Ryan Strauss
Faculty Sponsor: Raghu Ramanujan
Celebrating Student Research, Community Projects and Creative Work
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Ryan Strauss
Faculty Sponsor: Raghu Ramanujan
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Matthew Begley, Wilson Goode, Elizabeth Sasser
Faculty Sponsor: Kevin Smith
Habitat loss is known to decrease the biodiversity of an area. Some studies have used the Species-Area Relationship (SAR) to estimate this loss, but a study by Almeida and Smith (unpublished 2019) found that both the SAR and a rarefaction-based approach to estimating biodiversity loss underestimated the true cost of habitat loss. We analyze arthropod data from Almeida and Smith to determine the effect of this habitat loss on the family Hemiptera. In our study, rarefaction is found to closely predict the immediate biodiversity loss from a random 50% habitat removal treatment but underestimates the long-term effects of this removal. We calculate a Pe value, or probability of extinction, for each species of Hemiptera in our study based on random-chance removal by sample. Several species went “extinct” in our study despite low Pe values, which may represent selective forces rather than a random-chance decline in biodiversity.
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Catherine Jackson
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Shyam Gour Suresh
In 2001, T.J Wilkin proposed the Accelerator Theory saying that increased weight does not only increase risk of having Type 1 diabetes but accelerates the process and is the reason for the increase in Type 1 diabetes diagnoses among increasingly younger children. This paper explores the validity of the Accelerator Hypothesis by testing the relationship between BMI standard deviation score and the age of diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes patients in South Africa. The data consists of information from 265 patients diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes from 2009 to 2018. The results indicate there is an inverse relationship between BMI standard deviation score and age of diagnosis.
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Andrew Peipers
Faculty Sponsor: Shyam Gouri Souresh
This project uses panel data from 1995-2017 using state fixed effects for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru to study the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment and Tourism
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Athena-Maria Kalamaras
Faculty Sponsor: Economics Department (ECO 316)In the context of dynamic spatial models, we considered agent-based decision-making processes. This project creates agents that realize an autonomous decision-making process, including inputs like income and information about the surroundings to produce clear outputs like spending and relocating. The agents are given a decision-making mechanism that resembles a cost-benefit analysis, in order to evaluate their options and optimize their relocation strategy. The agents keep moving until no better position is available. The results of the agents’ decision making are then portrayed through various maps, including money maps, optimization maps, status maps and identity maps.
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Jennifer Griffin
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Stacey Riemer The purpose of my project is to raise awareness on the topic of youth homelessness in North Carolina and to propose increasing statewide support of this population through creating safe spaces and providing resources. The project was inspired by the week I spent volunteering with a homeless shelter in Atlanta, Georgia. While this shelter was not designed specifically for homeless youth, I spent much of the week interacting with the children of the mothers who were the primary residents. These interactions, paired with my experience working with children from low socioeconomic families, some of whom did and continue to face the threat of losing their home, spurred my interest of wanting to further understand the situation that homeless youth face in my home state. I encourage all North Carolina public schools, with an emphasis on public schools in a rural areas, to develop or adopt a program specifically for supporting homeless students, including students at risk of becoming homeless.
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Out-migration, both national and international, has become the new normal for rural communities in Nepal, greatly impacting the demographics of many rural communities as young men are increasingly absent and villages are occupied by women, children, and the elderly who are left behind. The existing literature demonstrates that gendered migration in Nepal particularly impacts the women left behind. In Nepal specifically, migration shapes not only the positions of women in rural communities, but the ritual and practical roles of women in Nepalese culture. These changes are, above all, characterized by an increase in the burden of agricultural labor – born entirely by the women left to tend homes, children and field while men are both pushed and pulled into the global labor market. There is some evidence that male out-migration has resulted in greater roles and decision making for women in the public sphere, but due to the traditional patriarchal social structure women are still subject to male domination in key decision-making and labor market participation despite male out-migration. Research shows that gender inequality in Nepal is affected by gendered streams of migration, but how has removing men worked to change relationships between genders – and with poverty?
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Natalie Delia Deckard
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