often irreversible dysphonia. Following injury, fibroblasts are activated by proinflammatory cytokines—particularly transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFβ1)—which induces their differentiation into contractile, ECM-producing myofibroblasts. A key marker of this activation is alpha-smooth muscle actin (αSMA). Among the drivers of this fibrotic response is integrin α11β1, a collagen-binding transmembrane protein encoded by the ITGA11 gene. ITGA11 has been implicated in multiple fibrotic diseases due to its role in enhancing TGFβ1 signaling and promoting myofibroblast activation. To investigate the contribution of ITGA11 to VFS, we performed siRNA-mediated knockdown of ITGA11. We hypothesized that silencing ITGA11 would attenuate myofibroblast activation and reduce fibrotic remodeling in the vocal folds. Our findings support a potential therapeutic role for ITGA11 targeting in the treatment of vocal fold scarring.https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/1227/thumbnail.jp