Session I

The apoptosis inducing factor (AIF) affects cell death from an alternate pathway than usual. AIF is involved in important pathways in diseases such as HIV and in early childhood development problems. AIF content in cells can be seen by the resistance the cells have to serum starvation and other types of cell death. We can use this as a marker ... Read More

Dealer Fox is a start-up that provides data visualization for advertisements of car dealerships online to help increase efficiency of sales. The business project was to create a mobile application to display car dealerships’ individual data. The final use of this app was to distribute to individual dealerships, who would see their data on a company-given iPad. The deliverables were ... Read More

LEAP Innovations is a non for profit aimed at promoting education in the Chicago Public Schools district. They do this by teaching their personalized learning framework to teachers in schools who have joined the program. They also facilitate the cooperation of schools with Edtechs such as BrainPOP and Renaissance. While researching the modes of communication that happen inside the LEAP ... Read More

The IMSA Entrepreneurship Program at the Steve and Jaime Chen Center of Innovation and Inquiry. The business phenomena for this project included examining the market for entrepreneurship learning and programs for youth (grades 7-12) locally (Kane County), across the state (IL), and nationally (USA) and well as develop our market knowledge, understanding, and provide recommendations on how to develop ... Read More

The main focus of this study is to roughly estimate the number of earth-sized habitable planets within the Milky Way galaxy. Along with this, we will determine the detection efficiency of the Kepler space telescope. We already know the number of earth-sized planets that were detected by Kepler. However, the Kepler telescope’s instruments are not perfectly precise, and in order ... Read More

Since the mid-1990s, gentrification has been a popular area of sociological study, typically in discussion of the immediate and delayed effects of gentrification. There is a general consensus among professionals that gentrification is a natural economic occurrence motivated by low property value in desirable areas and a surplus of capital from investors. However, independent of governmental subsidies and tax incentives, ... Read More

In this study, we chose to target the Isocitrate Lyase 1(ICL-1) gene as a possible target for the treatment of tuberculosis. We took this approach because ICL-1 allows the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria to skip some of the steps in the KREBS cycle, which gives it the ability to survive in low-oxygen environments. The ICL-1 gene found in M. tuberculosis was ... Read More

The purpose of this project is to determine the crystal structures of commercial pharmaceuticals using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and computational chemistry techniques. Currently, we are analyzing four molecules with unpublished structures used to treat common maladies: tamsulosin hydrochloride (benign prostatic hyperplasia), pantoprazole sodium (gastric reflux disease), ipratropium bromide (COPD and asthma), and doxepin (chronic depression). Knowledge of the ... Read More

Cucurbiturils (CB[n]) are macrocyclic compounds made from glycoluril monomers. They have the potential to act as host molecules in the formation of host-guest complexes with an array of substrates, including amino acids, hydrocarbons, and halogenated aromatic compounds. Cucurbit[6]uril (CB[6]) and Cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) were synthesized and characterized. Their ability to act as host complexes with both coumarin-1 dye and biphenyl was ... Read More

Our goal was to investigate the geological makeup of IMSA’s campus through drilling near No-Pond. First, the surficial geology of the area was examined using previously drawn maps of both the surficial and subterranean geology. From there, we were able to determine the ideal depth and location to drill: 25ft deep and west of No-Pond. Subsequently, when we went out ... Read More

GANs—generative adversarial networks—are neural networks that are composed of two parts, the generative network and the discriminative network, which compete to generate images or other forms of media. In GANs, the generative network produces images, while the discriminative network provides the probability that the image is real. As these networks compete against each other, they are both learning to be ... Read More

Harmonic gears, which consist of a fixed outer gear with a flexible inner gear that rotates around by a motor, causing the teeth of the gears to contact, can have many functions, but many of these functions cannot be done because the harmonic gears are too heavy to use for smaller machines and too expensive for consumers to regularly use. ... Read More

With recent technological advances, personal unmanned aerial vehicles are a cheap alternative for flight. The combination of UAVs and multispectral sensors have many benefits for the world. It can be used for search and rescue operations or even revolutionize calibrated photogrammetry 3D modeling. The research our group focuses on the benefits this combination has for agriculture. A drone can carry ... Read More

Several existing programs claim to improve cognitive function through training that exercises different parts of the brain. Lumosity, My Brain Trainer, and Braingle are all online programs with exercises that test memory, reflexes, and other functions with the goal of making them faster and more accurate. However, some believe that because these programs rely on a computer screen, their effectiveness ... Read More

There are plenty of books that are marketed as Afrofuturism, however, the definition of the genre is constantly changing. In addition, many of the papers in discourse about what Afrofuturism is are done by academics from outside of the community of Afrofuturistic writers. This paper asks the question: what are the forces that define Afrofuturism for both readers and for ... Read More

The experiences that occur in the lives of students nearing adolescence greatly influence the way they choose to act. Therefore, a curriculum was developed for middle school students reaching the age of adolescence, aiming to educate and inform these students on what it means to be culturally competent and the importance of a culturally competent society which they have the ... Read More

The advent of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has prompted scientists to search for alternatives to combat infections. A leading alternative to antibiotics is bacterial viruses, or bacteriophages. A major drawback to the usage of bacteriophages are the potential for the virus to enter the lysogenic cycle. Bacteriophages go through the lysogenic cycle when there is a lack of potential hosts to infect ... Read More

Insulitis is caused by a pathway of inflammatory steps lead predominantly by Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF), Interferon Gamma (INF-y), and Interleukin 1 beta (IL-1b). Within Type 1 diabetes, an inflammatory disease, these same cytokines have been linked to the progression of this condition both within the immune system, and at a cellular level. It has been determined that by neutralizing ... Read More

City Segment/Aurora Collective is dedicated to connecting the business community in the greater Aurora area in networking and educational events, serving a wide range of business verticals and industries. The work of this project included social media management of the business “Ugliest Website Contest” which is an offering to small business owners.

Emailing developers, researching why websites are important to ... Read More

VisMed3D is a biomedical and technology company with a focus in the areas of determining concept viability with healthcare consulting, assurance services involving malpractice and IP patent review, and 3D printing services ranging from custom prosthetics and dental fabrication. The work included how to design and apply organization elements to the company website and social media medical pages for industry ... Read More

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly invasive brain tumor that exhibits a resistance to all the current forms of cancer therapy, therefore making it virtually untreatable and lethal. A potential effective treatment for GBM is boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), a binary cancer radiation therapy involving the irradiation of 10B-enriched compounds introduced into cancer cells. Unfortunately, BNCT lacks a ... Read More

Bacterial communities present in diverse environmental conditions can respond to signals or stresses using quorum sensing (QS). QS involves production of a signal that can be recognized via cell surface or internal receptors. We are focused on a small family of transcriptional regulators called Rgg and their cognate small hydrophobic peptides (SHP), specifically, three predicted QS systems present in ... Read More

Among cancer deaths in women, ovarian cancer ranks fifth in lethality. Survivors often experience relapse where the cancer comes back due to chemoresistant cells, allowing some cells to survive the initial treatment. The overall goal of this study is to research the IL-13Ra1 gene and its role in chemoresistant ovarian cancer cells. Using quantitative PCR (qPCR), we know that ... Read More

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (MTB) is the pathogenic bacteria responsible for Tuberculosis (TB). In recent years, the bacteria has become drug-resistant, which is a severe problem because of the deadliness of TB in developing countries. One of the enzymes that is responsible for spreading TB in the body is Isocitrate Lyase (ICL). In this study, our goal was to edit the ... Read More

In the search for contact interactions and large extra dimensions, one of the first steps is organizing large amounts of raw data from the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment and Monte Carlo events. A data management structure called an ntuple was created to select only variables of interest. We made substantial changes to the existing program to make it easier ... Read More

The data we have at our disposal is massive, and for years industry has been at a loss for how to process the data we have into a meaningful story. Machine learning is a crucial method that has recently been changing how we interpret that data, making more efficient and informed products and services.

It’s important to develop effective ... Read More

Superbugs are becoming more and more of a problem in the modern world. These superbugs, resistant to most known antibiotics and antimicrobials, cause well known drugs to be less effective. Though there are corporate pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs, many of these companies are focused on products that will make them the most money rather than what is required ... Read More

The idea that the universe may have more than three dimensions originally assumed the extra dimensions appeared at the scale of the Planck length. However, Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos, and Dvali proposed a theory of extra dimensions as large as a millimeter that could help explain why gravity is much weaker than other interactions in the Standard Model. Large extra dimensions modify ... Read More

With the utilization of machine learning, computers have been able to efficiently classify data. Deep learning, a division of machine learning, uses multiple nonlinear processing units. Convolutional neural networks are a machine learning model patterned after the structure of an animal’s visual cortex. In our project, deep learning and convolutional neural networks were both used to distinguish cosmic rays, artifacts ... Read More

Orthopedic implant loosening is one of the main causes for the high number of revision surgeries after primary hip and knee joint replacement surgery (arthroplasty). Implant loosening is often the result of implant wear particles that trigger peri-implant bone loss (osteolysis). There has been growing evidence suggesting that changes in the gut microbiome can induce changes in bone. The ... Read More

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a type of liver cancer, is the second leading cause of mortality by cancer worldwide. Advanced or chronic stages of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection have exacerbated the lethal effects of HCC. Direct-acting antivirals and other interferon-free (IFN) therapies have successfully treated HCV. However, there is increasing evidence of patients who have received these treatments experiencing ... Read More

The idea that Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) constitute the majority of dark matter was revived in 2015 by LIGO’s detection of the merger of two ~30 solar mass black holes. We can search for PBHs via gravitational microlensing, a phenomenon which occurs when a PBH passes in front of a star, forming an Einstein ring and increasing the apparent ... Read More

Many flower breeders require hues that do not exist in the breeds that they are working with. Three pigments -- anthocyanins, betalains, and carotenoids -- along with pH, chemical structure, metal ions, and copigmentation all work together to contribute to flower color, and the analysis of these factors can provide the information needed to produce novel colors with selective breeding. ... Read More

The Mixed Lineage Leukemia gene (MLL gene) is classified as a histone methyltransferase in the family of histone-modifying enzymes (Shilatifard 2012). It directly influences developmental regulation by controlling the gene expression necessary for embryonic and hematopoietic stem cell development (Shilatifard 2012). While the normal MLL1 gene, a member of the MLL gene family, functions in development, the mutated version has ... Read More

With the rise of the Sabermetrics era in modern Major League Baseball, the sport has shifted toward statistics and quantitative data science as a way to measure performance and predict future outcomes. Specifically, one area that has not been studied in depth is the relationship between pitch usage and whiff rates (analyzing how much different pitches are thrown compared ... Read More

In past years, several arguments have been made about the molecules that affect chromosome separation. This SIR investigation focused on the recent advances in primary interface between the kinetochore and kMTs. Prior research has shown that proper mitotic chromosome alignment and separation require kinetochore-microtubule attachments, which are mediated by Ndc80, a kMT binding complex, as well as the molecular motor ... Read More

Bison are a keystone species of native grasslands, and their effects on them are well documented. However, native prairies in the United States are shrinking. and remnant prairies are spreading. Due to differences in soil composition, plant and animal diversity, and other factors, how exactly bison impact remnant prairies are unclear. Recently, advancements in drone technology may have opened up ... Read More

Affecting nearly 25% of diabetes patients, Painful Diabetic Neuropathy (PDN) is a complication of diabetes that occurs due to the hyperexcitability of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) receptors. Much like hyperalgesia, PDN is accompanied with high, excruciating levels of neuropathic pain and the development of small-fiber degeneration. Previous studies have linked DRG neurons expressing the Nav1.8 sodium channel with the ... Read More

Recognition of microbes or microbial products by plant receptors induces signaling cascades that prime broad-spectrum defense responses to suppress subsequent infections. In the primed state, plants are prepared to activate stronger defense responses more quickly than unprimed plants when challenged by pathogens and other stresses. An essential component of systemic priming is the protein AZI1, a member of the ... Read More

It has been increasingly popular for venues (e.g., restaurants) to collaborate with advertisers on the provision of public Wi-Fi services. The venues’ visitors can watch the advertisers’ ads in exchange for free Wi-Fi access, and the venue owners charge the advertisers for the ad display. In this work, we consider competition in advertising-sponsored Wi-Fi provision. Two venue owners with overlapping ... Read More

Obesity is a common health condition where there is an excess and often dangerously high amount of fat in the body, measured by a Body Mass Index (BMI) above 30.0. We hypothesized that obesity may have a significant negative impact of the process of wound healing, the process of wound closure by the formation of new tissue. This hypothesis ... Read More

In the Standard Model, quarks and leptons are understood to be fundamental particles. However, they have been theorized to be composite, made up of constituent particles called preons. These constituent particles would interact in contact interactions according to an energy scale Λ, which would result a non-resonant enhancement in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum when compared to current Standard ... Read More

In order for robots to safely navigate their environments, they must be able to utilize a variety of sensory input to determine proper actions to take. Through the use of advanced perception algorithms, robots are able to analyze multi-modal observations about their environment. The Duckietown project serves as a way to simulate this artificial intelligence process on a simpler ... Read More

Herpes simplex viruses (HSV) are one of the most ubiquitous pathogens with approximately 90% global seroprevalence. Recurrent infections lead to painful ulcerative keratitis and lesions in the ocular, oro-facial and genital regions in latently infected individuals. Currently there is only one approved treatment, acyclovir, which acts via the inhibition of a single aspect of viral life cycle, viral DNA ... Read More

The AβO hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), which states that brain damage in AD is instigated by the soluble form of ligand-like oligomeric Aβ has emerged from the discovery that fibril-free preparations of AβO’s led to rapid LTP inhibition, as well as neuronal cell death. Since this observation, AβO’s have been determined to accumulate in human and animal CNS ... Read More

Calculating the lower limit on the energy scale Λ of preon interactions requires a parameterization of the number of expected events in a bin as a function of Λ. Monte Carlo invariant mass distributions are generated for different values of Λ for each helicity, interference, lepton type, and detector location. These plots can be fit in each bin to ... Read More

Antimicrobial resistance has become a prevalent phenomenon and now poses a great threat to public health. To combat the growing threat of such illnesses, several researchers have tested for new microbes from the soil that exhibit antimicrobial properties against these newly resistant pathogens. Our drug discovery project expands on the work of these previous studies and aims to identify ... Read More

A convolutional neural network is a system of interconnected information nodes that is used for image recognition and classification problems in computer science. Random Input Sampling for Explanation of Black-box models, otherwise known as RISE, is a program that generates a saliency map indicating how important each pixel of an image is for the classification algorithm of a convolutional ... Read More

All superconducting cavities must be submerged in liquid helium cooled to 2-4 degrees Kelvin where they have good superconducting properties. The ability to cool these cavities requires significant cryogenic resources. Using niobium-tin as a film on the interior of the cavity reduces the heat generated allowing the cavities to operate at 4 Kelvin, thus saving money and resources. This ... Read More

Osteoporosis (loss of bone mass) is a common disease that leads to a loss of bone mass and an increase in risk of bone fracture. Current drugs stop the progression of bone loss; although teriparatide and abaloparatide do promote bone growth, they increase osteosarcoma risk (Forteo) and have limitations on treatment time (Tymlos), so a new therapy is needed. ... Read More

Compelling evidence suggests that a relationship between air quality and health outcomes has already been established but has not been studied on a census-tract level. The objective of this research is to identify the phenomenon in the observed trends in a more specific manner and to measure and explore relationships of multiple health outcomes with particulate matter in the ... Read More