Preventing Foodborne Illness

Everyone eats — intentionally or unintentionally — millions to billions of live microbes every day. Most are completely harmless, but some can cause serious illnesses in humans.

Yvonne Sun, assistant professor of microbiology, studies foodborne pathogens, including Listeria monocytogenes.

"Listeria has found ways to indiscriminately get into our foods. While deli and dairy foods like cold cuts, cheese, milk and eggs are frequently culprits for causing listeriosis — the general name for listeria-caused infections — fresh vegetables and fruits have also been implicated," explained Sun. "In recent years, there have been outbreaks from packaged salad, ice cream, cooked chicken and mushrooms."

Listeria can live in any place where food is grown, packaged, stored, transported, prepared or served. It is extremely versatile in adapting and surviving a variety of environments. For example, it can grow in temperatures as cold as 24 degrees Fahrenheit (-4.4 Celsius) — colder than the average refrigerator. In addition, it has a biofilm structure, or coating, that prevents disinfectants from easily killing it.

"However, to cause infection, Listeria needs to reach our intestines," said Sun. "And our bodies are adept at trying to find and destroy invading pathogens."

Whether someone falls ill from Listeria — and how severely — depends on both the person's own immune system and variations within the bacteria itself.

"Those with compromised immune systems or immune systems temporarily weakened as a result of medication or pregnancy can be more susceptible to severe infection," said Sun. "In addition, different strains of Listeria may be more or less harmful."

Invasive Listeria can cause infections with hospitalization rates of more than 90%, and the case fatality rate can reach 30%. Other strains may simply manifest as minor diarrhea or vomiting that goes away without medical attention — or not cause noticeable symptoms at all.

Researchers are investigating ways to tell these Listeria strains apart, distinguishing the less harmful ones from those that are particularly dangerous, or hypervirulent. Being able to accurately identify them can help policymakers assess risks and make economically feasible decisions to improve food safety.

Sun is working with University of Dayton colleagues to develop a sensitive and accurate method of detecting foodborne pathogens using nanomaterials. This technology could make detection simple and affordable, allowing early detection of pathogens before a food poisoning outbreak.

As part of additional investigations, Sun is working with a large team of undergraduate students to better understand how environmental factors, such as food additives or oxygen levels, can be used to compromise the ability of Listeria to cause infections. This knowledge could be helpful in protecting vulnerable and high-risk populations from a deadly infection.

This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared in The Conversation.

Understanding How Traits Evolve

How do traits develop and evolve? Thomas Williams, associate professor of biology, will use a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to find out.

The grant — a four-year, $1,036,507 award shared with research collaborator Mark Rebeiz — is Williams' third and largest from the NSF in the last 10 years. Under previous funding, he developed an investigative model using color patterns on the abdomens of fruit flies to study the ways in which DNA sequences function to switch genes "on" and "off" during an organism's development. He then studied how evolution used these so-called "genetic switches" to develop biological diversity.

"By answering questions, we've created lots of new questions within this same model," Williams said. "So, we are trying to understand for an organism that has around 13,000 genes, which are the 100 or 200 that are responsible for making one characteristic, and how is it that these genes know in which cells and when during life to be active."

Williams will study DNA in the model fruit fly species Drosophila melanogaster to find and characterize the parts of genes responsible for variations in the abdomen color patterns of male fruit flies. He also will look at DNA in two less-well-studied fruit fly species that look different but have the same genes. His goal is to understand how a genetic program changed to make them appear different.

"Everything we're asking here about fruit flies are the same things that have to be spelled out in the language of our own DNA to make sure things are produced in the right place at the right times during development," Williams said. "When changes happen in the DNA sequence and it goes wrong, we get things like genetic diseases or a variation from one individual to another."

Williams is an evolutionary developmental — or "evo-devo" — biologist. His research is rooted in 1980s discoveries that found radically different organisms have similar sets of genes, suggesting much of the Earth's biological diversity comes not from new genes, but how the same genes are used differently.

Roughly 60% of the fruit fly's genes can be found in humans in similar form, and about 75% of the genes responsible for human diseases have counterparts in flies.

"The lessons we learn about the genes in fruit flies give us insights about how these genes might be functioning in our bodies as well," he said.

Advances in genetic research since Williams' 2016 NSF grant now make it possible to edit animal genomes, allowing him to remove and replace DNA sequences from fruit flies to study how those genes impact their appearance over time. Because the fruit fly can birth a new generation in only 10 to 15 days, Williams can follow evolutionary changes through as many as 24 generations per year. He said taking DNA sequences from Drosophila melanogaster and editing them into the other emerging model species is considered a safe procedure.

The NSF grant will allow Williams to support three graduate students and eight undergraduates to work in his research lab. He also plans to mentor several undergraduates in genetic experimentation through the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Summer Fellowship program.

In addition, he expects Dayton-area high school science teachers and community college students to visit his lab through the UD Sinclair Academy and a partnership with the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, an NSF-funded program intended to support historically underrepresented students in the STEM fields.

When Milliseconds Matter

In remote surgery or autonomous vehicles, milliseconds matter when a wireless system sends, receives and executes commands. Feng Ye, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, hopes to help improve the speed of 5G and beyond 5G wireless communication with a $166,520 National Science Foundation grant.

"If it's just streaming videos or making Zoom calls, anything under 200 milliseconds to transfer data is acceptable," said Ye. "But let's say in the future, 5G or beyond 5G is used for remote surgery. That little needle can't wait 200 milliseconds to do what it's instructed to do."

Or in the case of autonomous driving, that delay will be too long for a vehicle to avoid an obstacle. A car can travel about 12 feet in 100 milliseconds, Ye added.

"If there is a running animal, an autonomous car won't have time to change course," he said. "It makes a huge difference."

According to Ye, current 4G LTE communication has a delay of about 100 milliseconds, with a best-case scenario of 25 milliseconds.

Through his research in UD's Advanced Communications Network and Security Lab, he hopes to help reduce the overall process to less than five milliseconds in future 5G or beyond 5G communications. Ye's group is focused on reducing the first step of the communications process from a duration of 10 milliseconds to 1 millisecond or less.

The key to improving speed, Ye said, is fine-tuning the artificial intelligence that carries out the transfer of information.

"We're trying to speed up the loading and unloading process of the information," Feng said. "Or think of it like this: In the case of a swimmer, we're trying to improve the technique of turning, not the technique of swimming."

A graduate student will assist in developing theories and running computer simulations. Ye hopes to add UD undergraduate students by applying for an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant.

"The students' value to our research is significant," Ye said. "They will play a big part."

Preventing Violent Extremism

The University of Dayton Human Rights Center received $352,109 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to develop a network of regional organizations to help prevent domestic violent extremism in southwest Ohio and beyond.

The Preventing Radicalization to Extremist Violence through Education, Network-Building and Training in Southwest Ohio (PREVENTS-OH) project will raise awareness of what leads to radicalization and violence, create an education campaign for students about thinking critically of information in the media and online, and improve civic engagement throughout the community on sensitive topics related to domestic violent extremism.

"We look forward to partnering with Ohioans throughout the Miami Valley across all political and social affiliations and sectors of the community. We truly believe people want to see the divisions stop, the threat of violence disappear, and the people of Ohio working together," said Shelley Inglis, executive director of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. "With a historical connection to striving for peace and human dignity, we think southwest Ohio can be at the forefront of prevention efforts for the whole state.

"Our first step will be to learn how people think about these difficult issues and what they want to do to address them. People are the solution to preventing domestic violent extremism."

University of Dayton faculty in sociology, philosophy and history who research extremism and radicalization will bring their expertise to the project.

"Working in partnership with one another is how we best prevent acts of terrorism and targeted violence," said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas in a statement issued by DHS in September. "Through the grant awards we are announcing today, we are equipping local communities and organizations — including those historically underserved — with needed resources so they can become more effective partners, strengthen our security, and help the American people feel safe and secure in our daily lives."

3D Crimefighting

Thanks to a two-year $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center, a UD researcher is creating a better way to identify crime suspects.

"Fingerprints, which are 3D, are typically recorded in 2D photographs, but that may not deliver the most comprehensive picture," said project lead Partha Banerjee, director of the University of Dayton Holography and Metamaterials Lab, and professor of electro-optics and photonics.

"The science of fingerprints has been virtually unchanged since its debut more than a century ago in Calcutta, India. We will capture holograms of 3D fingerprints, which would open a new dimension in identifying criminals, as well as for identification for security. Hopefully 3D will be the new protocol for fingerprint analysis in the near future. That is why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is so interested in this work."

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, will deposit fingerprints on glass, wood and plastic; age the fingerprints for each material in different environmental conditions; and finally coat the fingerprints with a special film. The fingerprints will be mailed to Banerjee's lab to make digital holograms, which can be stored and reconstructed in 3D on a computer.

"Why store fingerprints as 2D objects? When you impress your fingers on a surface, the print you leave behind is a 3D object. It's a ridge-and-valley structure, with ridges of oil or fat about a tenth of a millimeter tall. So why are we throwing away the potential of the third dimension?" Lakhtakia said.

The Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab will grade the quality of the fingerprints captured by Penn State and the University of Dayton's 3D reconstruction from holograms.

Banerjee owns one patent and has published six textbooks and more than 150 journal articles. He is a fellow, or a member of distinction, of Optica, formerly the Optical Society of America; SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics; and the Institute of Physics.

Uncovering a Suppressed History

Her work is praised as "timely and essential," "groundbreaking and illuminating," even "stirring." In her new book, Shannen Dee Williams, associate professor of history, provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States.

"Before I began my research, the only Black nun I knew was Sister Mary Clarence — the fictional character played by Whoopi Goldberg in the Sister Act franchise," Williams said.

"Over the course of 13 years though, I uncovered the history of America's real sister act: the story of how generations of African American women and girls fought against racial discrimination and exclusion to become and minister as consecrated women of God in the Roman Catholic Church," she said. "It is a history that has been largely suppressed and in far too many cases deliberately erased. My book demonstrates that the history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States unequivocally matters, and has always mattered."

Williams' work has drawn attention across the country, including a feature story from the Associated Press. The AP notes that the history Williams examines includes nuns who were "often discouraged or blocked by their … superiors from engaging in the civil rights struggle.

"Yet one of them, Sister Mary Antona Ebo, was on the front lines of marchers who gathered in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 in support of Black voting rights and in protest of the violence of Bloody Sunday when white state troopers brutally dispersed peaceful Black demonstrators," the article states. "An Associated Press photo of Ebo and other nuns in the march on March 10 — three days after Bloody Sunday — ran on the front pages of many newspapers.

"During two decades before Selma, Ebo faced repeated struggles to break down racial barriers. At one point she was denied admittance to Catholic nursing schools because of her race, and later endured segregation policies at the white-led order of sisters she joined in St. Louis in 1946, according to Williams."

Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle is out now. The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Predicting Epidemics

An epidemic spreads differently through the rural Midwest than through a big city. So University of Dayton researcher Subramanian Ramakrishnan will use $231,185 of a $650,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop better models to predict the spread locally and regionally rather than a one-size-fits-all national approach.

"It might be too ambitious to try one model for the entire country, any country," said Ramakrishnan, UD associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "It's not like constructing a universal model for the laws of gravity, which apply to everything in the universe. The dynamics of epidemics differ by location, so creating models specific to the dynamics in question is very important.

"The limitations of existing predictive models, as evident during the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., underscore the need for new knowledge in this area. As we saw, everything was marshaled on a war footing to respond early to COVID-19, and yet we were not prepared enough, or at least we could have been much better equipped with fundamental knowledge."

Ramakrishnan, project lead, will be working with University of Cincinnati mechanical engineering professor Manish Kumar, and Shelley Ehrlich, a medical doctor and epidemiologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. They will focus on how uncertainties in human behavior and disease transmission drive an epidemic and the challenges of prediction, given the limitations of procuring reliable early data. Even within local areas, they want to produce a suite of models that range from best-case to worst-case scenarios in the short term and the medium term.

"You're not entirely sure how much to trust early data. There's always that inevitable time lag between an infection spread happening on the ground and the public health system collecting that data," Ramakrishnan said. "So we also need to create models that can be flexible enough to interact with and learn from the data in as close to real time as possible."

Doing so will allow local and regional public health officials to appropriately prescribe early interventions like physical distancing and masking, according to Ramakrishnan.

To secure the grant, the group showed a proof of concept using COVID-19 transmission data from the state of Ohio and Hamilton County, Ohio, for the month of April 2020. They found their preliminary models worked well for the state data and even better for county data, which Ramakrishnan said "reinforces this notion that these models are probably more effective for smaller geographical regions, which is again a very important thing to know."

Two UD graduate students will assist in the research, running models and simulations and performing mathematical analysis under the team's guidance. They also have the opportunity to be listed as authors in articles publishing results of the research. Ramakrishnan hopes to add UD undergraduate students by applying for an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant.

"Advances in research would be much slower and much less exciting without the contributions of student researchers," Ramakrishnan said. "Academic research thrives on the opportunity to inspire and train students. It's a fundamental part of what we do."

A New Approach to Computer Science Education

Computer operating systems continue to develop rapidly to meet the needs of powerful computers, smartphones and internet-connected devices, but college courses haven't always kept pace.

With a $299,308 National Science Foundation grant, two University of Dayton researchers designed new approaches for operating systems courses that engage students in active learning. Their model has been made publicly available for free to undergraduate computer science and engineering degree programs at institutions worldwide.

"The NSF didn't give us this grant just to design a new course at UD," said Saverio Perugini, professor of computer science. "They really wanted us to build a national model that could be transferable and replicable at other universities."

The course, Operating Systems, was developed and evaluated over three years by Perugini, the project's principal investigator, and David Wright, director of academic technology and curriculum innovation. They collaborated with Wright State University computer science professor John C. Gallagher and education professor Suzanne Franco, both now retired.

"Whatever career path students take, they need this as a foundational course to be successful," explained Wright. "Operating systems courses prepare students for upper-level computer science courses such as artificial intelligence, robotics and cybersecurity."

The course goes beyond desktop systems to also include mobile devices and the "internet of things" — devices such as motion sensors and health monitors that connect and exchange data over wireless networks. The new course better aligns what is taught in the classroom with the skills and knowledge graduates need on the job.

Working with faculty, Perugini and Wright developed more than 30 active learning laboratories with 180 students during six semesters. The labs were compiled into a 300-page online manual that can be used in its entirety — or as individual components.

"In computer science, things move so fast that it's really time-consuming to create lecture plans, project plans and laboratory plans," Perugini said. "The faculty we talked to found significant value in the plug-and-play motif of the lab manual and how they could use it in their teaching activities, primarily because this was just ready to go."

In addition to the online manual, the NSF grant resulted in about a dozen journal, conference paper and abstract publications, including many with undergraduate students listed as co-authors, as well as a variety of conference demonstrations and tutorials.

Perugini said the grants also helped the University establish its Center for Cybersecurity and Data Intelligence, and supported its case to be designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense by the National Security Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Solving Water Contamination

Kenya Crosson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has made it her mission to solve water contamination issues around the world. With Advanced & Innovative Multifunctional Materials (AIMM), she aims to make silver the gold standard in improving access to clean water.

"We are working with a material made of carbon and silver that could have antimicrobial and antiviral effects on unpurified water," Crosson said. "The material would also be able to filter out cloudiness, which can reduce additional harmful particles in unfiltered, natural source water or even previously used water."

Crosson is working with AIMM founder Luis Estevez; Lisa Brown, a University of Dayton Research Institute research biologist working as an independent contractor with AIMM; a University of Dayton graduate student; and two research assistants to identify the material's filtration abilities and its applications.

So far, Crosson said the material is working well in many trials to filter out impurities and kill or inactivate viruses and bacteria while not compromising the taste of the water. In addition to its water treatment properties, early indications are that the material can be used for long durations in commercial and personal applications, saving time and money. The eventual goal would be to create an easy and affordable solution comparable to large water treatment solutions that typically require electrical power.

The need for innovative approaches to water filtration is great and growing. According to UNICEF, half of the world's population could be living in areas facing water scarcity as early as 2025.

"The highest priority in this research field is protecting human health and the environment," Crosson said. "If we can take what we're doing and advance those treatments so they're more environmentally friendly, those are the things that are driving outcomes now. We are meeting goals in regard to protection of human health and access to clean water and doing it in a sustainable way."

Improving Mental Health of Children

What's the biological link between childhood hardships and mental disorders? To find out, Lucy Allbaugh, assistant professor of psychology, and a team of students partnered with researchers from McLean Hospital, a Harvard affiliate, and Dayton Children's Hospital on the Dayton Kids Project.

The project will enroll up to 1,000 families in a program to understand how trauma is passed down from generation to generation — and what can be done to improve the mental health of children.

"Epigenetics is the study of reversible biological mechanisms that regulate the function of our genome, or the brain's instruction manual," Allbaugh said. "Studies have shown that factors like toxic stress and poverty can change these epigenetic markers and lead to the development of mental and physical disorders over time."

Ultimately, the researchers aim to identify markers to help treat children before the onset of mental health problems. This will help to provide earlier and more effective interventions in mental health cases.

"This is some of the most exciting and groundbreaking work being done in psychiatric research," said Dr. Scott L. Rauch, McLean's president and psychiatrist in chief.

Allbaugh's research is driven by the question of what puts people on a risky versus resilient trajectory in relation to generational trauma and mental health disorders.

"Experiencing stress and trauma puts people at risk for mental and physical health problems, but what we also know is that most people who experience these types of trauma-related stressors do not experience these types of effects," Allbaugh said. "In fact, many people are resilient, meaning that they can bounce back and get to a place of wellness after the trauma."

Understanding what helps those resilient individuals is critically important for shaping interventions for those who are at risk for PTSD, other mental health problems and trauma-related illnesses.

"I want to focus on identifying those individuals at the highest need for intervention or services and looking at biological markers is one way to do this," said Allbaugh.

Freezing Frogs – And Saving Lives

Cryogenically freezing people — and bringing them back to life — is still the realm of science fiction. However, a frog with a remarkable ability to survive freezing temperatures may hold the key to giving human organs scheduled for transplant a longer shelf life.

Carissa Krane, professor of biology, and Jeremy Erb, associate professor of chemistry, are studying Cope's gray treefrogs to understand freeze tolerance — and determine if this process could be replicated for biomedical applications like tissue or organ transplantation.

"Right now, we can preserve an organ for transplant for just a few hours, putting doctors and transplant patients on short notice, creating a small window of time for transportation and surgery," said Krane. "But if we can replicate the process these frogs use, we may be able to viably freeze organs and bank them for extended periods of time until they are needed."

The key to cryopreservation is to prevent damage to cells from ice forming inside a body, Krane said. As the temperature around a cold-blooded animal drops, the water inside the body begins to freeze, forming jagged ice crystals that could damage the surrounding cells' critical components. But that doesn't happen to these frogs. They have a method of moving water inside their bodies that allows them to survive — frozen — in temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

"As part of the freezing process, 65% of their body water becomes ice. They stop breathing. Their heart stops. They look dead," explained Krane. "Then within hours of thawing, they're moving around, they're eating, and they can even be mating. It's just an incredible feat."

Treefrogs prepare for freezing during a period of cold-acclimation that results in the production and mobilization of glycerol. This cryoprotectant prevents sharp ice crystals from damaging the cell membranes and provides stabilization, ensuring the cells neither collapse like a deflated balloon nor burst like an overfilled water balloon during freezing and thawing. Recent data have shown that cold-acclimation may improve cellular freeze tolerance and post-freeze viability by eliciting biochemical and biophysical modifications in cellular plasma membranes.

"We can monitor these changes in biochemistry and membrane composition using our current array of instrumentation in the chemistry department, most notably through nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy," explained Erb. "Once we collect more data, we hope to be able to use these measurements to understand freeze tolerance enough to replicate them for biomedical applications. It's very exciting to think about where this research is headed."

Helping Kids With Long COVID

Children who get COVID-19 typically recover quickly and will not require special support upon return to school. However, some people who contract the disease experience persistent symptoms and post-viral complications. These complications can include fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, changes in taste and smell, and headaches. This post-viral syndrome is called long-haul COVID-19, more commonly referred to as "long COVID" in the medical community.

Children who experience long COVID will need support at school. Some symptoms – such as fatigue, brain fog and memory impairment – are similar to those experienced after a concussion. But because these symptoms are challenging to identify or to track, it can be difficult for teachers to know how to help.

Susan Davies, professor of school psychology, and Julie Walsh-Messinger, associate professor of psychology, believe that strategies that schools use to support students with concussions may also help those with prolonged COVID-19 symptoms.

School accommodations for long COVID

Students who continue to experience symptoms after they've tested negative and been cleared to return to school should notify the school of persistent issues. Even if the child is not officially diagnosed with long COVID, a gradual return to school and activities, as well as academic and environmental accommodations, can support children during recovery.

Davies and Wash-Messinger recommend that parents, teachers and doctors work together to support the child's recovery.

"This is what's called collaborative care," said Davies. "It is helpful if a school-based professional – such as a school nurse, counselor or psychologist – serves as a central communicator. This involves sharing accommodations with teachers, talking with doctors (with a signed release) and communicating progress back to the family."

Together, these collaborative care teams can establish temporary accommodations for the affected student, such as:

1. Allow a flexible attendance schedule with rest breaks to minimize fatigue.
2. Reduce physical activity and minimize exposure to overstimulating environments to prevent fatigue and headaches.
3. Modify the workload. This might include, for example, removing high-stakes projects and nonessential work, providing alternate assignments and allowing the student to drop classes without penalty. Base grades on adjusted work so the child is not penalized for memory problems.
4. Provide extra time to complete assignments and tests so a child with brain fog can process information.
5. Develop an emotional support plan for the student to prevent anxiety and depression. This might include identifying an adult at school to talk with if the child feels overwhelmed, or providing a support group for students to discuss their experiences and recovery.
6. Encourage the student to explore alternative extracurricular activities that are nonphysical and not cognitively taxing.

The researchers also recommend that schools front-load adjustments for a student with long COVID and gradually withdraw them as the student recovers. The symptoms, recovery rate and trajectory will vary for each student. Therefore, a gradual and monitored return to activity is important to help ensure that symptoms don't worsen when students engage in more activity. If symptoms do get worse, then accommodations should resume.

"We have much to learn about the long-term effects of COVID-19 and the prognosis for those who develop long COVID," said Walsh-Messinger. "These guidelines are based on what is known at this time and should be considered preliminary. As COVID rates and treatments evolve, it is important for parents, educators and medical providers to continue talking with one another about persistent symptoms and effective treatments."

This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared in The Conversation.

Arctic Algae

Sea ice was thought to block sunlight and limit the growth of microscopic marine plants living under the ice, but in 2012 scientists discovered a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath three-foot thick ice in the Chukchi Sea, north of Alaska. The unexpected bloom, which extended 62 miles under the ice pack, was fueled by sunlight penetrating the ice through pools of melted water on its surface.

The National Science Foundation awarded two UD researchers and a colleague at the University of Maryland a three-year, $201,655 grant to model critical changes in Arctic sea ice to detect and predict the growth and movement of large algae blooms in the Arctic Ocean, related to that region's warming climate. The interdisciplinary project combines artificial intelligence, theoretical physics and biology.

"In the past, the algae beneath the Arctic ice didn't bloom or produce too much energy because there was a nice balance," said Ivan Sudakow, assistant professor of physics and the project's principal investigator. "But once Arctic melting begins on this really rapid scale and the algae is absorbing solar energy through these melt ponds, it increases this process of the ice melting, leading our climate system to a tipping point."

Sudakow and co-principal investigator Vijayan Asari, director of the Vision Lab, are developing machine learning tools to analyze Arctic sea ice data. Sudakow will use the data to build new models to describe plankton dynamics and test the hypothesis about melt pond transformation triggering under-ice algae blooms.

The NSF-funded project builds on past work by Sudakow, who developed a model to better predict the effects of climate change on Arctic sea ice. The discovery, which was published in New Journal of Physics, also gained attention from Scientific American, Physics World, Eos and WIRED.

Invented in 1920, the Ising model shows how natural systems can behave in related ways, such as showing phase transitions between solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter. Sudakow, who specializes in mathematical modeling of physical and living systems, will work with an undergraduate student researcher to develop new Ising-based models to simulate changes in plankton dynamics.

"Standard mathematical methods like differential equations are not really helpful here, because they require a lot of parameters, a lot of data, and need to be solved numerically," Sudakow said. "We are going to use statistical mechanics, the methods of this branch of physics, to actually find a simple way to model algae bloom as a critical phenomenon."

The lack of expert annotated data about under-ice phytoplankton is an issue, said Asari, professor of electrical and computer engineering. Using a semi-automated algorithm, Vision Lab researchers are creating synthetic data by analyzing aerial images from satellites and aircraft and marking the location of melt ponds. They then re-run the program with the marked data to precisely detect and predict these areas of interest, based on their current movement characteristics.

"You will be able to detect and identify the ponds and their growth, and predict the dynamics of phytoplankton growth and movement," Asari said. "This will provide a lot of information for agencies and authorities to make the appropriate decisions to stop the formation and thickening of the algae."

Sudakow said the project's goal is to understand the interaction between phytoplankton, sea ice, melt ponds and the global climate system to determine possible tipping points in the climate system related to the phytoplankton bloom.

"Some small changes in the connection between the ecosystem and the climate system are actually leading to big changes in the state of the climate system," Sudakow said.

Evolving Weather – and Humans

Using fossil evidence and modern water isotope measurements, Zelalem Bedaso — and colleagues from the U.S., Ethiopia and the Netherlands — are studying the climate and environment in which early humans survived and thrived.

With a three-year, $156,776 grant^* from the National Science Foundation, Bedaso is analyzing 200,000 years of seasonal rainfall variability in East Africa to understand the impact of extreme weather on early humans and the ecosystems on which they depended. The research data also could indicate how this sensitive, water-limited region will respond to current and future climate change.

"Our understanding of the paleoenvironment of eastern Africa in the last 5 million years was a shift from a vegetated, forested environment into a more savannah grassland — from a more wet to a dry climate," said Bedaso, assistant professor of geology. "That's what actually staged for early humans to evolve, because as the climate, environment and resources changed, that pressured early hominids to adapt to a different lifestyle, migrate or extinct."

Bedaso's project aims to establish a fine resolution timescale of seasonal weather pattern shifts, such as wet versus dry periods in a given year. The researchers hope to connect those changes to significant points in human evolution, related to the availability of natural resources and fresh water.

"Those critical times in human evolution, when the way they walked or their brain size changed, actually align very well with the changing environment and climate," Bedaso said. "So, a major shift in climate coincides with these major evolutionary milestones. That makes us think, maybe humans evolved because the climate, environment and resources are changing."

Bedaso and co-principal investigator Catherine Beck, from Hamilton College in New York, will work with Addis Ababa University environmental archeologist Alemseged Beldados on the sedimentary record in southwestern Ethiopia, where one of the oldest remains of anatomically modern human was discovered. They will search for fossilized ostracods, microscopic crustacea also known as seed shrimp.

After identifying the different species of ostracods, Bedaso and his students will analyze their isotopic composition to glean insight into the environment and climate that existed at that time. In addition, research colleague Jeroen van der Lubbe, assistant professor of geology and geochemistry at VU Amsterdam, will analyze the chemical composition of the sediment and fossil samples.

Bedaso and Beck have strong records of mentoring underrepresented students in their labs. Nearly 30 undergraduate students from the University of Dayton, Hamilton College and Addis Ababa University will participate in the research project. Each summer, one student from both UD and Hamilton will join the team at the field site in the Omo-Turkana Basin in southern Ethiopia.

"This is an opportunity for cultural exchange, global learning and teamwork," Bedaso said. "We will live in a tent for a couple of weeks. We eat together, we work together. Beyond academics, I think the students will learn how to live in that kind of environment."

*Hamilton College received a $132,318 National Science Foundation grant, bringing the project's total funding to $289,094.

From Lab to Sky

The University of Dayton Research Institute has been awarded an$88 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory for research and development to advance, evaluate and mature Air Force autonomous capabilities. The contract was awarded with initial funding of $1.8 million.

Through the five-year program, dubbed "Soaring Otter," researchers will support the Air Force in its quest to increase its capabilities in autonomy by maturing autonomy technologies—including machine learning, artificial intelligence, neural networks, neuromorphic computing and data exploitation—from lab to field use.

These technologies—some of which are modeled after human information-processing systems—allow autonomous systems to gather information, process the information in order to "understand" the images or data it is collecting, and then use the information to solve a problem or execute an action to achieve a goal, said principal investigator Patrick Hytla, senior image processing engineer in UDRI's applied sensing division.

Air Force applications for autonomous systems include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; cybersecurity; and command and control systems.

"The Air Force is increasingly employing the science of autonomy to solve complex problems related to global situational awareness, resilient information sharing and rapid decision making, and UDRI researchers have developed specialized expertise directly related to these areas and to the Soaring Otter program," Hytla said. "Our expertise includes machine learning; neuromorphic computing; positioning, navigation and timing; open system architectures; automated decision making; and flight test planning, execution and analysis."

According to the Air Force, the scope of the program will include seven focus areas: autonomy development and testing, evaluation of autonomy capabilities, novel computing approaches, new application spaces, open system architectures for autonomy, autonomy technology integration and testing, and maturing system support.

"UDRI will lead a team of partners with expertise in these and complementary areas, and who have deep knowledge of how real-world requirements should inform and guide the development of novel autonomy research and development solutions with the greatest potential for transition to operational use."

Combining Day and Night Vision

Cell phones, cars and many other devices have separate cameras and sensors for day and night vision, but that need could go away thanks to University of Dayton researchers who developed a single device that can switch between day and night vision applications.

UD electro-optics graduate student Remona Heenkenda designed and fabricated the optical filter under the guidance of UD electro-optics professor Andrew Sarangan and computer engineering professor Keigo Hirakawa. The journal Optics Express published the researchers' tunable filter work.

Sarangan and Hirakawa said it ultimately would be up to manufacturers to implement these sensors and cameras into their devices, but they see a valuable practical application in reducing the number of cameras and sensors in smartphones and cars, which could reduce cost and increase night safety.

In the optical filter Heenkenda developed, a new material known as phase change material switches the camera between day and night operation. This optical filter can be switched on and off using very small heat pulses, according to Sarangan. The same type of material is used to store data in some computer chips, Sarangan added.

"At night, we want the camera to see better by allowing near infrared light. During the day, near infrared makes colors funky, so we want to block it from the camera," Hirakawa said. "So we need to filter out near infrared only during the day. Our switchable filter uses phase changes to block or pass near infrared light to the camera." Optimization, he added, would be automated switching based on the filter recognizing night by clock or the amount of light.

"Cars are going to be sensors on wheels. It's headed that way," Hirakawa said. “If you can recycle technology to do two things, and you can save a nickel or dime per 100 million parts, you can save $10 million. If you can cut costs and redundancies in your camera or your devices, then it can potentially be very, very helpful. In automotive, this will be something in all cars, not just luxury cars, because the savings makes it accessible for everyone."

Eye-Opening Research

The National Institutes of Health awarded geneticists Amit Singh and Madhuri Kango-Singh a five-year, $1.65 million grant to understand the genetic basis of childhood retinal diseases and birth defects in the human eye.

The current investigation builds on an earlier research project, funded under a $485,000 NIH grant, in which Singh studied how genes transform a single layer of cells into a three-dimensional organ. Now the research will be expanded to examine the genetic machinery involved in regulating how an eye is formed at the cellular level.

When eyes are developing, they need to grow to the right size, contain the right features and functionality, and be located in the right place on the head. When cells do not generate properly, it can result in birth defects, cancer and other diseases, explained Kango-Singh.

This study explores birth defects associated with a particular transcription factor — a protein involved in the controlling expression of other genes.

"In layman's language, eyes are not the same on all organisms; they are placed far apart or close together," said Singh. "We have hypothesized that this transcription factor might be involved in the eye's placement and growth."

Fruit fly genes are similar to those of humans, which allows researchers to model defects and study growth at an accelerated pace.

"The life cycle of the fly is 12 days, so you can see two generations of fly life in a month's time," Singh said. "Whereas if you are a geneticist dealing with human disease and looking into a human population and trying to see how it is translated from one generation to the next, in your lifetime you can just see three generations. Working with flies, it looks like you're watching a long movie on fast forward, and the information generated here can be extrapolated to humans."

To support their investigation, Singh and Kango-Singh will each hire a postdoctoral researcher and two graduate assistants to work in their respective labs. In addition, between 12 and 16 undergraduates will work on the project.

"One of the pillars of UD's vision is experiential learning for undergraduate students," Singh said. "We actively involve these students in our research. They are primary authors on peer-reviewed publications. They present at local, regional and international meetings."

Singh and Kango-Singh published the second edition of Molecular Genetics of Axial Patterning, Growth and Disease in Drosophila Eye in May 2020. Singh also is editor of Mouse Genetics: Methods in Molecular Biology, which was published in February 2021.

Glacial Findings

University of Dayton environmental geologist Umesh Haritashya has researched the Himalayan glaciers for two decades and has made important contributions — including developing a new hydrological model and an automated glacier mapping tool.

His recent research resulted in two separate studies being published in Science. Both offer policymakers critical insights on disaster governance, sustainable development, watershed resources management and other issues.

Impact of Climate Change on Glacier Meltwater

In the first study, a research team examined how climate change and glacier melting affect the water supply for more than a billion people. Haritashya analyzed the impact of lakes and debris on glaciers, and overall glacier dynamics.

"The new work is the most thorough review ever of the region's glacier-fed rivers. Our team gathered the results of nearly 250 scholarly papers to arrive at a more accurate understanding — something approaching a consensus — of the links between climatic warming, precipitation change and glacier shrinkage," said Jeff Kargel of the Planetary Science Institute, an author of the paper.

While finding the links among climatic warming, precipitation change and glacier shrinkage, the group realized a one-size-fits-all approach to how climate change will affect each location will not work in the Himalayan corridor, because it is spread across many countries, and is home to the tallest mountain peak and vast topographic and climatic variations.

The study helped the group identify and address gaps in scientific knowledge of climate change. Questions include: how does snowfall and glacier health vary between river valleys, how long will glaciers survive, and why are some glaciers advancing.

"Changes in the runoff pattern from rain and glacier melting is expected to contribute heavily to extreme runoff and resultant flash floods, landslides and debris flows," said Haritashya, professor of geology and Mann Chair in the Sciences. "Since millions of people living in the high elevation mountain valleys can face major impacts with climate-change-driven snow and glacier melt, and associated hazards, understanding climate change impacts on Asian water towers is really important to humanity."

Findings on the 2021 Himalayan Landslide

As part of a separate research team, Haritashya helped investigate the landslide and flood in India that destroyed two hydropower plants and left more than 200 dead or missing.

This study analyzed satellite imagery, seismic records and eyewitness videos. Haritashya examined before and after satellite pictures of the affected land and river basin for irregularities in the structure of the rock at the site. He also served as a remote liaison to scientists visiting the area.

Early indications in February pointed to a glacial lake outburst flood, but the high-resolution satellite images showed no nearby glacial lakes large enough to cause a flood, according to lead author Dan Shugar, associate professor in the University of Calgary's department of geoscience.

"High-resolution satellite imagery used as the disaster unfolded was critical to helping us understand the event in almost real time," Shugar said. "We tracked a plume of dust and water to a conspicuous dark patch high on a steep slope. This was the source of a giant landslide that triggered the cascade of events and caused immense death and destruction."

The researchers are not clear on the direct link between climate change and this particular event but are sure climate change contributes to frequent mountain hazards in recent decades. The greater magnitude of the latest disaster is an argument to assess rapid developments in the area.

"Hazards don't always follow the pattern of past events," said Haritashya. "This calculation and modeling allowed us to understand the critical combination of rock and ice mixture present in the failed mass that transformed it into a large and mobile debris flow."

Along with these studies, Haritashya and his research team at UD have secured more than $3 million in research grants, primarily from NASA, to examine climate change impact on high mountain glaciers. See Haritashya's research on water towers and earthquakes.

Hell Hath No Fury

Religious studies scholar Meghan Henning has found her niche studying stories about the one place no one wants to go.

Just 20% of people believe in hell. Still, early Christian ideas about the underworld — and who is punished there — echo in society today, Henning writes in her new book, Hell Hath No Fury.

"What's important about hell is that it does not just describe punishment, it decides and prescribes who is culpable," Henning said. "When we look at Christian texts about the afterlife, hell is not an equal opportunity punisher. Women are often tortured for crimes like adultery while their male counterparts are noticeably absent."

Henning's findings, in what is described as the first major book to examine ancient Christian literature on hell through the lenses of gender and disability studies, draw from relatively obscure texts that offered "tours of hell." In these texts, a saint or apostle, even the Virgin Mary, is guided through hell by someone who explains the sins and tortures they see. The stories were popular among early Christians for their specific depictions of how people would be punished for sins — details lacking in the New Testament.

"The punishments are meant to 'fit the crimes,'" said Henning, associate professor of Christian origins. "Slanderers, for example, chew their tongues. Yet, we find clear double standards. In his most famous sermon, Jesus preached that men should avoid hell by plucking out their eyes rather than looking lustfully upon a woman. So it's pretty remarkable that later Christian hells see chastity as the purview of women and women alone."

Henning said that while the tortures in these tours of hell are imaginary, the depictions had a real impact by reinforcing the idea that people in authority have the right to make rules and decisions about women's bodies.

"This is one of the first places that we see women's bodies become communal and public property," Henning said. "That legacy is still felt in modern society and decision making. Even a cursory glance at school dress codes reminds us that we are not so far removed from a world in which women's bodies are hypersexualized and policed. So while we might want to congratulate ourselves on how far we have come from these scenes of fiery torture that disproportionally affect women, the gendered stereotypes are not as remote as we might imagine."

Henning's research has also been featured in "The Lesson from Hell," The Conversation and The Christian Century. She has also been interviewed or featured by CNN, Daily Beast and National Geographic.

Bright Ideas from Energy Audits

The University of Dayton Industrial Assessment Center has been selected to receive nearly $2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue free energy assessments for small- to mid-sized manufacturers in the region and to train the next generation of energy-engineering professionals.

The free assessments include teams of UD faculty, staff and students visiting companies for a day and then providing a customized report with recommendations for reducing energy, waste and production costs. To be eligible for an assessment, companies must have a Standard Industrial Classification code for "manufacturing," and annual energy bills between $100,000 and $2.5 million.

"We will examine your utility bills, facilities, equipment, manufacturing processes and waste streams," said Jun-Ki Choi, director of the UD Industrial Assessment Center and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "Within six weeks an easy-to-read, confidential report will be delivered documenting current practices and recommending ways to save money. The report is an independent assessment of your facility needs and is not biased by the desire to generate sales or consulting opportunities."

The only one in Ohio and one of just 32 nationwide funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the UD Industrial Assessment Center has helped more than 1,040 manufacturers reduce energy costs since 1981. Clients usually save 10-15% of their energy costs, according to Choi.

"America’s best and brightest university students are successfully helping local manufacturers reduce pollution, save energy and cut their electricity bills," said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "DOE's university-based Industrial Assessment Centers are assisting small- and medium-sized businesses — particularly those in disadvantaged and underrepresented communities — in the transition to a clean energy economy, building the next-generation energy workforce, and propelling America toward a carbon-free future by 2050."

UD's Industrial Assessment Center is a two-time winner of the U.S. Department of Energy's Center of Excellence Award, a three-time winner of the department's Excellence in Applied Energy Engineering Research Award, and a winner of the Ohio Governor's Award for Energy Excellence.