University of Minnesota Rochester

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Browsing University of Minnesota Rochester by Type "Presentation"

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    Accessing The Development Of The Horizontal Translation Visual Literacy Skill In Students Using Neural Networks
    (2022-09) Andrade, Vanessa A; Prat-Resina, Xavier; Terrell, Cassidy R; Morin, Chloé S; Contreras Vital, Juquila I
    Research shows that many students struggle with visual representations in molecular life science courses, which impacts their ability to learn the material. Currently, there is minimal research related to the development of students’ visual literacy neural networks. This study aims to understand how students’ neural networks evolve based on their chemistry and biochemistry course enrollment. For this study, students as well as experts took a survey in which their horizontal translation visual literacy skills were measured to make neural networks. Then, the students’ neural networks were analyzed across the chemistry and biochemistry curricula and compared to experts’ neural networks in order to answer the question: How do the neural networks of students change throughout the different curricula in comparison to experts? Utilizing Pathfinder, eccentricity values for each node were generated in which a low value signifies a node(s) is the most central node(s). Furthermore, the degree values indicate which node(s) has the highest degree of branching. With both these values, they can be used to look at whether the neural network of students are similar or different from the experts. These data could help create a curriculum for chemistry and biochemistry courses that could possibly improve students’ visual literacy skills.
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    The Organization of Learning: Measuring How Students Connect the Visual Literacy Skill of Vertically Translating the Oxygen Binding Concept
    (2022-08-27) Morin, Chloé S; Andrade, Vanessa; Contreras Vital, Juquila I; Prat-Resina, Xavier; Terrell, Cassidy R
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    Transdifferentiating Muscle Stem Cells into Brown Fat to Treat Metabolic Disorders
    (2023) Thiagarajan, Aparna; Chaudhry, Nabiha; Chan, Sunny
    Metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes, pose increasing global health challenges with limited long-term success from existing treatments, leading to high worldwide morbidity and mortality. Our project explored a novel approach to treat obesity by transdifferentiating muscle stem cells (MuSCs) into brown adipose tissue (BAT), which expends energy as heat, in contrast to white adipose tissue which stores energy as fat. The objective was to identify a specific MuSC subpopulation with an enhanced capacity to develop into BAT. The methods involved isolating MuSCs from mouse hindlimb muscles, sorting them into subpopulations based on Sca1 expression levels with fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), and growing them in a pro-adipogenic medium to induce brown adipocyte differentiation. We analyzed the efficiency of BAT transdifferentiation through morphological changes, immunostaining for brown adipocyte markers, and quantification of lipid droplets. Preliminary analysis from the first two experiments revealed no significant expression of BAT derived from MuSC in either the Sca1- or Sca1+ subpopulations, suggesting the need to modify the methods of future experiments to obtain more meaningful results.