Inquiry 2014

inquiry HONORS TUTORIAL COLLEGE

RESEARCH APPRENTICESHIPS 2014

Kalen Robeson collects a water sample to test for acid mine runoff p. 38 inquiry | 1

inside

THIS ISSUE 

20 briefs 4 Sorting Swordtails 5 Spencer in Context 5 An International Audience 6 Sifting Through Signals 7 Striped Salamanders 7 No Bones About It

38 fine arts & humanities 8 The War of the Women 10 The Past and Future of Dance 12 Humanzing the Protocol Droid 14 Chaucer’s Curious Clocks 16 Translating Through Time 18 MAD Magazine Goes to College

social sciences 20 Bonding to a Business 22 Tracking Serial Offenders 24 The Performance Gap

30 health & science 26 The Math in Microbiology 28 The Protein Between

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FROM THE ON THE COVER HTC Sophomore Kalen Robeson collects water samples from regional creeks (story p. 38)

16 34 features 30 Translating Medical Malpractice 34 Understanding Aging and Atrophy 38 Cleaning the Polluted Creeks 42 Art from the Earth

MEET THE STAFF Editor-in-Chief Ben Postlethwait Advisor Cary Frith Creative Director Paula Welling

Illustrators Rachel Ertel Paula Welling Photographers Rob Hardin

Writers Madison Koenig Hannah Ticoras Torri Raines Brian Vadakin

EDITOR

First of all, I’d like to thank you for opening up this magazine today.

Inquiry is research showcase magazine that shines a spotlight on participants in the Honors Tutorial College’s Research Apprenticeship Program. The program allows HTC faculty tutors to hire and mentor a highly-motivated undergraduate HTC student, teaching them how to conduct research in professional environments.

This coming year, the program is expanding. In partnership with all of the Athens Campus Ohio University Colleges as well as the Vernon R. and Marion Alden Library Endowment and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Creative Activity, the Honors Tutorial College is beginning a pilot program to open research apprenticeships to all Athens students.

This pilot expansion of the research apprenticeship program should come as an acknowledgement that there are many many hard-working, motivated, and gifted students outside of the Honors Tutorial College as well as within. It is our hope that this next will year will serve as a testament to the quality of the undergraduate education that Ohio University offers all of its students.

That said, in the following pages, you’ll see some of the best and brightest students that Ohio University and the Honors Tutorial College have to offer.

Through the research apprenticeship program, these students have been given unparalleled academic and professional opportunities. We ask for the continued support of parents, alumni, and friends of the Honors Tutorial College and Ohio University.

Your help will allow us to expand and sustain this terrific program, so that students can benefit for years to come.

Sincerely

Ben Postlethwait, Inquiry Editor-in-Chief

projects

AT A GLANCE Sorting Swordtails Story by Ben Postlethwait Photos provided Animals, like humans, have all sorts of observable habits and behaviors. Why they have those behaviors is often the question entirely.

That’s what HTC biological sciences sophomore Charlotte Klimovich studied this summer. In an apprenticeship in the lab of Dr. Molly Morris, Klimovich studied the the mating behavior of the x. multi-lineatus swordfish species in the Xiphophorous genus.

Male swordfish come in two varieties thanks to a varying certain gene. Some fish are the courting type, meaning they will try to impress females with their color or movement by “performing” for them. These fish are large, and have larger tails and noticeable stripes.

However, other males of the same species have genes that make them much smaller and less competitive compared to the larger males. As a result, they rarely court females.

A swordtail fish in Dr. Molly Morris’ lab.

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The project that the lab team is working concerns “interlocus sexual conflict,” trying to document the unusual situation of two competing genes within a single sex of a single species.

“Because the two genes are in the population, neither can evolve to reach optimal quality,” Klimovich said. “The smaller males might want to become bigger, but they can’t because their genes are always fighting them.”

The research into the gene could even have potential human implications, as the gene used to control the size of the swordtail males is analogous to one in human males.

Klimovich’s responsibilities included feeding the fish and maintaining their tanks, but also assisting in charting fish behavior and size tests. She said she’s enjoyed working in the lab, considering that Morris’ lab is one of the few marine biology labs at Ohio University. It’s particularly helpful to Klimovich, who aspires to be a veterinarian in the future.

While her work in the lab is continuing into this fall semester, Klimovich had the opportunity to pursue her own research concerning the swordtail. A subgroup of the smaller swordtails come in a strange gold color. As part of her continuing research, she’s studying this specific group to see why this population exists.

She said that this research is important because most behavioral studies of the swordtail chose not to include the smaller males because they’re relatively rare.

Project funded by the Brege Family Research Apprenticeship Fund

BRIEFS

Spenser in Context

By Torri Raines Junior HTC English and Spanish major Julianna Coleman came back from a semester of Spanish studies in Ecuador to a summer of Spenser and Shakespeare in Athens. Coleman is working as an editorial assistant for her research apprenticeship with Dr. Andrew Escobedo, associate professor of English at Ohio University.

Escobedo has been working on several projects that Coleman assisted with. The main project the team worked on this past summer is Edmund Spenser in Context, an anthology book project in its very early stages. The book will be published by Cambridge University Press and has 37 contributing Renaissance scholars.

Escobedo intends the book to be a sort of introductory handbook to Spenser for English major advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students.

Coleman’s role in Edmund Spenser in Context was to keep track of all of the organizational information of the project. When Escobedo gets in contact with one of the authors for any

reason related to the project, he forwards the email to Coleman, who then updates a database of organizational information. Coleman keeps track of which authors were assigned which essays, which authors have signed and returned their contracts for Cambridge University Press, how much time the authors need to complete their pieces, and the authors’ contact information. Coleman also copy-edits for style the essays that have already been completed.

Edmund Spenser was a famous Renaissance poet, only second in renown to Shakespeare and Milton. Spenser has been a topic of interest for Escobedo for years. Escobedo is an editor for another Spenser-based project called Spenser Studies, which is an academic journal that publishes submitted essays on Spenser, and is another of the projects Coleman worked with over the summer. Coleman is copy-editing for style essays for Spenser Studies as well.

An International Audience

By Torri Raines Productive, active discussion is not readily associated with the online classroom. Many students do not experience online classes that go beyond introductory-level courses. Hurdles of online discussion-based classes, including lack of spontaneity, audible voices, instant dialogue, and visibility are philosophical and conceptual challenges that Professor Katarzyna Marciniak is addressing in her development of her personal online pedagogy and in an article she is writing on the topic for a book project she is co-editing.

The book project is entitled Teaching Transnational Cinema: Politics and Pedagogy.

“To our knowledge, Teaching Transnational Cinema will be the first collection to explore the complexities of teaching transnational cinema and to foreground a specifically ‘transnational film pedagogy,’” Marciniak said.

The project involves contributors from Europe, Asia, Australia, and the U.S. Marciniak’s essay, which is still in progress, for the book is entitled “Transnationality

Online: Teaching Alienhood, Foreigners in the Classroom, and a Politics of Invisibility.” It’s the working result of research and Marciniak’s personal experience from teaching a cinemabased online Women and Writing course several times since last year.

HTC English senior Bekki Wyss was Marciniak’s research apprentice for the project.

Marciniak’s article will engage recent U.S. films, such as Tom McCarthy’s 2007 “The Visitor,” that are concerned with foreignness, border-crossings, and migration. Wyss’s research involved analyzing existing scholarship on the films and tracking down reviews and interviews with the filmmakers.

Wyss was an ideal research apprentice for this project, as her past study abroad trips to Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and Cambodia have given her personal experience with border-crossings and concepts of foreignness. Wyss is also interested in feminist politics and theory, which are central to Marciniak’s work.

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Sifting Through Signals Story by Madison Koenig Photo Provided Fruit flies and rats might not have much in common, but Kim Kraus, an HTC junior studying neuroscience, is bringing together cells from each in order to better understand neurodegenerative diseases. Her advisor, Dr. Robert Colvin, a professor in the Biological Sciences Department, uses neuron cells from rats to study Alzheimer’s disease. His colleague, Dr. Daewoo Lee, an associate professor in the same department, has done similar research on Parkinson’s disease with fruit fly cells. This summer, Kraus assisted in their innovative collaboration.

In working with neurons, one of Kraus’ most challenging tasks has been to create a chemical culture in which both types of cells can survive.

This task is especially difficult because the ideal conditions for insects and mammals are so disparate, and Kraus has to find a way to balance the temperature and nutrient needs of both kinds of cells. Once she succeeds, she and the two professors will be able to experiment with transmitting signals from one kind of cell to the other.

Neurons send signals to each other through synapses at the end of the cells. A signal they frequently transmit is a command for proteins to fold, which is necessary for them to become functional. Colvin and Lee theorize that one of

the causes of neurodegenerative diseases may be proteins folding improperly. Their goal is to see if the neurons send the signal for these nonfunctioning proteins.

Because these types are so incredibly different, the research team will be able to tell definitively whether these kinds of signals are being passed from one type to the other through the synapses. The result may be a crucial to understanding how neurodegenerative diseases develop.

Kraus continues with this research into the school year with a PACE (Program to Aid Career Exploration) position. She will present the research at the Society for Neuroscience national conference in Washington, D.C., in November. As she explains, this experience will give her an opportunity to “bridge the gap between the research and how it’s practiced.”

As a double major in neuroscience and psychology, Kraus cares deeply about the impact her research will have on people’s lives.

Although her goal is to practice medicine, she plans on continuing to keep one foot in the laboratory throughout her career, bringing together the abstract research and the personal implementation. She hopes that this summer project will lead to her senior thesis next year.

An image of a cortical rat neuron taken using immunofluoresence

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BRIEFS

Striped Salamanders

By Torri Raines Polymorphism is widespread but not thoroughly understood across life on earth. Polymorphism is essentially the presence of different forms among populations within the same species.

HTC junior biological sciences major Eric Leach worked with Dr. Shawn Kuchta as his research apprentice to examine and understand color pattern polymorphism in plethodon cinereus, the redback salamander.

The two color morphs that Leach and Kuchta, along with graduate student Maggie Hantak, examined are the red stripe morph, which has a red stripe down its back, and the stripeless morph, which is completely black.

The rarity of the morphs across different populations is varied. Some populations are 100% striped, some are a mixed population of striped and unstriped, and the rarest type of population is 100% unstriped. Fortunately for Kuchta’s research, all three population types can be found in northern Ohio.

Leach and Hantak traveled to northern Ohio to examine these populations. They set up six study populations, two each of striped, unstriped, and mixed. Around these populations they created “cover objects,” which were highquality territories for the salamanders: optimal

environments that the salamanders quickly colonized and defended.

These made ideal data collection sites. Over the following few weeks Leach and Hantak would return to each of the populations regularly, taking photos, weighing, and measuring each salamander and recording the data. They also collected diet samples from the salamanders by pumping their stomachs.

They and Kuchta are examining the data they collected, including close examination of the diet samples, to find out more about these salamanders and how their color pattern polymorphism affects or indicates a difference in their behavior. Correlations the team are looking for include diet, interactions with predators and competitors, and territorial behaviors.

Kutcha hopes to find out what maintains the salamanders’ polymorphism, and how their polymorphism relates to their ecological behavior. Leach’s apprenticeship is just the beginning of Kuchta’s project. “This is the first real season of data collection,” Kuchta said.

“Hopefully this project lasts 10 years. So we’re really just getting started.”

Project funded by College of Arts & Sciences

No Bones About It

By Hannah Ticoras

“Drink your milk!” Most parents say it, but why? Osteoporosis, or bone fragility.

Until now, the test for osteoporosis required invasive radiation treatment: a process that medical personnel hesitated to use on children.

However, Professor Anne Loucks and her research assistant HTC senior biological sciences Gabby Hausfeld tested a new technique that would offer a quicker, more functional measurement of the bending stiffness of long bones called Mechanical Response Tissue Analysis (MRTA).

This measurement helps determine the density of the bones without radiation by emitting a series of forceful vibrations (commonly compared to that of an electric razor) to determine the properties of the bone relevant to the bone’s likelihood of fracture.

Loucks is specifically looking at this measurement in relation to the forearm.

Loucks has worked with the MRTA machine for five years, utilizing the HTC apprenticeship program for the last four. Each apprenticeship was focused on a different aspect of the MRTA project. Hausfeld’s responsibilities include analyzing micro-computed tomographic images of cadaveric humans. Hausfeld will measure for cortical porosity, the amount of empty space in bones, and cortical diameter. Hausfeld will also assist in the entire procedure of unwrapping, preparing, testing, and discarding of the cadavers. By testing and improving upon this process, bone fragility can be measured earlier and fractures can be avoided.

Project funded by College of Arts & Sciences inquiry | 7

The War of the Women

Dr. Cary Snyder examines the suffragette movement through the lens of H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica.

Story by Hannah Ticoras Illustration by Paula Welling

The Women’s Rights movement of the early 1900s is well documented through political writings and posters from the time, but what about through fiction?

Dr. Carey Snyder and her research apprentice, sophomore HTC English student Hannah Koerner, collaborated on a Broadview Press edition of H.G. Wells’ novel Ann Veronica that will enlighten academics and students alike about the story of young women in the suffrage movement.

Broadview Press publishes editions of books specifically for cultural scholars, loaded with extra information and footnotes. This edition of Ann Veronica includes a new introduction, extensive notes throughout the text of the novel, and appendices of various cultural and social texts

from the suffrage movement in order to provide readers with more context. Snyder’s reasoning for pitching the edition of Ann Veronica goes back to her roots in cultural criticism.

“Wells-the-novelist is worth rediscovering, because, although he is not stylistically modern, he explores modern themes,” Snyder said. “He is a great recorder of his social moment.”

Snyder wrote her introduction to enlighten readers about the various traditions from which H.G. Wells drew. She explained that the novel starts out as a “New Woman” novel, a popular style in the late 1800s and early 1900s that featured a female character fitting the description of a New Woman, mainly an independence from male support and supervision.

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... the question of how women are to balance independence and the quest for meaningful work and an intellectual life with relationships is still with us.

—Dr. Carey Snyder, Director of Studies for English

Ann Veronica begins this way, with the young protagonist leaving her comfortable home to live and work in a London abuzz with the suffrage movement. She joins this movement for a while but decides to settle down with one of her professors. With this development, Ann Veronica’s independent path is swapped for a marriage plot.

The marriage plot is a device popularized by Jane Austen and is defined as a piece of literature that relies on the belief that a woman’s only purpose in life is marriage. The hybrid of these two genres, in Snyder’s opinion, is what makes the novel essential reading in relation to the suffrage movement, but also the larger canon of British literature.

“Ann Veronica teaches well because students can still relate to it a hundred years after it was written—the age-old rebellion of youth, the question of how women are to balance independence and the quest for meaningful work and an intellectual life with relationships is still with us,” Snyder said.

Koerner’s main responsibilities lay in the edition’s footnotes and appendices She proofread the original text of the novel, which was scanned into a searchable and word-processingfriendly version with Occular Character Recognition (OCR) software. For the appendices, Snyder and Koerner chose primary texts that “most closely echoed Ann Veronica’s experience

of suffrage,” Snyder explained. Snyder’s goal in the appendices was bringing light to the exaggerated nature of Miss Miniver, a main suffragette. She wanted to show “dignified voices” in comparison. Koerner also weighed in on what to include in the appendices and learned how to excerpt items. She checked the footnotes for accuracy and suggested new notes to add.

“It’s not just her contribution in hours of work, but also her eyes. She’s a great reader,” Snyder said, referring to Koerner’s assistance on her project. Since the research materials are intended for students, Koerner brings an essential perspective of both researcher and consumer.

Koener interns at the OU Press during the school year, so she had experience preparing manuscripts for publication before her work with Snyder.

“This is more research than I’ve ever had to do, and being more inventive with the research methods I use,” Koerner said. “[Undergraduate students] use MLA Bibliography and Academic Search Complete, and I had to go to a lot of different places, like the Modernist Journal Project, and spend a lot of time trying to find things, which I think has made me a lot better at research and being able to find out what’s out there.” Modernist British literature is Koerner’s passion, so the project resonated with her in that way as well.

Snyder, who has participated in the apprenticeship program three times, praised it for being “mutually beneficial.”

“It’s fun to have somebody that you’re working with who can see this other part of your job that’s not teaching,” Snyder said.

Project funded by the Brege Family Research Apprenticeship Fund inquiry | 9

The Past and Future of Dance Dr. Tresa Randall looks at a 20th-century dancer who tried to improve the world.

Story by Torri Raines Illustration by Rachel Ertel

Modern dance is often viewed as a niche subject, a refined—and to some, inaccessible—high art.

This is not what early 20th-century GermanAmerican dancer and famed choreographer Hanya Holm envisioned for the future of dance.

Dr. Tresa Randall, associate professor of dance and Honors Tutorial College Director of Studies, is working on a book in which she seeks to tell the untold side of Holm’s story. Holm was known for her innovative choreography, but she

had a wider vision for dance.

“The story of what she was trying to do and, ultimately failed to do, really never got told,” Randall said. “When [Holm] first came to New York she gave a lot of lectures and talked about the value of studying dance, not only for professionals, but for everyone.”

Holm believed strongly in the power of the arts, and specifically dance, to enrich the lives of those who study it and to be a powerful

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healing force in our culture. Randall described Holm’s concept of dance as “deeply utopian.”

Holm came to America from Germany in 1931 and founded a school that became a center for the development of modern dance. She came from a background of German modernism and ideas about body culture and how dance related to avant-garde innovations not only in the arts but in the idea of art becoming integrated with life.

Holm’s ideas were gaining momentum as a movement in the 1930s in New York, but were cut off by World War II. During and after the war, strong anti-German sentiment prevented Holm’s influence from spreading any further, and her efforts to help dance become more integrated into social life were stagnated.

After the war, Holm had to shift her focus to choreography, for which she is now best known.

Randall said that her study will be the first book-length critical examination of Holm’s transnational modernism. Randall has been working on the research for her book on and off for the past 15 years, and her current goal is to get her information organized. Logan Cull, an Honors Tutorial College music composition major, is Randall’s research apprentice. Cull’s main task this summer is organizing all of Randall’s information and entering it into a database.

In her research, Randall has traveled to archives in Germany, New York, and San Francisco. Her sources are not limited to journal articles and books; Dr. Randall is also utilizing her own interviews with former pupils and colleagues of Holm, handwritten letters, videos and original documents such as press clippings, photographs, and several other types of sources.

“It’s almost a floor-to-ceiling bookcase of material,” Randall said. Cull worked on converting each and every piece of material to a digital format and uploading it into a database. By the end of his apprenticeship, Cull said he will have all of Dr. Randall’s sources tagged and entered into the database to assist her in completing her book as her project moves forward.

Cull cataloged all the data manually, as the database that he’s working with was created

The story of what she was trying to do and, ultimately failed to do, really never got told.

—Tresa Randal, Associate Professor of dance

specifically for this project. He scans paper documents to convert them into .pdfs and converts microcassette, DVD, and VHS video and audio recordings and interviews into digital format. Cull then enters the information for each source, including the bibliographic information and any relevant notes regarding the content of the source. These notes are essential, especially when a source can be classified in a multitude of ways.

Towards the end of the summer, Cull wrote a several page analysis about his experiences over the summer, including his opinions on the sources he organized and the general direction of Randall’s work.

Randall also integrated some of Cull’s interests into his work. At one point, they listened to a recording of a piece of music that Holm had commissioned for one of her pieces that is unique to the OU Archive and were able to discuss the music composition of the 1930s.

Cull sees the value of this meticulous work in that it’s good experience in doing the kind of work necessary to finalize a scholarly publication and is practice in large-scale historical research in the arts, which Cull is also interested in.

Later in the project, Cull and Randall will go to the OU Special Collections where Cull will do direct research in the archives.

Randall is happy with the thorough work Cull has done. “He’s very organized, which is exactly what I needed for this,” she said.

Randall’s book is still many months away from completion, but Cull’s work on the database will bring her one step closer.

Project funded by the Vice President for Research

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Humanizing the Protocol Droid Dr. Jeremy Webster explores the “Star Wars” series as a trasmedia narrative.

Story by Hannah Ticoras Illustration by Racehl Ertel

In a galaxy far, far away (35 Park Place), HTC Dean Jeremy Webster is taking a critical look at Star Wars. Last spring, along with research apprentice Colleen Taylor (HTC political science, 2014), Webster embarked on a journey to the limits of the Star Wars story, and beyond.

Webster is primarily interested in Star Wars as a “transmedia narrative,” or a narrative that is created over multiple media platforms. Star Wars is one of the first examples of transmedia narratives, with the story existing first in novel form, then in films IV-VI, comic books, and an NPR radio play at various points from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s. Since then, various universe expansions took place, including the

prequel films I, II, and III, which were released in 1999, 2002, and 2005, respectively.

“It’s less about looking at each individual narrative and more about looking at these slices; multi-authored, yet, coherent because they are telling a longer story across these platforms,” Webster explained.

The first “slice” that Webster is studying is Princess Leia’s relationship to violence within the first film, Episode IV: A New Hope (Lucas, 1977), the first novel published in 1976, Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker

by George Lucas, the first six comic books published, and the NPR radio play “Star Wars: A New Hope” adapted by Brian Daly in 1981. All

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Apparently the producers decided that bras hadn’t been invented in space, when she asked why she [Cary Fisher] couldn’t wear one.

—Colleen Taylor, HTC political science 2014

of these platforms follow similar plot structure, but differ in important ways.

His initial interest was in the first scene in which the audience meets her character. In the film version Princess Leia is hiding, a Storm Trooper sees her, she shoots someone and the Troopers take her away. However, in the novel version, the same scene is told through a Storm Trooper’s point of view. The Storm Trooper knows the prisoner is Princess Leia and is imagining the promotion he will get because he captured the person Darth Vader is looking for right as Leia kills him. This is a more graphic version of the scene, and presents Leia as more violent than others. The comic book version is the only one in which Leia actually speaks, telling the Storm Troopers she is “setting her gun to kill.” Each of these versions presents a different view of Leia and violence.

Leia is one of the first named characters to kill in the movie, and she constantly questions her and her team’s actions.

“This presents a version of Leia, I argue, that is fundamentally interested in the ethics of violence,” Webster said. “The larger narrative sets her up as feminist icon, but also as someone who is deeply interested in ‘when do you rebel’ and ‘when is violence acceptable’ — she has to make these choices” Webster connected Leia’s actions to feminist scholarship at this time, as well. Feminist scholars debate the character of Princess Leia in the movies, questioning whether she is a strong female character. Taylor was already skilled at researching through a gendered lens, as her thesis involved studying women’s rights activists in various countries.

“Cary Fisher [the actress who plays Princess Leia] actually wrote four memoirs about her time on the set, and they were very revealing.

Apparently the producers decided that bras hadn’t been invented in space, when she asked why she couldn’t wear one,” Taylor explained.

Understanding the climate of the movie set can help with determining the reason behind executive decisions, like not having Leia speak in the movie, but having her speak in the comic book.

Discovering these discrepancies and determining which ones were valuable for future research was Taylor’s main responsibility. By looking closely at these media, as well as young adult versions of these stories, Taylor was able to find patterns. She took careful viewing notes, and worked closely with Webster to discuss what themes, characters, and plot he was looking for across the platforms, and noted changes in these across platforms.

Extrapolating this idea outwards to the films, novels, etc. establishes the transmedia narrative even further. Webster hopes that the sum of his research will become a book. Later chapters will deal with topics like same sex desire and sexuality, largely focused on CP30.

Webster identifies this character as queered in some of the platforms, as well as an asexual eunuch. Webster is also interested in the issues of slavery that the newer versions of the films address, and the nature of evil.

As for Taylor, she is attending law school at Case Western. “This project enhanced my ability to critically analyze media and annotate research materials for people other than myself,” Taylor said of her work on the project. “Looking at Star Wars this way adds so much more to it, and brings in the myth of the whole thing.”

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Chaucer’s Curious Clocks

Dr. Josephine Bloomfield examines the use of clocks in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Story by Hannah Ticoras Illustration by Rachel Ertell

How often have you checked the time today? A quick glance at your watch, phone, computer, or microwave is all it takes. The time was not as accessible in the 14th century when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales.

Dr. Josephine Bloomfield, associate professor of English, studied how the existence of clocks during the period affected how Chaucer perceived himself and his characters in time.

Bloomfield and her research apprentice Torri Raines, a junior HTC English major, conducted close readings of the many passages in Chaucer’s work that mention time and clocks.

Bloomfield argued that Chaucer’s interest in time began with his translation of Boethius’

Consolation of Philosophy from Latin. In it, Boethius, a sixth century philosopher, debated the possibility of free will in a Christian context. He concluded that humans made up past, present, and future, while God was in an “eternal moment.” Boethius viewed time as a construction, a mistaken authority. According to Bloomfield, Chaucer discussed time in his own work critically — “not in a didactic way, but in a humorous, loving way.”

Chaucer’s excessive reference to the time in The Canterbury Tales is riddled with irony because the clock was held in high esteem.

Tracking the history of clocks in the 14th century is difficult because mentions of time

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span an entire century and occur in a variety of texts, Bloomfield explained. “We don’t have people sitting and writing down ‘this is what we had at this time,’ we have to find mentions of things.” However, by reading texts on topics from education to royal princes, Bloomfield observed overwhelming mentions of clocks.

“Clocks were such a delight and surprise at this time,” Bloomfield said. “There were clocks for canonical hours, chimes to call the priests and monks to prayer, and the ringing of the natural hours used to call people to mass and to open the market.” All of these clocks made noise, so there was a constant, public reminder of the time.

The belief that Chaucer’s obsession with time is a critical discussion, rather than a scientific observation, is not a consideration present in previous scholarship. Because of Bloomfield’s discovery of the deluge of allusions to clocks in 14th century writings, she wanted to contest previous hypotheses.

“Chaucer shows that when we think we are great authorities on something, like time, we just show what idiots we are,” Bloomfield explained. “He’s not making fun of time as a concept, he’s suggesting that time that is being beaten out, that that ringing, on the one hand, is a very a very human concrete material. On the other hand it is a reminder that you still have time to do right because, though God is in his eternal moment, you are living in a material world where you can act, and you can do.”

In the face of the overwhelming obsession with the clock, Chaucer brought Boethesis’ eternal moment” into his modern writing, through exaggeration and humor.

As Bloomfield’s research apprentice, Raines’ first responsibility was to confirm Bloomfield’s understanding of the technological aspects of clocks. Raines has no background in technology, especially from the 14th century, but she picked it up quickly. She even made suggestions of her own.

One of the technologies used before the popularity of the clock was the astrolabe, a hand-held device that determined the time by using the measurements of the angle of the

sun in relation to the ground and the latitude. Raines constructed an astrolabe out of cardboard, so they could ex-perience a world without a saturation of clocks.

Along with conducting this scientific research, Raines read through Bloomfield’s current academic work, and assisted in writing new sections based on new research that has emerged.

The works of Chaucer are not new to research apprentice Raines. She presented a paper titled “No Distinction in Love: Hierarchy and Audience in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and the Wife of Bath’s Tale” at the Medieval and Renaissance Forum and Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. This paper, originally written for a tutorial with Bloomfield, discussed Chaucer’s character the Wife of Bath and a real person Julian of Norwich and the subversion of

There were clocks for canonical hours, chimes to call the priests and monks to prayer, and the ringing of the natural hours used to call people to mass and to open the market.

—Dr. Joesphine Bloomfield, professor of English gender roles through the women’s inistence on teaching despite laws against it. Raines’ familiarity with Chaucer made her a perfect choice for the research apprenticeship position.

Raines is earning a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate and plans to teach English to non-native speakers after graduation. However, her research experience is causing her to consider graduate studies longer term.

“This apprenticeship has definitely given me a new perspective on critical writing, how to construct it, and how to fact check it,” said Raines who will be a co-author on Bloomfield’s final manuscript.

inquiry | 15

or arma, quibus caelo se gloria tollit

Ordior arma, quibus caelo se gloria tollit

adum patiturque ferox Oenotria iura

Aeneadum patiturque ferox Oenotria iura

hago, da, Musa, decus memorare laborum

Carthago, da, Musa, decus memorare laborum

quae Hesperiae, quantosque ad bella crearit

antiquae Hesperiae, quantosque ad bella crearit

ot Roma viros, sacri cum perfida pacti

et quot Roma viros, sacri cum perfida pacti

Translating Through Time Dr. Neil Bernstein seeks to understand the meaning behind centries-old poems Story by Madison Koenig Illustration by Paula Welling

Recent graduate Rachel Thomas has a love for stories. The HTC classics alumna worked with her thesis advisor, Dr. Neil Bernstein, a professor in the Classics and World Religions Department, on three projects focused on offering ancient stories to modern readers.

The first project entailed a close examination of different editions of the second book of Silius Italicus’ Punica, an epic poem written in the first century about a historical war between Rome and Carthage. Bernstein said that several different writers copied the poem by hand in the fifteenth century CE, and the manuscripts from this time have a multitude of mistakes.

“For the last 500 years, editors have tried to correct these mistakes with the goal of determining what Silius Italicus actually wrote,” Bernstein said. “There are dozens of editions of the poem and hundreds of editorial corrections and suggestions.”

Thomas’ goal was to create a database of the different editions, noting the changes that each editor made to the about 700-page poem.

She discovered a range of differences. “In some cases you’d find an ‘m’ would become an ‘n,’ but in some cases the changes were much more striking,” Thomas said. “It really alters the way that you read the piece.”

FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES

The work she completed fit nicely into the second project. Bernstein and Dr. Neil Coffee, associate professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Buffalo are working on a compilation of papers presented at the 2013 meeting of the Digital Classics Association.

They took advantage of the ebook format by including extensive hyperlinks in their writing.

Thomas made sure that everything in these essays works, both with grammar and with properly functioning links. “I keep hoping that one of the authors will mess up a Latin or a Greek word,” she joked, “but they know those pretty well.”

Her third and final project was a “running dictionary” of terms for a textbook edition of Seneca’s tragedy “Hercules Furens,” which translates to “The Madness of Hercules.” This dictionary will be presented alongside the text of the play so students will not have to leave the narrative in order to look up a word. “It’s a more convenient way to make sure a student can stay engaged with the text,” Thomas said.

Bernstein hopes that his edition will be useful for third-year Latin students, to introduce them to a play that influenced Shakespeare and many other Renaissance playwrights.

Bernstein also served as Thomas’ HTC thesis advisor. She completed her thesis, entitled ,“Sic

For the last 500 years, editors have tried to correct these mistakes with the goal of determining what Silius Italicus actually wrote.

—Dr. Neil Bernstein, professor of classics Itur Ad Astra: Divinity and Dynasty in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” in May. In the fall she began a Masters in Philology in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford in England. She said that the work she has done with Bernstein has further solidified her interest in classic literature.

“I believe very strongly in fiction and storytelling as vehicles for exploring issues,” she said.

Bernstein has faith that she will find plenty of success in studying these stories. “Rachel is one of the best students in her field, and she has a bright future ahead of her,” he said.

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MAD Magazine Goes to College Dr. Judith Lee collects essays on the landmark humor magazine.

Story by Ben Postlethwait Illustration by Paula Welling

A rich history of American political satire, comic book heroes and written humor has origins in the same venerable publication: MAD magazine.

However, the 62-year-old publication and its contribution to American humor have received little scholarly attention.

Dr. Judith Lee, a professor of communication studies and an Honors Tutorial College Director of Studies, served as co-editor of a special issue of the journal Studies in American Humor

alongside guest co-editor John Bird, a Margaret M. Bryant professor of English at Winthrop University. The fall 2014 issue, titled “MAD magazine and Its Legacies,” will feature works by scholars who have examined the content of the magazine and are evaluating its cultural and historical significance.

“It’s astonishing that there may be only four or five scholarly article ever published on MAD magazine. It’s stunning, “Lee said. “We’re

FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES

It’s astonishing that there may be only four or five scholarly article ever published on MAD magazine. It’s stunning.

—Dr. Judith Lee, Director of Studies for communications studies

talking about a magazine that at its peak… had a circulation of 3 million. This magazine was a defining influence of the baby-boom generation.”

Sophomore HTC music student Joseph Otto served as Lee’s apprentice and the issue’s editorial assistant. His primary responsibilities included copy editing the essays, communicating with authors about requirements and queries, and writing short capsule biographies of the most significant MAD contributors for the forthcoming book. Joe said his love of newspaper comics led him to apply for Lee’s apprenticeship.

“The works being done for this journal are really engaging,” Joe said. “I’d love to be on the author’s side of a publication like this in the future.”

The essays cover diverse topics such as MAD’s treatment of former President Richard Nixon, its treatment of President Obama, and its consistent use of humor through reversal, arranging text and photos in a purposefully incorrect or strange way, to the point where MAD would literally print text up-side down as part of a joke.

The special issue will also feature interviews

by Paul Levitz, former president of DC Comics.

Levitz conducted interviews with famed cartoonist Al Jaffee, illustrator of some of MAD’s iconic work; and Nick Meglin, former associate editor of the magazine for this issue of the journal.

MAD magazine has such a rich history, Lee said, that she received a huge response for the journal issue. As a result, Lee has plans to expand on the special issue with a book dedicated to essays and memoirs about MAD from professors and former members of the publication around the world.

“We had such an outpouring of scholarly interest,” Lee said. “We couldn’t possibly include everything. People are very excited about this publication.”

As an editorial assistant, Joe is happy that he has a unique perspective on the publication process, getting to see both the content creation and editing sides of the process.

“This apprenticeship is great experience for me because if I do want to go into academia I need to understand both sides of the relationship,” Joe said. “I’ll have my name published on this special edition, which will open doors for me to do similar research in the future.”

Lee said this opportunity is invaluable.

“I’m happy to give Joe the opportunity to have a by-line in the magazine,” Lee said. “He’s obviously done a great job, and I’m happy to have him included in this momentous journal.”

Project funded by the Brege Family Research Apprenticeship Fund

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Bonding to a Business

Dr. Katherine Hartman researches brand loyalty and its effect on consumers.

Story by Brian Vadakin Illustration by Paula Welling

When Apple, Inc. released the iPhone 6, many consumers with functioning phones waited for hours outside pristine glass storefronts to “trade up� to the newest iteration of the smartphone.

This is an example of brand loyalty — when consumers buy primarily or exclusively from a single firm or brand, at times even ignoring price premiums.

Increasingly, universities have spent money and time developing their own brand. Ohio

University, for example, even has its own marketing department: University Communications and Marketing (UCM).

Initially, Dr. Katherine Hartman, associate professor of marketing, set out to determine the effect brand loyalty to universities has on potential customer lifetime value. For a university, customer lifetime value could include tuition, merchandise purchases, institutional giving or word-of-mouth promotion.

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This summer, Hartman brought third-year HTC business student Cole Decker on board through a research apprenticeship. With Decker as the lead investigator, the project quickly evolved. They moved away from brand loyalty, instead focusing on organizational identification, or the personality match between the student and the university.

“We hypothesize that as perceived personality match increases, so will organizational identification, and we will then be able to predict post-graduation involvement with the university,” Decker said.

Perceived personality match can be a difficult thing to measure. It describes how a person perceives his or her own personality (self-image) versus how he or she perceive the “personality” of the university in question, according to Hartman. If these perceptions overlap, the student and university can be said to have self-image congruence.

Decker spent the summer doing background research and designing a survey that he distributed during Fall Semester 2014. Decker and Hartman have also been working with Dr. Tim Hartman, an associate professor emeritus of marketing.

“Dr. Katie Hartman and her father, Dr. Tim Hartman, have been working with me to form this project into something that is both meaningful and significant,” Decker said. “As we have been working, we have also developed a second study related to business schools and their online co-branding. This second study is a project we hope to present at a conference this spring.”

The evolution of the project is consistent with social science research, Hartman said.

“In my opinion, one of the most important

aspects of the HTC program in general is the opportunity it provides students to strengthen critical thinking skills,” she said. “As we read articles and talk to people, we may learn something new that enables us to unravel the nuances of the problem, vary our perspective, and critically evaluate the issue.”

Originally, Hartman’s research apprenticeship proposal was designed to study the classifications, or categories of brand participation.

But by studying organizational identification itself, Decker and Hartman can contribute a greater understanding of the underlying phenomenon. A stronger foundation could then

We hypothesize that as perceived personality match increases, so will organizational identification.

—Cole Decker, HTC business junior be used in a later study to classify brand participants.

As Decker will be listed as the primary author on the manuscript the group is submitting, publication could greatly advantage him as he enters the workforce or a graduate program after graduation from the college.

“My interests include branding and promotions, student affairs and student development, and real estate branding and staging,” Decker said. “Ideally, upon graduation I hope to work in a high-intensity real estate firm or attend a highly ranked, specialized graduate program.”

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Tracking Serial Offenders Dr. Thomas Vander Ven tracks stastistics on serial rape through newspaper reports Story by Madison Koenig Illustration by Paula Welling

Serial rapists assault more than one victim, and documenting their prevalence is challenging.

Dr. Thomas Vander Ven, a professor of sociology, and Sam Regas, an Honors Tutorial College junior studying sociology, are using a novel approach — scouring old newspapers. After more than a year of research, the team has created a database of more than 1,000 cases of serial rape in the United States from 1940 to 2010. Their goal is to better understand the societal factors that influence the modern rapist to better understand who that person is and who their victims ofter are.

Vander Ven and Regas, along with several other researchers, drew from the archives of five major newspapers: The Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

They analyzed articles about rape cases and compared 20 different variables such as race, gender, and age of the offender and victim, as well as other location of the crime and time of day when it took place. By comparing these data, they are able to trace trends in reported serial rapes over seven decades.

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I don’t think we can ever incarcerate our way out of a problem, but I think it’s naïve to think that it didn’t have an effect.

—Dr. Thomas Vander Ven, professor of sociology

“The media reported many of these factors pretty thoroughly,” Regas said.

Although working with media sources had its benefits, there were also some drawbacks. Vander Ven said that it was easier to access the archives of these newspapers than it would have been to get information from law enforcement agencies. However, the media sources also had some selective reporting.

“We’re at the mercy of the journalists,” Vander Ven said, explaining that they had to rely on the information that the newspapers chose to print. For example, these bigcity newspapers were less likely to report crimes that occur in isolated places, although he noted that sensationalist crimes such as serial rape tend to be reported more often than other crimes.

Another factor they examined was journalistic bias.

The newspapers included the race of the offender in only 29 percent of the articles, however, Vander Ven’s conclusion was that there was no bias in the reporting the race of the offender.

“There’s so much racial bias in the criminal justice system, but in this case, it looks the reporters were fair,” Vander Ven said. “Social scientists often assume a racial bias in news reporting but, in this case, the data just aren’t there.”

Vander Ven noted that the reports of serial rape were generally similar to those of other violent crimes during this period. Serial rape was relatively low during the 1940s, but began to increase through the ‘50s and ‘60s, leading to a spike in the ‘70s. Vander Ven explained that this rise was likely due to an increase in the pool of potential victims, instead of more offenders. One of the contributing factors for this rise was the increase in women working outside the home. “There were more people out in the world, out and unguarded with strangers,” he said.

Serial rape increased again in the 80s, and peaked in 1993 with 80 reported serial rapists, which, as Regas pointed out, follows the “crime curve” of that time. Vander Ven said that violent drug trade and the surge of joblessness may have contributed to the rise of serial rape during this period. These factors led to more people living on the margins and offering an easier target.

After the peak in the 1990s, serial rape started to decrease until 2010, the end point of the current project.

In 2010, incidents of serial rape were low, similar those in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Vander Ven cited several factors to explain the decrease in serial rapes in the ‘90s. Advancements in forensic criminal technology led to more successful prosecutions and convictions. He referred also to as the “incarceration binge” of the ‘90s. Both of these factors helped lower the pool of motivated offenders who were free, although Vander Ven cautioned against relying too heavily on incarceration to prevent serial rape.

“I don’t think we can ever incarcerate our way out of a problem, but I think it’s naïve to think that it didn’t have an effect,” he said.

Another challenge facing the researchers was the lack of a shared definition for serial rape. “In the literature, there are a number of definitions of serial rapists, but most of them are pretty vague, and we feel that they’re not very theoretically informed,” Vander Ven explained.

Early in the project, he and his research team had to create a working definition that they felt acknowledged all of the variables of serial rape, including length of time between attacks, number of victims, and how the rapist commits the crime. Vander Ven noted that serial rapists spend more time hunting, luring, or conning their victims than they do committing the rape. This is a trait that they share with serial killers.

“I think that people think serial rapists are ‘crazed’ or something,” said Regas, “but they’re pretty intelligent and methodical. There’s a lot of strategic thought that goes behind it.”

Regas’ apprenticeship was for spring semester, but he has worked with Vander Ven in the past and continues to work with him throughout the summer. Like the graduate students involved with this project, he analyzed the articles and helped manage the archives and database. He sat in on group meetings and assisted with collective problem solving. In November, the team presented their findings at a San Francisco sociology conference.

Vander Ven said that Regas’s contributions have been invaluable. “I’ve had many research assistants throughout the years, and when you get a good one you don’t want to let them go,” he said. Although Regas thinks he will work on a different type of project for his thesis, he said that working on this project has been an influential experience. “From a critical theory standpoint, it’s definitely been influential in how I’ll go about writing my thesis.”

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16.4 %

of African American men graduate college

The Performance Gap Dr. Debra Thompson explores the performance gap between white and black college students.

Story by Torri Raines Illustration by Rachel Ertel

Many students who begin college will not finish.

However, the situation is especially dire for African American students, particularly men.

According to Dr. Debra Thompson, assistant professor of political science at Ohio University, only 16.4 percent of African Americans who go to four-year public universities in the United States graduate, and only 11.2 percent of African American males graduate from public universities in four years.

But it is worse in Ohio, with just 8.1 percent of African American males graduating in four years. After six years, the retention rate in Ohio becomes 26 percent, but that is where it tops off. “No matter what,” Thompson said, “we lose

75 percent of black men who come to college.

They don’t finish.”

This summer, Honors Tutorial College political science major Renee Hagerty is working with Thompson as her research apprentice to examine these retention rates and the factors that affect them in an effort to improve them.

Thompson described her project, which is called “Closing the Participation Gap: the Status of African American Men in Higher Education,” as “a survey of both government policies and institutional programming at the 13 public 4-year institutions or colleges in Ohio.”

The project looks at more than just college retention rates. “It’s an effort to determine

SOCIAL SCIENCES

what governments are doing to try to improve those retention rates, to try to improve access to higher education for black men, to try to help them succeed when they get here, to try to help them prepare for the workforce,” Thompson said.

There are many factors that affect graduation and post-education success rates for African American men. Some of the project’s preliminary findings suggest problems throughout the educational system.

Standardized testing and Common Core standards are among the federal- and statelevel policies that Thompson and Hagerty’s research suggests are ineffective in improving achievement for African American males in the K-12 pipeline.

Performance-based funding formulas for post-secondary institutions, while providing extra funding for schools that accept at-risk students, does not prioritize students with multiple risk factors. This may work against African American males, who may not be accepted for enrollment or given funding due to their higher risk rates. Furthermore, Ohio has cut need-based aid more than any other state in the Midwest over the past ten years.

Hagerty said this project was born in part from her Spring 2013 tutorial with Dr. Thompson, in which Thompson worked with Hagerty and two other students to write a policy memo for the Interlink Alliance, of which Ohio University President Roderick McDavis is a member. Interlink describes its “central purpose” as “the development and preparation of African American students to learn, live and lead in the 21st century.”

Thompson and Hagerty, with the other tutorial students, were essentially commissioned to write a policy memo for Interlink about the status of African American males in higher education, specifically in the four states the members of Interlink are from, as well as nationally. Dr. Thompson got funding

to expand the project and Renee continued to work with her in spring 2014, continuing into summer and working alongside political science Matt Farmer.

This project is helping Hagerty prepare for her future, both for her career path and for her thesis as a senior in the HTC. “It’s a huge resume builder,” Hagerty said. “My career trajectory basically is going to have me working on projects like this for the rest of my life, so project management skills are crucial.” Hagerty’s thesis is not directly related to the project, but the perspective she is gaining on the education system as a whole will prove useful to her.

We can actually create policies that have positive consequences in society. That’s the purpose of policy, believe it or not.

—Dr. Debra Thompson, assistant professor of political science “This is an area of work that is really crucial to a lot of people,” Hagerty said, “but no one has really examined it thoroughly, so it’s kind of exciting to be breaking that ground.” Hagerty and Thompson are breaking more ground than they thought they would. Hagerty’s research is forming the basis of a book project, to Thompson’s surprise.

“The purpose of this project is to find out not just what’s going on, but what can we actually do,” Thompson said. “What can governments do? What can schools do to address this issue?

Because it doesn’t do anybody any good to say it’s some kind of culture or some kind of male gender, that doesn’t help anybody. We can actually create policies that have positive consequences in society. That’s the purpose of policy, believe it or not.”

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The Math in Microbiology Dr. Todd Young uses applied mathematics to study cell division.

Story by Madison Koenig Illustration by Paula Welling

This summer, sophomore HTC mathematics major Denise Scalfano helped Professor of mathematics Dr. Todd Young, investigate a biological mystery. Using applied mathematics, they researched how cells go through the division cycle.

During the cycle, each cell goes through a signaling phase, or S phase, when they send out chemical signals to other cells. Cells also go through a receiving phase, or R phase, when they receive those signals. Scalfano and Young, along with several graduate and doctoral students, looked at the outcomes of different timing within these phases.

“So it’s all chemically based, but we’re not really looking at chemistry at all,” Young said.

“We know that at different stages in the cell cycle cells are producing different chemicals.

And we know that different chemicals can affect the cell cycle progress of other cells, without being specific about what the signaling agents are. We’re looking at all of the possibilities of how the signaling and response can interact.”

Often, scientists who are studying cells on this level want to see what happens when the division cycles of all of the cells in a group synchronize. Dr. Young’s team may be the first to confirm that the cells enter “anti-phase

HEALTH & SCIENCE

oscillation,” with a portion of the cells going through one stage of division while another portion is on the opposite side of the cycle.

Antiphase oscillation means that at least some part of a group of cells is going through each phase of division more often than when an entire group’s division is synchronized.

Using a mathematical model, Scalfano tested the possibilities of both synchronized and antiphase cell division. “Basically I’m doing calculations for hours, testing to see how the initial positions of the clusters in the cell cycle would affect how they influence each other,” she said.

Scalfano spent her days doing these symbolic calculations by hand, piecing together different bits of information to find the results of different situations. Although some undergraduates might be daunted by juggling so many different factors at once, this undertaking comes naturally to Scalfano. “It’s almost intuitive how you do it,” she said.

Her focus was on stability. She tested to see under what conditions synchronized cell division is stable or unstable, and under what conditions antiphase cell division is stable or unstable. By concentrating on stability and instability in the cell cycle, Young hoped to better understand how cell division works in nature.

Young explained that the real-life implications of mathematical models are the focus of his work.

“The field of mathematics that I do is called ‘dynamical systems theory’ and a big part of that is determining what things are stable and what things are unstable,” he said. “The reason for that is very practical: if something is stable, then you are likely to see it in nature, and if it

Basically I’m doing calculations for hours, testing to see how the initial positions of the clusters in the cell cycle would affect how they influence each other.

—Denise Scalfano, HTC mathematics sophomore

is unstable then you’re unlikely. It’s not likely to last very long.”

Young’s goals for this project are two-fold.

As a professor, Young also recognizes the impact that this project with have on Scalfano and the other student researchers. As a part of this project, they are gaining the tools they will need to continue in applied mathematics.

Scalfano agreed, explaining that researchers in the scientific and computer science fields use the same programs that she learned to use.

However, this research also has an impact on the world outside the laboratory. As a scientist, he hopes that this research will contribute to a larger field of study, to unravel some of the mysteries of biology. “Understanding the cell cycle of microorganisms would be the longrange research goal,” he said. “We have made some contributions to that, and we hope to make more.”

Project funded by the Brege Family Research Apprenticeship Fund

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The Protein Between

Dr. Felicia Nowak explores a protein that plays a role in a variety of harmful diseases.

Story by Sophie Mitchem Illustration by Rachel Ertel

Dr. Felicia Nowak has been working on the function of Porf-2 for “longer than I care to admit,” she said. This summer, she was joined in her research by Honors Tutorial College senior, Wenjuan Zhang, who intends to continue the research for her thesis as well.

Porf-2, or preoptic regulatory factor-2, is a protein that has been shown to enhance apoptosis in cells. Apoptosis is the process of programmed cell death. Apoptosis can play a role in a variety of diseases including dementia and diabetes. Dr. Nowak is interested in the role Porf-2 plays in diabetic nephropathy, which has yet to be established. Through lab work, it has been established that insulin and insulin-like

growth factor-1 (IGF-1) suppress expression of Porf-2. Lower levels of IGF-1 correlated with a higher risk of dementia and cognitive dysfunction. Dr. Nowak and Zhang plan to knock down the insulin and IGF-1 receptor mRNAs to confirm the role they play in modulation of Porf-2 expression. Their hypothesis is that even in the presence of insulin, Porf-2 levels will go up.

Dr. Nowak’s goal for this research will confirm and set the stage for PORF 2 potentially having a role in cognitive dysfunction. Their research process consists of looking at cells under the microscope and then culturing them.

They then knock down the expression genes

HEALTH & SCIENCE

that the insulin binds to and use western blotting to look at Porf-2 expressions. Through their research, doors could open for therapeutic and preventative strategies for regulation of apoptotic factors in diabetes.

“It’s only been around the past five years that people have been working on this and there’s not much out there yet in way of therapeutic value,” Dr. Nowak said.

Dr. Nowak was actually looking for something “very different” when she happened upon the Porf-2 gene. It was unknown at the time and she looked at how hormones, age and gender affected the gene when a graduate student who worked in the same lab cracked the code. Once that happened, Dr. Nowak went along with discovering more about Porf-2.

Zhang got involved with the project after having taken two tutorials with Dr. Nowak previously. The tutorials focused on cell death and specifically neural cell death. During one of the tutorials, she was introduced to Dr. Nowak’s research with Porf-2 and, because of her interest, Zhang is continuing the research for her thesis with Dr. Nowak as her advisor.

“We look at the cells under the microscope and it’s fun to look at their progress,” Zhang said. “You don’t consider cells as test animals but they really have become that.”

For both Dr. Nowak and Zhang, the most challenging part of the process has been the rate in which the cells have grown. The cells

have been growing fairly slowly thus far and have taken between a week and 10 days to grow.

“When we knocked down the insulin receptors, they started growing really slow,”

You don’t consider cells as test animals, but they really have become that.

— Wenjuan Zhang, HTC biological sciences senior Dr. Nowak said.

However, despite the challenges, Zhang loves the research process and has found it very enjoyable, she said.

“I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot of different lab techniques that I probably wouldn’t have had in regular classes,” she said.

“The knowledge I’m gaining being involved in this project will be invaluable to me in my future career.”

To continue the research, Dr. Nowak is hoping to receive grant funding for the project.

“You have to be a good strategist but you also have to be lucky and I feel lucky because I think the timing is right,” she said.

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Translating Medical Malpratice Dr. Michele Clouse translates Spanish documents from one of health care’s most formative periods.

Story by Madison Koenig Illustration by Paula Welling

FEATURE Provided scans of the spanish documents that Abrahamson and Clouse translated

Much of the debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act has been divisive. However, health care policy has long been a contentious issue.

Dr. Michele Clouse, an associate professor in history, and her research apprentice Hannah Abrahamson, a senior studying HTC Spanish, explored healthcare in 16th- and 17th-century Spain, at the beginning of the early modern period. The Spanish government was just starting to codify health care practices and policies, instead of leaving them up to physicians or, in some cases, the Roman Catholic Church.

Although many think of medicine as scientific and straightforward, Clouse said that in contemporary and historical times, it is important to consider culture’s influence on how medicine is practiced. “Medicine is a branch of science, yet it is culturally constructed,” she explained. Even today, patients’ expectations can play a role in how physicians treat them. In order to better understand what expectations patients had in early modern Spain, Clouse and

I think that we assume that suing for malpractice is a relatively modern idea, but it’s clear from these cases that it’s not.

—Dr. Michele Clouse, associate professor of history Abrahamson examined the documents from cases when those medical expectations were not met and resulted in malpractice lawsuits.

“I think that we assume that suing for malpractice is a relatively modern idea, but it’s clear from these cases that it’s not,” said Clouse. By looking at malpractice suits, Clouse and Abrahamson explored the limits of proper medical care. Patients had a strong influence during this formative period for medicine.

Health care was procured through legal agreements between patients or their families and the medical practitioner, in which payment

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was exchanged not for treatment, but explicitly for a cure. Clouse has found evidence that suggests if the practitioner could not produce a cure, then the patient or his or her family would not have to pay.

Although Clouse noted that some malpractice suits were filed because a family did not want to pay, other cases were genuine instances of malpractice. She identified the central issue in these cases as a question of knowledge: the arguments focus on whether medical practitioners knew what they were doing. In some cases, commonplace remedies came into play. Many patients had some ideas about how to cure different ailments, such as eating certain plants, which were based on oral tradition rather than scientific research. Many patients had their own home-based ideas for these remedies, usually based on herbals, or common plants. Most people had a basic knowledge on how to cure common ailments found through experiential learning, as opposed to the book learning available to university-trained medical practitioners. Clouse is interested in how the common knowledge that patients brought with them affected their expectations for treatment, comparing this knowledge to “an early modern version of WebMD.” Other issues of class, gender, and race also influenced these cases. Medical practitioners were university educated men, a relatively small portion of the population, and they tended to serve a wealthier client base. In some

cases that Clouse and Abrahamson examined, families sued on behalf of one of their servants.

For example, in one case a female servant died while under a physician’s care, and her employers, who had signed the contract for her care, filed suit. Clouse and Abrahamson are interested in the roles that different identities played in medical care.

Midwifery is another aspect of health care during this period on which Clouse hopes to focus. Unlike other types of medical practitioners, midwives were not always regulated by the state. In some places, the Roman Catholic Church regulated them, but in other places it is unclear what the rules for their practice were. Generally speaking, female midwives had become unpopular by the 18th century, replaced by male midwifes and doctors.

Abrahamson found licenses for male midwives from the beginning of the 18th century. She and Clouse are excited to “track down what those male midwives have been doing,” as Clouse put it.

To begin to study these cases, however, they first had to learn how to read them.

Abrahamson spent the first few weeks of her apprenticeship focusing on palaeography, the study of historical handwriting. Although she is fluent in Spanish, reading the documents on microfilm from this period proved to be a challenge.

“The handwriting is very hard to read. Add on the fact that it’s early modern Spanish, which is like reading Shakespearian English, but in a different language,” she said. Clouse, who has more experience in palaeography, sympathized, “It’s a lot of hard work, it makes your eyes hurt, and it can be frustrating.”

Another challenge with this study was understanding the diction. Both researchers worked to understand the way that the documents are worded, especially when it comes to how writers refer to each person involved.

“One of the things that happens in these cases is that, like in modern legalese, they have their own formulas and language, and we haven’t quite figured it out yet,” Clouse explained.

As they get accustomed to reading these documents, Clouse and Abrahamson developed a digital database of various cases, which they will refer back to as they continue. During the last portion of the summer, they looked more in-depth at a representative sample of the cases.

For instance, one case they examined dates from 1554, when a major practitioner in Extremadura,

FEATURE a city in southwestern Spain was sued for “abuses of power and authority,” said Clouse.

This case will help establish what boundaries the physician’s patients believed he crossed.

In another case, a family hired a physician to treat a daughter’s kidney stones, a relatively common problem during this period due to a lacking diet. The father sued the physician, claiming that he violated their contract by failing to leave his daughter’s “maidenhead,” or hymen, intact, and thus ruining her virginity and hurting her marriage prospects.

Clouse hopes to pull these initial cases together in a paper that she and Abrahamson will submit to a conference or a journal, such as the John Hopkins Bulletin of History of Medicine, where she has been published previously. Clouse is also presenting a paper regarding this research at the Association of Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies in March.

This research project connects well with what Clouse has done in the past. Her first book, Medicine, Government, and Public Health in Philip II’s Spain: Shared Interests, Competing Authorities, focused on medical practice and public health in 16th-century Spain, when the

government began regulating medicine more frequently. She said that the book focused more on the government and the physicians, and she began this project because she wanted to learn more about the patients themselves.

“We don’t really have a sense of what the relationship between physician and patient was like,” she said.

Although Abrahamson shares Clouse’s passion for history, her next research project will focus on what was happening on the other side of the globe during this time. Doing what she calls “literary historical” research, she will look at how chronicles of the Indies portray native women. These chronicles, written by conquistadores and humanist theologians involved in the conquest of the Americas, fall into the category of nonfiction literature, but Abrahamson points out that they include some fictionalized details about the authors’ experiences. She is interested in the way the authors’ backgrounds and expectations shaped their views of native women.

Project funded by Vernon R. & Marion Alden Library Endowment

Photo by Tyler Stabile

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OfUnderstanding

Aging and Atrophy The Ohio Musculosketeal and Neurological Institute works to understand the issues of aging and pain Story by Brian Vadakin Photos by Robert Hardin

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When the team at the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute (OMNI) developed the procedure for an experiment using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), they realized the factory-supplied electrodes didn’t stay on the patients’ heads.

The simple but effective solution? A swimming cap.

“We just punched holes in it with a regular hole punch so that we could get the electrode wires into it, and it worked like a charm,” said Nathan Sulecki, a sophomore in the HTC neuroscience program. “It showed me you don’t always need over-designed, thousand-dollar medical equipment to get these things done.”

Some of the team’s innovative solutions were simply a result of the variety of perspectives in the lab, Sulecki added. They had to consider all angles, from the quality of the data to the comfort of the patient.

Sulecki and third-year HTC biological sciences student Benjamin Waddell spent the summer working in OMNI, collaborating on interdisciplinary research for an HTC research apprenticeship.

It showed me you don’t always need over-designed, thousand-dollar medical equipment to get these things done.”

—Nathan Sulecki, HTC neuroscience sophomore Dr. Brian Clark, professor of physiology and director of OMNI, said that while the institute is large, its main programmatic foci are in the areas of pain and aging, with the research across these two foci having an overarching aim of developing interventions that remove barriers to independent physical mobility and, ultimately, reduce disability.

“Almost all of our research is in humans,” Dr. Clark said. “We are trying to understand most commonly neuromuscular control and how the brain regulates pain and muscle function. Our niche in the world is we do a lot of translational science, using basic science findings in humans and then trying to transition them into clinical

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studies, including phase I and phase II clinical trials.”

Sulecki and Waddell signed on for separate projects, but their experiences turned out to be much more cooperative and interdisciplinary.

Sulecki said he had collected most of the data relevant to his tDCS project in the first four weeks, and then moved on to other work.

The two students’ work differed, at times daily, depending on the needs of the lab. When a researcher visited OMNI from the Netherlands, for example, Sulecki and Waddell worked together to write a comprehensive procedure for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

The write-up allowed the researcher to apply the technique at a lab in his home country.

TMS, a relatively new procedure, uses two copper coils and a rapidly alternating electric current to create a magnetic field, which then excites neurons in the brain.

“If you place the TMS machine over the lower cortex of the brain, it would excite the neurons in that part of the brain, creating a chain of events that eventually would result in a muscle contraction,” Dr. Clark said.

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OMNI scientists are interested in examining how these kind of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques can be used to enhance human performance. “The hope is that the results of this study could yield new technology that would help the elderly exercise more effectively,” Waddell said.

On other days, Sulecki and Waddell recorded patient data for a clinical trial. While they only worked with an average of one to two people per week, each patient’s blood work and DEXA scans produced large amounts of data to organize.

“The DEXA scan always kind of amazed me,” Waddell said. “Every few visits we would have the patients lie down on the machine and within 5 minutes it would scan the patient and give us this thorough, detailed readout on the computer.”

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DEXA, measures bone mineral density and the amount of lean muscle mass, among other things.

“It was pretty incredible,” he said. “The scan had everything you wanted to know about a person’s body composition: bone density, the

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amount of body fat, even how much muscle he or she had gained since the last visit and in what parts of the body.”

The DEXA scans were one component of an early phase drug trial, sponsored by a major pharmaceutical company. The largescale goal of the trials, as well as many other OMNI research projects, is to investigate the causes and treatment options for sarcopenia, which is the term used to describe the muscle wasting commonly observed within the elderly population.

“Sarcopenia is one of the biggest factors that limits the world of elderly patients,” Sulecki explained. “It decreases the size of the bubble of the world that they can interact with—if you can’t use your muscles it very much limits what you can do.”

Specifically, the pharmaceutical company is approaching the treatment of sarcopenia through a new drug that inhibits the production of the protein myostatin. Previous studies have shown that an absence of myostatin over

time reduces the occurrences of age-related sarcopenia in mice. The institute is one of a few sites conducting both a phase I and II trial on this new drug, in hopes that it will be effective in reducing muscle atrophy in elderly humans.

With more than 8,000 square feet of research space and 20 contributing researchers, OMNI is involved in various research projects and clinical trials simultaneously. Together, the researchers at OMNI hold more than $6 million in active grants from a variety of institutions, including the prestigious National Institutes of Health.

For Sulecki and Waddell, working in OMNI provided a beneficial mix of laboratory training and group work within the institute.

“I learned a lot about the methodology of research and data analysis and how to interpret meaningful results from a final data sheet,” Waddell said. “But I also learned how big of a role teamwork has in a laboratory, as I worked closely not only with Nathan, but also with the entire OMNI staff.”

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Of Cleaning the

Polluted Creeks

Kalen Robeson works with the Voinovich school to address the long-lasting Dr.effects Edward passionin forSoutheast research has ofList’s coal mining Ohio. grown into a love of instruction as he Story mentors

by Ben Postlethwait Photos by Robert Hardin students in his Konneker lab Story by Alex Menrisky Photos by Rob Hardin

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The Southeast Ohio landscape of rolling hills and hardwood forests is celebrated for its natural beauty. However, the orange hue of its creeks and streams stands out as starkly unnatural. The murky color is the result of years of sulfuric acid leeching from acid mine drainage, causing the iron to oxidize in the water. The water becomes acidic and harmful to the overall watershed ecosystem.

Jennifer Bowman is a senior environmental project manager at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs. One of the collaborations she works on is the Appalachian Watershed Research Group, which uses an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the physical, biological, and chemical aspects of the streams post-reclamation.”

This summer she worked with HTC biological sciences sophomore Kalen Robeson on sampling three specific watersheds: Wills Creek, White Eyes Creek, and Raccoon Creek. Together with the Voinovich School, the Appalachian Watershed Research Group works to find, test, analyze, and treat the polluted water in Southeast Ohio.

If I hadn’t done this research apprenticeship I’d probably still be out there playing in a stream anyway.

—Kalen Robeson, HTC biological sciences sophomore

How did the water become so polluted? In the late 19th century, hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the Appalachian region of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. They came to do the same thing: mine bituminous coal.

They often brought their families, and small cities sprang up around the mines. Many of the small, often-impoverished towns that surround Athens can be traced back to coal mining.

Unfortunately, all booms come to an end.

The modern coal mining industry is a shadow of its former self, and most of the mines in

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southeast Ohio are abandoned. During the past 80 years, water from the abandoned mines has drained into many of the area’s watersheds, contaminating them with acid.

The chemical process is very similar to rusting, as indicated by the burnt orange color, and the effects cause significant damage to the ecosystem. The metals in the water often coat the substrate, the loose soil and rocks that lie on the riverbed, making it impossible for fish and other organisms to get the nutrients they need to survive.

“The biological community can’t survive in those conditions, especially when you have metals like aluminum and iron that are making it difficult for find to find food to eat,” Bowman said. “Macroinvertabrates need a healthy substrate to be able to burrow and hide and find their food.”

Bowman’s group is just one of many in the region who are uploading their research data to watershedata.com, a website started by the Voinovich School to centralize and map the data from nearby watersheds. After identifying locations where contamination is present, the team begins sampling the water to assess just how bad the damage is.

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Robeson collected water samples in the field this summer for lab analysis. The team examined the amount of iron pollution in the water. Robeson also collected biological samples, containing microorganisms and small aquatic creatures, in order to analyze how the pollution is affecting wildlife.

All of the data Robeson and Clouse collected was analyzed to help assess treatment options for the water, then is collected together in an Acid Mine Drainage Abatement and Treatment (AMDAT) plan. One of the most common active treatment methods is installing a doser, a silo that pumps lime powder into running water.

The lime, a very base mineral, neutralizes the acidity of the water, reducing the pollution over time.

“That AMDAT answers questions like ‘What’s the stream like?’ ‘Is this stream good? Is it bad?’” Robeson said. “It’s a diagnosis that helps us understand the area and tells us what it needs in order to be cleaned.”

The process of treating the water is lengthy, so watershed pollution is not a problem that is going away anytime soon. However Bowman said that the sooner problem areas are identified and treatment is installed, the better.

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Kalen said that he pursued this appren­ ticeship because it offered him the opportunity to get out of a lab setting and into the outdoors. His work involved spending hours outside, collecting water and biology samples at sites that were sometimes hours away from the lab. Along with these tasks, he also did some environmental education at the Summer Watershed Camp organized by the Racoon Creek Partnership and sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters and KEEN, a shoe company.

“This is what I wanted to with my summer. If I hadn’t done this research apprenticeship, I’d probably still be out there playing in a stream anyway,” Robeson said.

“This apprenticeship has been very different from what I thought I was interested in.”

Robeson said. “I’ve always been interested in genetics and working in a lab, but this is much more dirty biology. I wanted to get a taste of that before I decide what I really want to do.”

Bowman started this apprenticeship after serving as a tutor for Jessica Lindner, a senior HTC environmental and plant biology student.

She said that HTC approached her with the opportunity to work closely with a student again.

“That’s a great opportunity for me and for the student to get hands-on experience.

That’s what the Voinovich School is all about.”

Bowman said. “The apprenticeship program is a great opportunity for students and staff alike.”

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Art from the Earth Sophomore Studio Art student Asher Pollock draws from Southeast Ohio’s environment to give back to the canvas.

Story by Hannah Ticoras Photos by Robert Hardin

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FEATURE Impetus, a painting by Asher Pollock inspired by a local Athens park.

Asher Pollock, Professor John Sabraw’s research apprentice, points to two canvases as tall as the average person, each displaying a single leaf. The left one is a bubblegum pink with burgundy veins and orange tips; her compatriot is a burnt yellow with dark orange veins and lively green tips.

“What are these called again …the girls?” he asks.

“Arco and Isis,” Sabraw yells from a drawing table across the 5th floor studio in Ohio University’s Seigfred Hall, “two goddesses in Greek mythology.”

“The sisters,” as Sabraw affectionately calls them, are two in a collection of many paintings made with pigments gathered at watershed remediation sites around southern Ohio and are part of Sabraw’s continuing project, which has not yet been titled.

Watershed remediation is the process of stopping the flow of pollution, or acid mine drainage, from abandoned coal mines around Southern Ohio, and cleaning up the watersheds

I’m learning a lot so fast... [Painting] is always what I wanted to do.

—Asher Pollock, HTC studio art sophomore

in order to increase the natural life present.

The polluted streams vary in color from orange to green to white, but almost all of them have one thing in common: lack of biodiversity.

Dr. Guy Reifler, a professor of environmental engineering at Ohio University, was already trying to make pigments from the drainage as Sabraw’s interest piqued, and they struck up a partnership.

The summer 2014 batch of pigments for the paints came from Truetown, Ohio, home to an abandoned coal mine turned discharge site that was releasing 1,000 pounds of iron into Sunday Creek daily in 2009.

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Chroma S1 11, one of Sabraw’s paintings featuring pigments from Acid Mine Drainage

Simply speaking, Sabraw is a conscious artist. Along with the pigments from the iron discharge, most of the wood he uses in his projects is local deadfallen wood, meaning the wood has fallen due to natural causes.

Before turning his gaze to watersheds, Sabraw questioned his own art practice as a commercial producer, using the calculator on carbonfund.org to offset his carbon footprint by purchasing carbon credits. He even calculated how much carbon was emitted in the creation and transportation of the Mona Lisa from France to Italy and back, and purchased the number of credits it would take.

After his interest in reducing the carbon emissions of his artwork, reusing the resources of southern Ohio and becoming an activist for their preservation seemed a logical next step, especially since the region has been so poorly stripped of its natural resources.

Sabraw’s biggest concerns with tackling this particular environment issue through art are visibility and viability; he’s been working on

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increasing visibility for three years. The paintings completed during summer 2014 are in good company: Sabraw has shown paintings from this ever-expanding series before. Most notably, “The Sisters” at the annual Water Colloquium at Ohio Wesleyan University.

He describes this project as being “persuasive in a way that is beneficial to others —rather than chastising, rather than confronting or being aggressive, I took the tact of being alluring.”

Agro and Agnes certainly fit the mold of allure, but so do the more than 20 paintings that lined the walls of the 5th floor studio during the summer, many with which sophomore HTC studio art major Asher Pollock had a great of deal responsibility.

Sabraw orginially envisioned Pollock’s role as significantly research-based. For the project to remain visible and viable, the team must find museums and curators that will show the project.

However, Pollock has an extensive background in painting. Painting was always part of Pollock’s life privately, until he went to a half-

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day painting academy during his last two years of high school. “[The academy] gave me some basic skills that you need to have for representational drawing and painting,”Pollock said. “I worked in acrylics and have done personal work all throughout high school and the beginning of college, but this project is really the first experience I’ve had with oils, and I’m learning a lot so fast,” Pollock explained. “[Painting] is always what I wanted to do.”

Pollock worked primarily on a series of 12’’x12’’ close up paintings of leaves found around southern Ohio. Pollock layered branches and parts of leaves to create a natural feel, and mixing colors to create images that look remarkably realistic.

“It’s good for him to be here on a daily basis to allow for an understanding, for things to flow,” Sabraw explained.

Along with his creative additions, Pollock also wrote copy for the artist statement to be featured at the beginning of the exhibit and within brochures, and helped Sabraw prepare media statements. Pollock designed the gallery guide for the show “Resonance” which was displayed at this year’s Sagan National Colloquium at Ohio Wesleyan University.The team was even interviewed by Al Jeezera America for a video story highlighting Sabraw’s work.

Visibility has been Sabraw’s goal so far, but in its third year, he is studying the project as something that is viable as well. He has many ideas up his sleeve, including an international exhibition. He is also in talks with paint distributors in the hopes of introducing them to this process, and giving the paints to multiple artists to then have exhibitions.

“We want it to be a bad idea to purchase iron ore pigments from China when we can produce

them here from pollution while we’re cleaning up streams at the same time,”Sabraw explained.

“It seems like a duh, but it is shockingly difficult to get people to support this.”

The viability of Sabraw’s goal depends upon challenging the artists to examine their own processes. Artists are becoming interested, and requesting tubes of the paint sent to them.

“We’re not quite there yet, but that’s what this summer was about. Getting to a place where we can send them a tube, have them do a project, and promote this process, pro mote sustainability in the art and promote sustainable arts.”

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last look

Ben Carnes, an HTC chemistry student, aids in the preliminary stages of creating a cancer drug.