Acta Spartae
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Acta Spartae is the undergraduate journal of sciences and mathematics at The University of Tampa, and is designed to recognize and promote the vibrant undergraduate research community at UT by providing a forum for the dissemination of research and ideas produced at the University.
Acta Spartae DOI - https://doi.org/10.48497/sr4s-yz90
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Item Abundance Analysis of Tabby’s Star (KIC 8462852)(Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics, College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2019) Thomas, Stacey; Fernanda Martinez, Cintia; Cunha, Katia; Smith, Verne V.; Dr. Simon Schuler; Simon SchulerKIC 8462852 is a star of interest due to it’s unusual flux phenomena. Although there is now a better understanding of the star’s photometric fluctuations, the star has yet to be fully characterized. Our research focuses on determining the chemical composition of KIC 8462852. Here we present our analysis of medium-resolution spectra obtained with the 3.5 meter WIYN telescope and HYDRA spectrograph in single-object mode to determine the star’s chemical abundance. We have used the MOOG spectral analysis software and KURUCZ model atmospheres to determine abundances via spectral synthesis. Of the elements analyzed, the abundances of iron, nickel, and silicon are comparable to that of the sun. The only outlier is calcium which was found to be more enhanced in this star than that of the sun.Item An Analysis of Factors that Influence Student Perceptions of Flu Shot Effectiveness(Department of Public Health and the Department of Biology, College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2019) Stadler, Caroline; Dr. Jessalyn Miller; Dr. Claudia X. Aguado LoiStudent influenza vaccine uptake on campus is significantly below national goals set by Healthy People 2020 and the American College Health Association. Students commonly view the flu vaccine as ineffective due to personal knowledge and experiences from the vaccine and the virus. This study expands the literature by examining the association of sociodemographic factors (culture, race/ethnicity, gender, and religion), beliefs, and behavior on a student’s perception of flu shot effectiveness. A total of 33 college students completed a twenty-item survey. Fisher’s exact analyses were conducted and general trends were analyzed. The Fisher’s exact tests yielded no significant results for most items except for the belief that race/ethnicity has an effect on their perception (p=.003) and whether or not the student believes they can contract the flu from the vaccine (p=.029). Trend results suggested a connection between personal knowledge, past experiences, and culture on student perceptions of flu shot effectiveness. These results show that public health strategies to increase flu vaccine uptake should consider broader factors when targeting predisposing and enabling factors that shape student health behaviors surrounding flu prevention uptake.Item Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli inhibition from varying concentrations of Vitamin C(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2015) Victoria Suslovitch; Madeleine Kenton; Eric C. FreundtThe effects of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) on the gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and the gram negative bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) were studied using a serial dilution of concentrated vitamin C applied in a Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion assay. It was observed that higher concentrations of ascorbic acid are more effective in killing bacteria. It was also observed that the gram positive bacteria, S. aureus, is more susceptible than the gram negative bacteria, E. coli. Lastly, it was shown that a saturation of vitamin C at high concentrations was not achieved within the experimental parameters, as no plateau effect was observed. The possibility of ascorbic acid as an antimicrobial agent is worthy of future research due to its safety, versatility, and availability.Item Assessment of College Students’ Risk Level, Behaviors, Knowledge and Attitude of Type 2 Diabetes at the University of Tampa(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2015) Donna R. Rauschuber, Joshua L. Rodriguez, Domenic L. Sestito, Christopher A. Campbell; Mary P. MartinasekThe purpose of this study was to assess the risk of type 2 diabetes among Black/African American and White/Caucasian male and female students at the University of Tampa using a validated survey instrument for comparison based on a point system for level of risk. Secondly, it was to determine through descriptive statistics if there is the need for a Diabetes Awareness Program at the university based on the current behaviors, attitudes and knowledge of students. Researchers surveyed students to evaluate type 2 diabetes risk levels. The surveys were hand delivered to students at the Vaughn Student Center during normal school hours. Questions based on known risk factors were assigned point values and given a total score that ranged from 0 to 18. These scores were then used to assess low, intermediate and high risk levels. Additional questions on behaviors, attitudes and knowledge regarding type 2 diabetes assessed the need for an awareness program. The researchers used SPSS (ver. 22) to analyze the descriptive statistics to establish the means, standard deviations and percentages of data collected. Total scores were higher for men who averaged 4.000 (s = 1.431) while women averaged 2.633 (s = 1.537). Total scores were also higher for Black/African Americans who averaged 4.086 (s = 1.380) as opposed to White/Caucasians who averaged 2.546 (s = 1.606). Risk levels ranged between low and intermediate, with no student having a high-risk level. Students scored very high when asked about their attitude and knowledge of type 2 diabetes. However, percentages for the questions regarding their behavior were much lower, except for the question regarding physical activity.Item Associations Between Vibrio and the Planktonic Community Throughout Tampa Bay(Department of Biology, College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2019) Johnson, Heather; Dr. Bridgette Froeschke; Dr. Rebecca WaggettVibrio is a genus of bacteria whose species naturally inhabit warm, marine waters throughout the world. Many of these species are pathogenic to humans, which makes predicting outbreaks of vital importance. Considerable information is still being discovered about Vibrio ecology, therefore additional studies of Vibrio in the marine environment are necessary. Previous relationships between Vibrio species, the planktonic community, and environmental factors have been described, but these relationships have not been explored in Tampa Bay. Zooplankton tows were performed at six different locations in Tampa Bay. Three sites were located in the inner bay, while three were closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Whole water samples and environmental parameters were also collected from each site. Zooplankton samples were separated into two classes: copepods and copepod nauplii and resuspended in sterile saline. Whole water samples were diluted to 101, 10mL, and 20mL. Zooplankton and water samples were vacuum filtered, and the filter paper plated on Thiosulfate-Citrate-Bile-Sucrose (TCBS) agar plates. The plates were incubated at 37 C for 24 hours and assessed for growth. Associations between Vibrio and the planktonic community, as well as patterns in environmental factors provide valuable insight to the bacterial community of Tampa Bay.Item Busyness and Cognition in Undergraduate Students: End-of-Semester versus Beginning-of-Semester Cognitive Performance(Department of Psychology, University of Tampa, 2022-12) Mryczko, Danusia; Brown, Tina; Sara B. FestiniStudents frequently report feeling more stress at the end-of-the-semester versus the beginning-of-the-semester (Kofman et al., 2006). Whether this results in worse cognition has not been thoroughly investigated. The current study measured three types of cognition, including long-term memory, working memory, and executive functioning. We assessed whether undergraduates’ stress and busyness levels and cognitive performance was different between the end of the Fall 2020 and beginning of the Spring 2021 semester. Contrary to the hypotheses, no significant point-in-semester differences were found in undergraduates’ busyness or stress levels at the beginning versus end of the semester. Mixed results were observed for cognitive performance, such that no significant differences were found for picture recall, word recall, picture recognition or letter number sequencing. Performance on the verbal fluency category task and the backward digit span task were found to approach significance, with marginally better performance at the end of the semester. Finally, word recognition was significantly better at the end of the semester, whereas verbal fluency, given a letter cue, was significantly worse at the end of the semester. Therefore, given the lack of observed busyness and stress differences, it is unlikely that busyness and stress are driving differences in students’ cognition. Future research is needed to determine if the observed cognitive differences are reliable and to assess additional mechanisms.Item Comparative Analysis of Triclosan Resistance in E. coli, S. aureus, and S. cerevisiae(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2015) Michael L. Koren; Omari M. Richins; Eric C. FreundtThe introduction of antibiotics into everyday life has led to untreatable infections because some bacteria are resistant to nearly all forms of antibiotics. One antimicrobial, triclosan, has been used for over 30 years in an attempt to control microbe growth on commercial products. In this study, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were used as model organisms to demonstrate the effects of triclosan on gram-negative, gram-positive, and eukaryotic organisms, respectively. The organisms were grown in a 96-well plate that contained serial dilutions of triclosan. This study propagated triclosan resistance over several generations, which could provide insight into which group of organisms are more susceptible or resistant to triclosan. The results of this study showed that E. coli is sensitive to triclosan, whereas S. aureus and S. cerevisiae demonstrated higher levels of resistance.Item Comparison of Antibiotic Susceptibility of Bacterial Communities on Cell Phones Belonging to Health Care Workers and Non-Health Care Workers(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2016) Matt Guillemette, Zachary Rivera; Eric FreundtThe frequent use of cell phones inside of health care facilities produces a risk of contamination of the phones with potentially pathogenic bacteria. The elevated use of antibiotics within these health care facilities may also contribute to heightened levels of antibiotic resistant strains on these devices. To assess this, bacterial samples were collected from health care workers’ and non-health care workers’ cell phones. The bacterial isolates were assessed for antibiotic resistance via the Kirby-Bauer method. Eleven out of nineteen of the bacterial isolates from the health care workers cell phones displayed resistance to at least one antibiotic. According to our study, the lower amount of resistance of the bacteria isolated from the health care worker samples compared to the non-health care worker samples leads us to conclude that there is not a higher prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria on health care workers’ phones.Item Determining Chemical Homogeneity of the Open Cluster NGC 752 through High-Resolution Abundance Analysis(Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics, College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2019) Rodriguez, Omar; Dr. Simon SchulerUsing high-resolution, high-signal-to-noise ratio Keck/HIRES spectra, we have derived the temperature and pressure structure, and elemental abundances of the atmosphere of six stars believed to be in the galactic open cluster NGC 752. Three of the stars are main-sequence dwarfs, and three are evolved red giant stars. We find the iron abundances to have an average value of [Fe=H] = -0:01 (on a scale where the Sun has an iron abundance of [Fe=H] = 0) with a standard deviation of 0.02 dex, providing evidence that the molecular cloud from which these stars formed was chemically homogeneous. We also derived the abundances of carbon, oxygen, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, and nickel to further demonstrate this claim. Additional derivation of the star’s nitrogen abundance will be performed, and an analysis of the abundances will be done by testing stellar nucleosynthesis models.Item Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2015) Ethan DeneaultItem Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2016) Ethan DeneaultItem Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2017) Ethan Deneault; CNHSItem Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2019) Deneault, EthanItem Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2022-12) Deneault, Dr. EthanItem Editor's Note(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2021) Deneault, EthanItem The Effect of Flow Rates on Predation of Donax variabilis by Luidia clathrata(Department of Biology, University of Tampa, 2021) Cacace, Rachel; Detmering, Sarah; Vaillancourt, GabrielleThe slender armed sea star (Luidia clathrata) and coquina (Donax variabilis) are found along the shorelines of the temperate waters of Tampa Bay. Sea stars have heightened reception to chemical cues and the intermediate disturbance hypothesis was tested in this study. Different induced flow w rates similar to those in Tampa Bay (stagnant, low flow fow, and high flow w) were tested on predation choice of sea stars on coquina clams. This experiment was achieved by using a flow w bar in a ten-gallon tank of synthetic seawater kept at 34 parts per thousand (ppt). One dead and one live coquina were placed on opposite ends of the tank, and the seastar was placed in the center. Flow rates were changed over a series of treatments, and each feeding regime was timed. The findings of this study suggest that there is no significant difference in flow w rate when compared to predation time, as well as no association between prey choice (dead vs. alive) and flow w rate. Additionally, behavior on choice was observed and found that there was no significant difference in flow w rate and foraging behavior. These findings indicate that predation on coquina by slender armed sea star is not dependent on flow w rate and that there is no association of prey choice. Results should be used to propagate further research on other observed predators to determine if these organisms purposely choose the scavenging technique in order to expend less energy on feeding behaviors.Item Effects of Academic and Social Engagement on Episodic Memory in Young Adults(Department of Psychology, University of Tampa, 2021) Ramsdell, Kassandra; Sara B. FestiniResearch on older adults has shown that those who are busier and live a more engaged lifestyle show cognitive benefits versus those who are less busy. Episodic memory, in particular, tends to show the largest relationship to busyness in older adults. However, whether this relationship exists in young adults is still unknown. In Study 1, college-age participants completed an engagement questionnaire, a word pair association test, a face-name association test, and other measures of stress and busyness. Study 2 replicated the procedure of Study 1 and additionally examined the impact of alcohol use and sleep deprivation. Contrary to hypotheses, both studies indicated that neither academic nor social engagement was significantly related to episodic memory in young adults. We propose that young adults may generally be busier than older adults and therefore less susceptible to the influence of engagement.Item The Effects of Birth Order on Academic Success(College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education, The University of Tampa, 2015) Erin McNally and Erica YuenThis study examines the relationship between birth order and college GPA, high school GPA, SAT scores, anxiety level, and self-esteem. We hypothesized that eldest children would have higher college and high school GPAs, higher SAT scores, lower anxiety levels, and higher self-esteem compared to middle, youngest, and only children. The sample consisted of 127 students from General Psychology and Gateways (freshmen orientation) classes who completed a demographic survey, academic performance survey, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Results of a one-way ANOVA demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between birth order and college GPA. However, the analyses for high school GPA, SAT scores, anxiety level, and self-esteem yielded statistically insignificant results.Item The Efficacy of natural Antimicrobials and Antibiotics on Staphylococcus aureus and an Unknown Environmental Isolate(College of Natural and Health Sciences, The University of Tampa, 2016) Keith Gandy, Danielle Oddo, Danielle Pett; Eric FreundtThe problem of antibiotic resistance is growing increasingly prominent as more microbes are evolving to evade traditional antibiotics. New antibiotics and treatments against virulent bacteria are becoming a necessity in the medical community. In this experiment, antimicrobial properties of homeopathic compounds were tested. Tea tree oil and apple cider vinegar were compared with three common antibiotics: vancomycin, erythromycin and cephalothin. These compounds were tested against the possibly virulent bacteria Staphylococcus aureus as well as an environmentally isolated strain that was identified to be a gram positive streptobacillus. The results of this experiment demonstrated that the homeopathic compounds created zones of inhibition. The zone diameter directly correlated with the susceptibility or resistance of that particular colony to the antibiotic. The zones from the homeopathic medicines and the antibiotic disks of vancomycin, cephalothin, and erythromycin were compared. The largest zones of inhibition with Staphylococcus aureus and the environmental isolate were generated by cephalothin. Although traditional antibiotics displayed the greatest antimicrobial properties, our results suggest that homeopathic compounds can successfully inhibit growth of potential pathogenic bacteria and should be considered for future clinical applications.Item Examining the First Ultra-Compact Dwarf with a Resolved Extended Halo(Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics, University of Tampa, 2022-12) Jones, Allison; Denija CrnojevicUltra-compact dwarf galaxies are a class of compact galaxies and are among the densest stellar systems in the Universe (Seth et al. , 2014). Since these ultra-compact dwarfs (UCDs) have only been discovered in the last two decades, their formation is still unknown Pfeffer et al. (2014). One hypothesis for their formation, the motive behind this research, is that UCD originate as Nuclear Star Clusters (NSCs) in the central regions of low-mass galaxies, and they develop into these ultra-compact objects after gravitational interaction with a more massive galaxy (Evstigneeva et al. , 2007). In order to investigate whether or not this hypothesis is true, the first step is to determine if these UCDs have any characteristics of a NSC. The UCD that we focused on throughout this research is CenA-MM-UCD1, which lies in the halo of its host galaxy Centaurus A. CenA-MM-UCD1 was selected for further study because it is the first ultra-compact dwarf that has a resolved extended halo. This is a sign that this galaxy could be in a state of disruption from its host galaxy and, based on our hypothesis, could be transitioning from a NSC to a UCD. Throughout this study of CenA-MM-UCD1, we use images from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine if our hypothesis is true.
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