UMTC Undergraduate Research Presentations and Papers (UROP)

Persistent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11299/45101

This collection contains posters, scholarly papers, and other presentations prepared by undergraduate researchers, including presentations made at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, the McNair Scholars Symposium, and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Additional undergraduate work can be found in the Homecoming Student Scholar and Public Engagement Showcase

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How Brazilian Legal Actors Debate the Rise of Negotiated Justice
(2025-11-28) Duarte Possebon, Daphine
This study investigates how Brazilian legal actors interpret and debate the rise of negotiated justice and the influence of American criminal law, particularly following the introduction of the Acordo de Não Persecução Penal (ANPP) under Law 13.964/2019. Drawing on 68 articles published in IBCCRIM newsletters from 1993 to 2025, the research employs qualitative content analysis using NVivo to code legal commentaries by tone, theme, and argumentative focus. The findings reveal a shift in perceptions over time: while early debates were predominantly skeptical (emphasizing concerns over prosecutorial power, due process, and the risks of importing U.S. models) later discussions became more pragmatic, viewing the ANPP as a tool compatible with Brazil’s civil law traditions and judicial oversight. This transformation suggests that Brazilian legal actors have progressively redefined negotiated justice as both an efficiency mechanism and a culturally adapted practice rather than a direct transplantation of plea bargaining. Ultimately, the study highlights how evolving professional interpretations mirror broader tensions between fairness, efficiency, and the localization of global legal norms within Brazil’s constitutional framework.
Inflation’s Hidden Tax: The Erosion of Real Per-Pupil Education Funding, 2003–2025
(2025-11-30) Otto, Tessa
This paper quantifies the impact of inflation and economic shocks on school funding formulas in Minnesota, specifically examining the discrepancy between nominal budget increases and the real purchasing power of those funds. Using Nominal State Aid Per Average Adjusted Daily Membership (AADM) data adjusted by the Implicit Price Deflator (IPD), the analysis spans 22 years (FY2003–FY2025). The study confirms that nominal funding increases have failed to keep pace with rising costs, resulting in a severe erosion of real funding capacity. Over the period, nominal funding grew by 66.2%, but the IPD-adjusted real value declined by 19.7%, resulting in a total cumulative loss of 85.9 percentage points in real funding capacity. The statistical analysis using two-sample t-tests reveals that major economic events–the 2008 Recession and post-COVID inflation–caused statistically significant, permanent negative shifts in the rate of funding erosion. Concluding that policymakers must adopt cost-appropriate inflation indexes and regularly revise budgets to prevent further disinvestment in public education.
Creativity, Well-Being, and Self-Determination Theory in Adolescent Depression
(2025-11-18) Useche Paredes, Natalia; Taniguchi, Yuko
Adolescent depressive disorders have increased significantly over the past decade, highlighting the need for accessible and effective mental health interventions. Creativity Camp is a creative arts–based program designed to reduce depressive symptoms in adolescents. Previous implementations of the program utilized the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Flourishing Scale to assess participants’ mental health, with findings indicating a significant reduction in depressive symptoms from pre- to post-camp. The present study aims to extend this work by exploring the motivation underlying adolescents’ participation, using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a guiding framework. SDT proposes that intrinsic motivation is supported by three psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. To examine these factors, the Artist Mindset Survey was administered, with each item aligned to one of the three SDT components. Baseline depressive symptoms were measured through parent and youth completion of the CDI and Flourishing Scale prior to the start of the camp. Throughout the program, participants completed the Artist Mindset Survey after each session to track fluctuations in autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Upon completion of Creativity Camp, both parents and adolescents again completed the CDI and Flourishing Scale to assess changes in depressive symptoms. Findings demonstrate a consistent decrease in depressive symptoms following participation in Creativity Camp. Measures of SDT remained relatively stable, suggesting that autonomy, relatedness, and competence may function as underlying motivational factors influencing adolescents’ engagement in the program. These results support the potential of creative arts interventions to promote well-being in youth experiencing depressive symptoms.
ML-based Attack on Digitally Authenticated RSA Algorithm via Model Estimation: A Comparative Evaluation of Neural Network Architectures
(2025-11-13) Nguyen, Aurelius
In this paper, we evaluate whether deep learning can learn the number theoretic structure needed to factor RSA semiprimes, with the objective of comparing architectures and feature designs for accuracy, efficiency, and generalization. We study four models: a Dual Output LSTM with binary inputs, an Enhanced Transformer with 107 to 117 mathematical features, a Hybrid CNN RNN, and a Factorization GAN. Datasets are built by exhaustive enumeration: for each upper bound between ten to the third and ten to the sixth, every integer is tested and kept if it has exactly two prime factors, yielding complete corpora of ten to twenty bit semiprimes. Performance is measured with beta k metrics defined by Hamming distance, where beta k counts predictions within k bit errors of the true factor and beta zero is exact match. On the large scale dataset, the Factorization GAN attains the highest exact match accuracy, 53.7 percent, with only 700 thousand parameters. Enhanced feature models exceed 91 percent within four bit tolerance. Training takes 89 seconds to 2.6 hours per model per scale. These findings suggest that deep learning, adversarial training, and mathematical feature engineering may enhance factor prediction performance and offer promising directions for integrating machine learning with classical cryptanalysis.
Microbial Decomposition with a Side of Tea; Understanding how trophic interactions shape atmosphere-soil carbon flux rates
(2025) Wollaeger, Anna; Cappelli, Seraina; Borer, Elizabeth
Effects of a Synthetic Queen Mandibular Pheromone on Emergency Queen Rearing in the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)
(2025-09-29) Anderson, Lilja; Lee, Katie
This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of an artificial queen pheromone (TempQueen) in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies that lack a queen to ensure that beekeepers are not using a product that is an unnecessary expense. Honey bee queens signal their presence in a colony by a specialized pheromone called Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP). In the absence of this signal, honey bee workers will initiate emergency queen rearing, in which they raise many queen cells to increase the chance that one new queen bee will be viable. This process can take a month before a new queen begins laying eggs, which can inhibit pollination services and honey production. Beekeepers who financially rely on their colonies may use an artificial QMP, a product called “TempQueen,” as a false signal of queen presence so that workers will continue to be productive. However, there is no data supporting the claims TempQueen advertises. This study looks at if TempQueen stops a colony from raising queen cells in the claimed product exposure time of three weeks due to a lack of other queen-presence signals. Queenless colonies provided with TempQueen not only raised queen cells, but did not raise a significantly different number of queen cells compared to colonies that did not receive TempQueen. This is consistent with other studies and supports the hypothesis that queens have an additional signal that indicates her presence to worker bees.
A Multiyear Content Analysis of US Newspaper Coverage of Chronic Wasting Disease
(2025-09-28) Lachinski, Melia
This project examines media coverage of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin in the years 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. A content analysis was performed on the sentence level of news articles published in Wisconsin in these years for key terms related to knowledge shared and information attribution, disease taxonomy and comparisons, and management actions to determine how coverage of these trends changed over time. It was found that opinions attributed to hunters became more and more prominent in coverage over time, publications relied less on comparing the disease to similar diseases and adopted specific language in describing the disease, and attention to management actions increased.
Aged isoform-specific and total LynKO mice develop sex-biased kidney disease
(2025-09-24) Boerboom, Evan; Sauer, Monica; Freedman, Tanya
Effects of interferon signaling on T cell development
(2025-08-31) Stocke, Jolie; Manoharan Valerio, Michael; Hogquist, Kris
Increasing Resolution of Mandibular Variation in Geomyoid Rodents Using Geometric Morphometrics
(2025-08-29) Johnson, Brendan
Selection of Mobile Phase for an LC-MS/MS Method to Quantify Four Anti-Seizure Medications in Human Plasma
(2025-08-28) Garrity, Shannon N.; Brown, Jennifer; Birnbaum, Angela K.; Lizotte, Cade S.; Sriwijaya, Jason; University of Minnesota. Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology
Associations Between Expressed Parent Affect and Child Behavior Difficulties
(2025-08-28) Shankar, Shreya; Palmer, Alyssa; Berry, Daniel
Methodology for Characterizing Bilateral Coordination Impairments Across Different Task Demands in Children with Cerebral Palsy
(2025-08) McPhee, Megan; Hawe, Rachel
Investigating the protective role of testosterone in sex specific differences of immune regulation in lupus
(2025-08-18) Quach, Kaylyn; Sauer, Monica; Freedman, Tanya
Queer Afro-Asian Relationality: The Phenomenon of Ballroom Culture in China
(2025-08-15) Fezzey, Claudia
With the popularization of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and other queer media, many aspects of queer culture have been absorbed into the mainstream, including ballroom culture (conversationally known as ballroom). A traditionally Afro-Latine American artform, ballroom holds roots in twentieth-century New York City where it was pioneered and cultivated by gender-nonconforming people of color—particularly Black transgender women—who were some of the most extensively disenfranchised individuals in society. Since its inception, ballroom’s reach has extended not only nationally, but internationally, as well. This paper will investigate and analyze the dissemination of ballroom in China, particularly the blurred line of appropriation versus appreciation within ballroom; the nuanced racial politics of Afro-Asian relationality; and the imperialist undertones of the Global North’s influence on queerness.
Evaluating the Sex-Specific Differences in Hippocampal Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain Protein Expression Following Fetal-Neonatal Iron-Deficiency
(2025-08-21) Jensen, Hadley; Bailard, Julie; Bastian, Thomas
Exploring Student Anxiety and Workload in Active Learning and Flipped Classroom Environments
(2025-08-15) Lacks, Simone; Willis, Charlie; Steele, Ariel
The goal of this research project was to gain a deeper understanding of how the workload in active learning flipped classrooms impacts students' stress and how, in turn, they manage that stress. Active learning, flipped classrooms are typically highly structured with regular scaffolded assignments outside of class and activity, problem-based group work in class (Akınoğlu & Tandoğan, 2006; Driessen et al, 2020Amiel & Orey, 2006). While this structured environment has been shown to improve student learning, less is known about its impact on student mental health.
UROP Public Presentation: A Vision for Testing Traffic Signal Control Algorithms
(2025-08-16) Laddha, Chaitanya
Traffic signal controllers (TSCs) are systems that coordinate the traffic lights at intersections. The traffic signal control algorithms (TSCAs) regulating TSCs are configured to minimize the time waited by vehicles at intersections. However, if misconfigured, TSCAs can cause issues such as traffic jams, unnecessary pollution, and increase in drivers’ frustration. Traditionally, traffic engineers configure TSCAs based on observed or expected traffic demands. The available observations and the knowledge about expected traffic demands can be limited, and, therefore, TSCAs can behave poorly when demands deviate from the configuration-time assumptions. This poster presents our vision for a systematic approach to validate traffic signal controller algorithms (or their generated configurations) via automated testing. Realizing our vision is far from trivial. TSCAs operate in networks of interconnected intersections that influence each other and make use of analytic approaches impractical. Consequently, testing TSCAs requires using traffic simulations, which are time consuming and difficult to configure manually. The simulated traffic must be feasible and realistic to be valuable to traffic engineers.
Evaluation of Microbial Recovery Methods and E. coli Response Using pH Adjustment as an Alternative Sterilization Method for a Liquid Solution
(2025-08-15) Navarro, Daniel J.; Bernemann, Carolyn; Wright, Natasha
The overall purpose of this research was to analyze alternative sterilization methods for liquid solutions, which would minimize cost and energy, in comparison to common terminal heat sterilization. The impact of this research was twofold: (1) To compare membrane filtration and spread plating as recovery methods. (2) Evaluate the response of E. coli inside glucose saline when brought to an extreme pH level (pH 12) by means of pH adjustment. An initial test to compare both recovery methods' results was conducted by sampling glucose saline and water spiked with K12 E. coli. Concentration results were consistent for membrane filtration samples, while spread plate samples showed high standard deviations between samples, likely due to solutes in glucose saline increasing bacterial growth during incubation. pH adjustment testing used spread plating due to the speed and lower expense for high quantity initial testing. The efficacy of pH adjustment to inactivate E. coli was tested over 48 hours, comparing concentrations in glucose saline adjusted to an extreme pH level (pH 12) to glucose saline with an unadjusted pH level (pH 5.5-6.0). E. coli was inactivated immediately at pH 12. Future testing will be conducted to understand the effectiveness of pH adjustment to inactivate E. coli in glucose saline at other pH level extremes (2, 4, 10).
The Human Presence of Legacy News on Social Media Platforms
(2025) Marse, Atticus
This research focuses on two key dimensions: the prevalence of on-screen speakers and the variety of video formats utilized. A dataset of 160 videos, with 80 from each category, was collected and analyzed. The methodology employed a two-proportion Z-test to compare on-screen speaker presence and a Pearson's Chi-square test to examine differences in video format distribution. Findings revealed a statistically significant divergence in content strategies. Influencers featured a main speaker on screen in a majority of their videos, a rate substantially higher than the 53.75% observed in legacy news content. Furthermore, a significant difference was found in video formats (p < 0.001), with influencers exclusively using "Report" and "Detailed Report" styles, while legacy organizations employed a wider array of formats, including "Press Conference" and "Raw Footage with Text Overlay." These results suggest a fundamental shift in digital news delivery, where influencers prioritize a personalized, narrative-driven approach to build parasocial relationships and foster audience trust, contrasting with legacy media's retention of formats that emphasize direct documentation of events. The study’s findings highlight a critical tension between the demands of engaging short-form video and traditional journalistic practices, with important implications for information literacy and the spread of misinformation in the evolving news ecosystem.

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