OSCAR Celebration of Student Scholarship and Impact

Category: OSCAR

Categories
College of Humanities and Social Science OSCAR

Warmth and Competence Signaling in Job Interviews

Author(s): Renee McCauley

Mentor(s): Afra Ahmad, Psychology

Previous research has indicated that non-native-accented individuals are discriminated against in a variety of contexts, but especially during the interview process. Initial research has begun exploring how speaker gender interacts with accent, but scholars agree that more study is needed. Additionally, few candidate empowering interventions have been tested. The current study is a pilot study for a larger study on accent and gender discrimination in hiring. This within-subjects experiment explores how increasing verbal signals of warmth and competence during the interview process affects perceptions of warmth and competence. The scripts used failed to influence perceptions of candidate warmth and competence as desired. Inaccurate competence signaling strategies and the confound of candidate assertiveness are believed to have contributed to our unexpected findings.
There’s a lot of research that suggests that we—all humans—judge people on two traits: warmth and competence. Competence is things like skill, efficiency, and capability; warmth is things like friendliness, trustworthiness, and sincerity.
For my study, we were asking the question: if we change how someone talks about themselves in a job interview, can we increase perceptions of the warmth or competence?
A job interview is a high-stakes interaction where someone is making a bunch of judgments about who you are, and based on those judgments they either offer you a job or they don’t.
So we came up with three scripts that could all reasonably be the way the same person would answer the same question. One was a control script where the candidate presents themselves as qualified enough, but doesn’t present a lot of information that hints at their warmth or competence. And then we made a warmth script that indicated warmth, and a competence script that indicated competence.
Our participants listened to the same person reading each script and after each script, they answered a few questions about how warm and competent the job candidate was.
And as you can see on this graph here, we found out that there was no statistically significant difference in the competence among the three scripts. We did a little better on differentiating warmth, but it still wasn’t what we wanted. The only statistically significant difference was between the control script and the competence script, with the control script being warmer than the competence script.
So what went wrong? I dove back into the literature to see why we hadn’t signaled warmth and competence as intended. I found some experiments that suggest that humans are better at intentionally signaling warmth-we try a bunch of strategies that really do signal warmth- but when it comes to competence, we think some things positively affect perceptions of competence, but they either don’t matter or they hurt competence perceptions. I suspect that better ability to signal warmth is partially responsible for our results. The other factor we think affected our results was that in the warmth and competence scripts, the job candidate was very proactive, which could have been perceived as overreaching, presumptuous, or too assertive.
With all these lessons learned, we’re going to go back and rewrite the scripts, submit them to the IRB, rerun the experiment, and then analyze the results. Hopefully we’ll get the results we wanted this time around!
Once we crack the code on intentionally signaling warmth and competence, we’ll use these scripts in a larger study I’m conducting on the interaction between gender and accent on hireability in job interviews.
The judgments of warmth and competence that we make about other people, they’re not just limited to individuals, they’re actually the basis of stereotypes.
Current research indicates that non-native-accented individuals are perceived as less hireable than their native-speaking counterparts.
We basically suggest that part of what’s happening is that based on a person’s speech, an interviewer can make an educated guess about their ethnicity and gender which activates stereotypes in their mind which affect how hireable they think the candidate is. We’re going to see if changing the way the candidate talks about themselves could influence some of these judgments and hopefully counteract them.
Categories
College of Engineering and Computing OSCAR

Mechanical and Surface Integrity of 3-D Printed PLA-HA Composite

Author(s): Alexander Stuart

Mentor(s): Shaghayegh Bagheri, Mechanical Engineering

The materials currently used to construct replacement hip and knee joints for humans are stainless steel and titanium. Whilst these materials are strong and fairly biocompatible, they are expensive and can cause adverse long term side effects such as stress shielding. The aim of this project was to construct and evaluate an alternative to these materials, specifically 3-D printed Polylactic Acid and Hydroxyapatite composite (PLA-HA). PLA-HA is a polymer composite of Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Hydroxyapatite (HA). PLA-HA is relatively cheap, very biocompatible, and can be easily adapted for use in a 3-D printer. This vastly simplifies the process of manufacturing unique parts with complex geometries such as a replacement joint. Raw PLA-HA was created in-lab using two different manufacturing methods. These manufacturing methods were Dry Speed Mixing and Magnetic Stirring. The raw PLA-HA was then converted into filament for use in a 3-D printer using a uniaxial filament press. The PLA-HA filament was then used to 3-D print three different samples for mechanical testing for both manufacturing methods. These samples were subjected to different tests to characterize their mechanical and surface properties. These tests included Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) and micro-indentation. These mechanical and surface properties were then evaluated to determine if they are sufficient for a joint replacement application. The different manufacturing methods will also be compared against one another to determine which method produces samples with the desired mechanical properties and distribution of hydroxyapatite throughout its matrix.
Slide 1:

Hello! My name is Zan Stuart, I’m a Senior Mechanical Engineering Student and today I’ll be talking about my project, which is a mechanical and surface characterization study of 3-D printed PLA-HA Composite.

Slide 2:

So the motivation for this project is the materials currently used for hip and knee joint replacements, such as stainless steel and titanium, are adequate, but they have some significant issues, such as the fact that they’re expensive, they’re difficult to machine into these complex shapes that are necessary for this application, and they can cause some adverse long term side effects such as stress shielding, which basically wears away the bone material around the replacement joint.

Polylactic acid, or PLA, and Hydroxyapatite, also known as HA, composite is a potentially viable alternative. PLA is a very common plastic used for 3-D printing, and hydroxyapatite is a mineral that’s commonly found in your bone structure.

PLA-HA is pretty cheap, it’s biocompatible, and it’s easily adapted for 3-D printing.

Very few studies exploring the properties of PLA-HA in general exist, and fewer, if any, study the properties of 3-D printed PLA-HA.

Slide 3:

To briefly state the objectives, we wanted to manufacture the PLA-HA composite using different manufacturing methods, we wanted to process that material into a form that useable with a 3-D printer, and we wanted to 3-D print some samples and test their properties, and study how the manufacturing method effects the properties of 3-D printed PLA-HA.

Slide 4:

Two different manufacturing methods were used, one is dry speed mixing, which basically involves placing the raw PLA pellets in a container, mixing them with hydroxyapatite powder, and spinning it very very fast in a dry film until the mixture is roughly homogenous and then turning that into filament.

The other is magnetic stirring, where you basically dissolve the PLA pellets in a solvent, and then put them in a magnetic stirrer, which mixes them up as you can imagine, mixing that viscous dissolved PLA mixture with hydroxyapatite powder and then a silane coupling agent and then forming that into raw PLA-HA after it cures, which you can see in the middle of the slide.

Slide 5:

That raw material is then placed into a filament extruder which you can see on the right side of the slide here, where you put the raw material in the hopper up top, it is then compressed and fed through a heated nozzle at the end where it spits out something resembling a plastic wire which is then fed to a 3D printer.

Slide 6:

Here is just a basic schematic of how 3-D printing actually works, like I said, the plastic string once again gets fed through a heated nozzle, the bed upon which the part that you’re building is formed on moves around along with the nozzle so you get the proper geometry as you desire.

Slide 7:

Here are a couple of examples of the completed samples I made for this project. On the right is a magnetic stirred sample as well as a failed one, and here’s an example of a dry speed mixed sample.

Slide 8:

Two different testing methods were used, one was microindentation which I won’t cover in extreme depth here, but basically it involves pressing a very small diamond tipped pin into the surface of the material, and you use the data collected from that to observe the mechanical properties. In this case we wanted to find the elastic modulus and contact creep performance.

Creep performance is a measure of how much a material deforms with time with a constant load. As you can imagine that’s something you want to keep to a minimum. And the SEM image here is just an example of one of the indentations that was performed on a magnetic stirred sample.

Slide 9:

The other method used was Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy or EDS. Here’s the basic working principle of it, you’re basically shooting an electron beam at the surface of the sample, that excites the atoms and displaces electrons at lower energy states. Following the principle of conservation of energy, when an outer shell electron moves to fill that vacancy, because it’s at a higher energy state that excess energy has to go somewhere, in this case it goes to X-rays. These X-Rays can then be received. Each element actually emits a unique X-Ray during this process, so by figuring out what the wavelengths of the x-rays are and receiving them we can figure out what the composition of the sample is.

Slide 10:

Here are the results of EDS that you can actually see, the highlighted areas or the colored areas indicate the presence of the element given on the left. Hydroxyapatite is composed of calcium oxygen, phosphorus, carbon, and hydrogen. Calcium is not present in the base material of PLA, so if we see calcium or phosphorus we know we’re seeing HA.

We can see that HA was actually integrated successfully using both manufacturing methods. As far as the concentration goes it’s hard to say much, as the area that we imaged was very small. However, this had to be done because the hydroxyapatite powder used is only visible on the nanoscale, so it’s hard to make a solid observation other than the fact that we know that HA is present in the PLA material.

Slide 11:

And here are the results of the mechanical testing, you can see that the contact creep was significantly higher for the magnetic stirred samples which is less desirable, and the elastic modulus of the dry speed mixed samples was significantly higher than that of the magnetic stirred samples.

A two sample t test was conducted to determine the significance of manufacturing method on these two properties, and you can see that yes, the manufacturing method significantly influenced both properties.

Slide 12:

In conclusion, the manufacturing method significantly altered both the elastic modulus and creep performance, and hydroxyapatite was successfully integrated into the PLA matrix using both manufacturing methods.

If I was to continue this project in the future, I would produce and test more samples, and use different manufacturing methods such as wet speed mixing and re-extrusion.

I would also conduct more and different mechanical tests, such as wet and dry wear tests to see what the friction properties of the material are, as well as tensile tests to more thoroughly evaluate the elastic modulus.

Slide 13:

Thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that you have a great day!

Categories
Honors College OSCAR Schar School of Policy and Government

The Legal History of Post-Emancipation and Farm Labor and Plantation Related Mortality from 1880 to 1950

Author(s): Amanda Magpiong

Mentor(s): Rick Smith, Anthropology

With the end of the American Civil War, the legal practice of plantation slavery ended, but different forms of extractive farm labor, such as farm tenancy, emerged in its wake. This study is focused on the history of state and federal farm law, how it transformed after emancipation, and the health impacts of this legal history for farmworkers. While there are many public health studies investigating health disparities across the rural/urban divide, less attention has been given to the legal and structural factors driving negative health outcomes in rural communities. To assess the link between farm governance after emancipation and health outcomes on rural farmlands, we focused on the Blackland Prairies Ecoregion of Texas, one of the densest agricultural regions in the US which witnessed a disproportionately rapid growth of the farm tenancy system after emancipation. We first analyzed legal archives at the federal and state levels to trace the governance of agricultural labor over time. Next, we compiled publicly available vital records data for 2,544 individuals born in four Blackland counties (Dallas, Ellis, Hill, and Navarro) between 1880-1900. The effects of farm labor status on lifespan were evaluated using Kruskall-Wallis tests (p=4.238e-07) and ANOVA (p=2.64e-07). Results indicate that the legal landscape of farm labor after emancipation helped drive a more widespread and racially diverse decline in life expectancies in the Blacklands region. These findings extend our understanding of how federal and state farm law helped reproduce losses of life on rural farmlands after emancipation.
My name is, and I am presenting the legal history of post-emancipation and farm labor and plantation, related mortality from 1880 to 1950.

As a government and anthropology Major, I was very excited to be able to include both that incorporate both fields into this one study.

Where we start, our project is talking about the structural violence at a criminal plantation as a for foundational form of colonial violence in the Americas, and it peaked in the 19 twenties in Texas.Where violence on plantation began with dispossession and enslave enough indigenous and Africans people in the early colonial period. In 1,865, we reach emancipation for those in texas who finally heard the news, and following that States shifted legal and regulatory systems for plantation laborer and developed systems of farm tenancy where laborers lived and worked on land owned by others, which then contributes the current model that is used to explain health outcomes by using the rural and urban divide called the Rural Mortality Penalty, which is the belief that if you live in rural area you have more native health outcomes than if you were to live in an urban area.

Our ethical approach is that we really wanted this to be a community-driven project. Dr. Rick Smith is a descendant of the community, and we’ve Been working with the Ellis County Rural Heritage Farm, located in Waxahachie, Texas for the entirety of the project, which mine is simply a part of.

So the objective of our project is to evaluate the link between farm labor, deregulation and regulations, plantation, labor, and mortality.

The area which we are studying is Dallas County, as well as the Ellis Hill and Navarro counties within the black man’s region of Texas.

Our methods we compiled a legal history of State and Federal actions that impacted the lives of tenant farmers in the South. We evaluated mortalities across the role and urban divide by compiling data on individuals that were born and died in the Blackland counties, which is Ellis Hail and Navarro and the urban county of Dallas, born between 1,880 and 1,900, we collected 2,536 individuals, and with those individuals we conducted a Crystal Wallace test, as well as the survival analysis in R.

Now this this is our chart that shows the amount of people that we collected from different counties, and what they were categorized as.

Now. What we found in the policy is financial aid to farmers were attempts at the government put in place. Once they found out about the system of tenant farming that was formed without any laws and without any form of cash that was simple. Roll over from the plantation, from slavery directly into the tenant from a system. So once the Federal Government became aware of this and the post Emancipation. They attempted to enact these laws such as the Homestead Act, the Bank of Jones action, the firm Security administration, all of which were supposed to uplift these communities and provide financial aid to them to buy land and give them access to land that they hadn’t had. However, all of these acts failed because they didn’t provide them enough money to be able to actually purchase the lander, be able to afford the things that they need to be able to actually farm and live on this land, and in trying to improve their conditions. There is even a Court Case Block v. Hirsh. In which they were barred from being able to actually improve their living quarters, because if they did, then it only belonged to the land owner rather than to themselves. And the Southern tenant Farmer Union is something that arose out of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. And this community was fighting for better treatment and fighting for better qualities within the conditions that they were living in. All of which we’re fighting because the Federal Government wasn’t giving this community the things that they needed to be able to survive.

And what we found is that these population ones really were suffering. And so, when we look at the data that we found this is our age, average age of death. You can clearly see the rural and urban divide: urban people living longer than those who live in rural areas. However, when you break the rural population down between those who are not working on the plantation and those who are working on the plantation. You can see that those who are working who are owning the land instead of working it, are living just as long as those living in urban areas, and it’s those who are forced to work the land are stuck in this tenant farming system that are suffering and losing years of their lives. As a result,

However, that data sometimes can be skewed by population booms which we’re also occurring at this time. So we then turn to a survival analysis in which you can see that the same plantation workers are less likely to survive from one year to the next than any person living in any other area.

So clearly from this we can see that it’s not the fact that you’re living in a rural area. It’s the fact that you’re working on these former plantations and existing within this tenant farming system with this consistent form of violence that comes along with that.

So our conclusion from this is that the lack of regulation and federal and State protections for tenant farmers likely influenced these health disparities that exploited these farm workers, and the systematic violence on plantations is a more highly explanatory factor for disparities in mortality than simply the rural and urban divide alone. Going forward, greater attention to legal histories and systematic violence are necessary to be able to evaluate the root causes of these rural health disparities

Finally to acknowledge the people who have helped produce this work as a project as a whole. We like to acknowledge the lives and labor of Texas farm workers in the past, and we thank the members of the Board of the Ellis County role, Heritage Farm Generational knowledge of Texas farmers and farmlands help shape our thinking in this work. We are also grateful to the members of the critical molecular anthropology lab at George Mason and to Daniel Temple and Charles Rosen for their work on this work, and I would also like to thank my mentor, Dr. Vick Smith, for all of his help, and inviting me onto this project, as well as Oscar for helping me to produce this research.

Thank you.

Categories
College of Engineering and Computing OSCAR

Whitening Filter Testbed

Author(s): Anita Knighton

Mentor(s): Kathleen Wage, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Abstract
Low frequency acoustic waves travel great distances underwater and are the primary means of underwater communication signaling. However, hydrophone arrays used in such signaling collect large amounts of unwanted ambient noise. Whitening filters turn ambient noise into identically distributed, independent frequencies, among which desired signals are better discerned. To create whitening filters, the characteristic distribution of noise to be filtered must be known. This can be estimated from real-world data, but availability of ocean data is limited by financial and practical collection costs. This project developed tests by which to establish a baseline minimum amount of input data needed for effective whitening, with the goal of improving whitening filter design and performance. The research process included generating normally distributed data using MATLAB and correlating the data with both sinc and Bessel functions using the eigenvalues and eigenvectors method. Whitening filters were developed by taking the inverse of correlation matrices. Matched filters were tested on correlated data. Eigenvalues of the decomposed correlation matrices of filtered data for various snapshot sizes were plotted. 1000-trial histogram results show that eigenvalues of correlation matrices of filtered data converge to a single value as snapshot size increases. Future study will include more analysis of the filtered data and also testing of mismatched filters.
Keywords: whitening filters, eigenvectors, eigenvalues, correlation matrices
Whitening Filter Testbed-OSCAR-Anita Knighton.mp4
Transcript

Hi, my name is Anita Knighton, and today I am going to present my project about creating a whitening filter testbed for underwater acoustics.

First, a little background:
Acoustic waves are useful for underwater communication and research because they travel much farther than other waves. For example, radio waves travel less than 10 m underwater, but acoustic signals can travel over 100 km.
However, a major problem faced in processing underwater acoustic signals is dealing with unwanted noise.
One way to overcome this is to use electronic filters to turn ambient noise into independent, identically distributed frequencies, otherwise known as “white noise.’ After this, the desired signal stands out.

That is a simple idea, but whitening ambient ocean noise is difficult.
One challenge is: to create an effective filter, the characteristic distribution of the signals to be filtered must be known. This can be estimated from real-world data. But ocean data has limited availability, and, also, the soundscape of a particular location may vary over time.

With this in mind, I wanted to find a way to determine a minimum amount of input data needed to make an effective whitening filter.

The plan was to create and test whitening filters using the following method:
• First, generate correlated data.
• Process it through an ideal whitening filter.
• Decompose the correlation matrix of filtered data into eigenvalues and eigenvectors (more on those later).
• Plot the eigenvalues, and then observe the results.


In more detail:
Step 1 is simulating correlated data.
• I started with MATLAB’s random normal generator—the uncorrelated data from this function represents white noise.
• Then I created two correlating functions—a sinc function for noise coming from three dimensions and a Bessel function for noise coming from two dimensions.
• I built correlation matrices for each.
• I broke those matrices down into Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors, which in this case can be thought of as convenient tools for doing matrix operations.
• Then I used these tools to transform the data.

And at that point in the process, the data represented correlated ambient ocean noise.

As an example of correlation vs. non-correlation, here on the left is a scatterplot of two vectors (one on the horizontal axis; one on the vertical axis) that are correlated. You can see that as the values for one of them increase, the values for the other one increase as well, and that’s why you get kind of a slanted plot. On the other hand, on the bottom right you have a more circular pattern, and that is a scatter plot of two vectors of uncorrelated data. And then finally on the top right is a plot of one column of the correlation matrix of sinc-correlated data, which is actually what I used in my project.


After correlating the data, I tested it using the inverses of the transformation matrices, which are actually the ideal whitening filters. I passed the 3D data through a 3D whitening filter and the 2D data through a 2D whitening filter.
Here are graphs of correlation matrix eigenvalues of a single trial for various sample sizes for each data type. So, to understand these graphs, you need to know that eigenvalues represent the weights—or amounts—of different spatial frequencies present. You can see that the graphs flatten out as sample size increases. And this means the spatial frequencies are becoming more evenly distributed, which is the goal of a whitening filter.


Finally, to evaluate my findings, I wanted to take a closer look at the eigenvalues of the correlation functions of the filtered data.
Here I have plotted 1000-trial histograms of 3D data passed through a 3D filter showing the distributions of Eigenvalues with varying numbers of data snapshots. You can see that the Eigenvalues for small numbers of snapshots are spread out. This means the data is not effectively whitened. But as more snapshots are added, the eigenvalues cluster more closely around one. That is the desired outcome for a whitening filter.

In conclusion:
I can see there’s a threshold where the eigenvalues begin to converge around a single value, but I am not yet certain where it is. There’s more to study, and I plan to continue this project.
Hopefully continued research on this topic will lead to improved whitening filter performance.

Here are references I consulted during this research and my acknowledgments. Thank you very much for watching.

Categories
College of Science Honors College OSCAR

Effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Vocal Communication in the Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), Rufous Hornero (Furnarius rufus), and Thrush-like Wren (Campylorhynchus turdinus)

Author(s): Anna McElhinny

Mentor(s): David A. Luther, Shawn Heath Smith, Biology

Anthropogenic noise produced by car traffic, aircraft, and construction occurs at low frequencies which often overlap with the frequencies used in avian communication, which can limit the effectiveness of vocal signals. Many avian species alter their song to minimize overlap with noise and maximize effectiveness; however, the majority of studies have been on oscine birds in the northern hemisphere that learns their songs and are known to have high vocal plasticity. To understand how suboscine birds with innate songs (i.e., do not learn songs), the largest avian group in South America, adapt to anthropogenic noise, we examined the effects of noise on the song and call characteristics of Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), Rufous Hornero (Furnarius rufus), and Thrush-Like Wren (Campylorhynchus turdinus). We hypothesized that each species would change the frequency of their vocalizations in areas with relatively loud anthropogenic noise. We recorded vocalizations from each species at 21 sites from Santa Cruz to Samaipata, Bolivia during the summer of 2022. Data analysis is underway, and the preliminary results will be presented soon. We expect they will indicate that suboscine birds that do not learn their songs can also exhibit plasticity in song expression by adjusting the minimum frequency of their song, which addresses a key gap in our understanding of how birds respond to anthropogenic noise in under-studied systems.
I have no audio transcript at this time, unfortunately.
Categories
College of Science OSCAR

Phylogeographic analysis of the Saharan striped polecat (Ictonyx libycus) and zorilla (Ictonyx striatus)

Author(s): Autumn Gray

Mentor(s): Klaus-Peter Kopefli, Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation

Genetic diversity and habitat distribution of many African mammals are influenced by geographic barriers and climate fluctuations. Comparative phylogeographic studies of larger mammals, like lions and giraffe, show distinct populations and lineages across different regions of Africa. However, phylogeographic analysis is less common for mesocarnivores due to their elusive nature, but because they are smaller-bodied and have a smaller dispersal, they may show more diverse genetic structuring. In the genus Ictonyx, there are only two mesocarnivores, both of which have large ranges in Africa, but little is known about the population genetics of the Saharan striped polecat (Ictonyx libycus) and the zorilla (Ictonyx striatus). To better understand the Ictonyx species phylogeography, whole mitochondrial genomes will be sequenced using 21 frozen tissue samples and 13 museum specimens from the Mammals Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The sequenced genomes will represent localities across their ranges and be the first to analyze their population genetics and phylogeographical patterns using a phylogenetic network method. This study will be used to estimate the genetic diversity of both species while, inferring the influence of habitat type, geographic barrier, and other factors that promote differentiation between the two species. Given the wide-range distributions, limited dispersal distance, and phylogeographic patterns found in other African mammal species, it is predicted that both species will show genetic differentiation across their respective geographic ranges.
Hello everyone! My name is Autumn Gray and I am an Environmental Science major. Today, I will be talking a little bit about the phylogeographic analysis of the Saharan striped polecat and zorilla. And the mentor for this project was Dr. Klaus Koepfli.

So the Saharan striped polecat and zorilla are both endemic to Africa with their range being found here. Here is where the, the yellow was where the zorilla is from and then the green is where the polecat can be found. They are lesser-known mesocarnivores and what that means is their primary diet is meat and flesh and they are less than 16 kilograms. They are the only two species to be found within Ictonyx. And they are listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. And they don’t have much known about them.

So a few semesters ago, I did my research on the first complete mitochondrial genome of the Saharan striped polecat, so we sequenced, assembled, annotated, and analyzed that, um, mitogenome and placed it within the phylogenetic tree. It can be seen here, um, basically that study confirmed its placement within the phylogenetic tree and that it is in fact in Ictonychinae. It is also, ah, the polecat evolved before the zorilla, um, which is uh a species it is related to.

So this study, after that one, I was left with many questions, um, one of which is that there is only three complete mitochondrial genomes of these two species. So two being the zorilla and the one being the polecat I assembled, um, so I basically realized that their range is really large and I wanted to see how its genetic diversity differed across its range. Um, so we predict that both species will show genetic differentiation across their respective ranges just because of how large the their ranges are, along with them being very small species so their distribution ranges are a lot smaller than say megafauna, like an elephant.

So to do this we used the 23 frozen modern samples my mentor had and then we also seeked approval to use 13 historical samples provided by the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Support Center. Um, so we will sequence those and those will be what is used for this study.

Now the historic samples, I want to give an idea of what they looked like. There was basically just a lot of skulls and skins, um. These photos are not from the Smithsonian, there from some other institution. Um, but on the left is a skull, um this is not what we would be looking for specifically for our samples. The samples we use have a lot more tissue on it since we scrap of the tissue off the skull and that’s what we are going to extract the DNA from. So the skull pictured here too clean for us to use. And then the skin we just use clippings a part of it, um, but we are going to try and use the skull instead of the skin.

So, we haven’t gotten this far, but basically after our DNA is collected or our samples are collected we are going to start sequencing. So we sent out the modern samples to Psomagen for DNA extraction, PCR, sequencing, and library preparation and we will do the same with the historic samples but we will do that in the historic DNA lab and then send them off. We then will get the samples back and I will run FastQC for quality checking. Um we will downsample, map to reference, and then annotate the consensus. And then we will do multiple sequence alignment and then a phylogeny network mapping. Um to see how different the different localities of the polecat and zorilla are. And then we will publish all of the annotated mitogenomes and put them on GenBank so other researchers can use it and we will publish our findings in a journal.

So we didn’t get too far this semester but we still have a lot of work to do. We have to sequence and analyze all of the samples, um and we are going to figure out if the species has a large genetic differentiation throughout its range, like predicted. Um.

So yeah, thank you to all of my mentors and supporters throughout this project. Um Dr. Koepfli, Dr. Figueiró, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Brito, Dr. Hawkins, Dr. Ferguson, Medhini, um, the Smithsonian Institution Museum Support Center, Dr. Lee, OSCAR, um College of Science, and everyone at SMSC.

So yeah, thank you for listening.

Categories
College of Visual and Performing Arts OSCAR

Resurrection: Returning to Roots from Trauma

Author(s): Cynthia Davis

Mentor(s): Heather Green, Visual and Performing Arts

My dad always said that there are worse things than being alone. I did not believe him until I suffered through 11 months of “worse things’- which was being in an abusive relationship. These worse things spiraled and the only thing that I could find was that I had lost myself.

How do we discern truth when we are lost in the labyrinths of our own realities?
How do we return to our roots when we have lost all hope?

The Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research at George Mason University granted me the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program grant, with my ambitious proposal of writing a book. In one semester.
Starting in January 2023, I began to scour through my artworks and writings from 2020 until present.
Every week, I took my laptop to the local coffee shop, got some coffee, and sat for a couple hours writing and writing.

My goal was to create an accessible narrative memoir of my experience with surviving abuse, how art and writing made an impact on helping me alleviate symptoms of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder, and craft a section with real research in the growing field of art therapy. I wanted to be part of the conversation in the intersection of art, psychology, and advocacy.

Within 4 months, I finished an 80 page book. With the help of my incredible mentor, professor Heather Green, I was able to find out how to self publish with the funding provided by the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. The book will be available on Amazon and other platforms.

My dad always said that there are worse things than being alone. I did not believe him until I suffered through 11 months of “worse things’- which was being in an abusive relationship. These worse things spiraled and the only thing that I could find was that I had lost myself.

How do we discern truth when we are lost in the labyrinths of our own realities?
How do we return to our roots when we have lost all hope?

The Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research at George Mason University granted me the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program grant, with my ambitious proposal of writing a book. In one semester.
Starting in January 2023, I began to scour through my artworks and writings from 2020 until present.
Every week, I took my laptop to the local coffee shop, got some coffee, and sat for a couple hours writing and writing.

My goal was to create an accessible narrative memoir of my experience with surviving abuse, how art and writing made an impact on helping me alleviate symptoms of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder, and craft a section with real research in the growing field of art therapy. I wanted to be part of the conversation in the intersection of art, psychology, and advocacy.

Within 4 months, I finished an 80 page book. With the help of my incredible mentor, professor Heather Green, I was able to find out how to self publish with the funding provided by the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. The book will be available on Amazon and other platforms.

Categories
College of Humanities and Social Science OSCAR

Breaking the Walls: Geospatial Patterns in the Islamic State’s Use of Strategic Soft Targeting

Author(s): Delaney Soliday

Mentor(s): Laura Sauls, Global Affairs Program

This project analyzes geospatial patterns in the Islamic State’s (IS) use of strategic soft targeting (SST) over time. The Islamic State and its affiliate groups are particularly well-known for using this tactic to target vulnerable communities-a term I use to describe individuals with little to no control over their own physical mobility, including prisoners, detained individuals, internally displaced persons, and refugees. This work examines how the Islamic State’s use of strategic soft targeting has changed diachronically and geographically and how that trend is affecting vulnerable communities across the Middle East and Africa. This study maps trends in the IS’s attacks on prisons, detention centers, and IDP/refugee camps over the past 16 years and contextualizes this data within larger terrorism trends. In this study, I (1) use hot spot analysis to identify trends in attack distribution and (2) conduct a geographic case study of SST activity in the Lake Chad Basin countries. Using ArcGIS Pro to analyze an original dataset constructed for this study, I found that terrorist activity is likely expanding beyond the Middle East and intensifying in sub-Saharan Africa, where groups have access to terrorist safe havens in undergoverned spaces. Most documented strategic soft targeting activity is taking place in the quadripoint border region where Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria meet.
Slide 1: My name is Delaney Soliday and today I’ll be presenting my GLOA honor’s project, “Breaking the Walls: Geospatial Patterns in the Islamic State’s Use of Strategic Soft Targeting.” This project was also completed as a part of OSCAR’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program.

Slide 2: In this study, I asked three primary research questions:
1. How have trends in terrorist attacks on vulnerable communities changed over time?
2. How have trends in terrorist attacks on civilians changed spatially?
3. How do patterns in terrorist attacks on detained populations compare with patterns of attacks on IDPs and refugees?

Slide 3: One of the key concepts I discuss in this study is what I call “strategic soft targeting.’ I define this term as “terrorist attacks on civilians with limited control over their own mobility.’ These types of vulnerable civilian communities include internally displaced persons, refugees, prisoners, and detained individuals.

Slide 4: These two maps compare SST activity in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. On these heat maps, the warmer a color is, the denser SST activity is in that location. It is interesting to note that much of this activity is clustered around border regions and major cities in both regions, but attack distribution in the Lake Chad Basin is much denser than it is in the Middle East.

Slide 5: This map identifies statistically significant hot spots utilizing the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. The test revealed that most SST activity conducted by the Islamic State and its affiliate groups between 2006 and 2022 is located in the border regions where the four Lake Chad Basin countries- Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad- meet. That yellow bullseye we saw in the previous heat map is a statistically significant hot spot.

Slide 6: This map looks at the same cluster of four countries, but color codes local government areas or provinces with recorded SST activity by aggregate number of deaths. I found that each LGA saw an average of 32.5 deaths due to SST activity. A March 14, 2014, attack on the Giwa Military Barracks resulted in at least 622 deaths, though total casualties vary by source (BBC News 2014), which significantly skews the overall average deaths per LGA. That attack occurred in the local authority of Konduga, which is represented by the darkest shade of red on this map. When the Giwa attack is excluded, the average number of deaths drops to 18.67. This figure confirmed that the highest numbers of deaths are also occurring in the region with the highest numbers of SST attacks on civilian targets.

Slide 7: My analysis resulted in four primary findings.
• Terrorist attacks on civilians are, on average, three times deadlier in sub-Saharan Africa than they are in the Middle East and North Africa.
• Strategic soft targeting activity tends to center around 1) major population centers and 2) border regions in both the Middle East & North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
• All statistically significant hot spots of SST activity in sub-Saharan Africa are located in the border regions where the four Lake Chad Basin countries-Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad-meet. Most attacks resulting in casualties occur in this region, as well.
• Attacks on detained persons and prisoners are primarily confined to Nigeria.

My findings demonstrate that security studies scholars can better understand trends in terrorist activity using GIS methodologies. My results also have potential applications in the policymaking sphere when it comes to determining U.S. counterterrorism priorities. We have historically placed a lot of emphasis on CT operations in the Middle East, but we may need to pivot our focus to sub-Saharan Africa, where groups have much more latitude to operate in ungoverned spaces.

Slide 8: I would like to thank my two project advisors, Dr. Sauls and Dr. Ashley, for their support throughout the research process, as well as the Global Affairs Department and the library’s Digital Scholarship Lab. Many thanks as well to OSCAR and the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program for providing not only funding for this project, but mentorship and community.

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College of Humanities and Social Science College of Science Honors College OSCAR

LGBTQ+ Representation in Education

Author(s): Cameron Hunt, Emma Ealley, Isabella Roman, Skylar Leih

Mentor(s): Toni Farris, Honors College

There is current debate surrendering policies in primary education on whether to allow LGBTQ+ material in history and social science classes or not. Some deem it as liberal indoctrination, inappropriate for children, too difficult and complex to teach, or disrespectful to religious students and families. Others see the implementation of LGBTQ+ representation in education as productive, inclusive, diverse, and vital for students to learn in order to expand their knowledge of types of people, allow them to understand themselves and one another better, and create a supportive, accepting environment. After researching current legislation and the benefits and concerns of implementing LGBTQ+ education, as well as reading of the wants, needs, and emotions of the parties involved in this conflict. The information has been compiled into a website with blog posts detailing the effects of LGBTQ+ representation on students and parents, and how schools and policies relate to this issue. These blog posts aim to inform students, parents, school employees, and any other readers on LGBTQ+ representation in the educational system and approach it considering the concerns of both supporters and deniers equally.
Hi my name is Isabella Roman. Hi, my name is Skyler Lee. I’m Cameron Hunt and not present with us today but editing our video is Emma Ealley. So, in our Honors 130 project we were assigned to research an identity conflict because our class is Resolving Identity Conflict and so the topic we chose to do is LGBTQ plus Representation in Education. So, there’s current debate in the United States right now on the representation of the LGBTQ plus community in local education should be promoted or avoided altogether. Studies showed that students feel safer when seeing their identities represented in school curriculum but there is parent and administration pushback due to conflicting values. So, many teachers feel hesitant to approach the topic because it could have a very significant impact on their careers, so this conflict mainly boils down to conformity versus diversity and identity and self-expression. In our conflict analysis we identified main interests and needs as well as positions. So in our interests and needs we identified things like self-expression, representation, conformity and autonomy as well as things like access to information, healthcare, and safety. We identified major positions being Pro-LGBTQ plus representation groups, Anti-LGBTQ plus representation groups and third parties. All right and now we move on to the categorization and complexity of the parties involved. In this slide we’ve included the grassroots level of parties involved such as parents, students, and teachers and more. Each group can essentially be split into Pro-LGBTQ plus supporters and Anti-LGBTQ plus supporters, however parents hold the most variation in terms of relevant positions for this conflict. It should be considered that there are parents who may have children who are part of the LGBTQ plus community and this may affect their positions, priorities, and interests. Next slide please. And as you can probably tell, the situation is very complex. There are many ways to break down the parties and each have their own needs wants and desires, although these mostly overlap. There’s also division within those parties due to different patterns of thinking and the knowledge that they have on various topics. This would be due to cognitive bias, which essentially means that your brain is confronted with two very different perceived truths and thus, cannot decide which is actually true. Positioning is whichever side the a person chooses to align with in a particular conflict. And cognitive bias and positioning in an argument lead to dehumanization on both sides there are the immediate biases that are based on emotion but there are also deeper biases that lead someone to disregard information that does not fit with what they already know or believe about something. All this leads to one side being considered less than human for their beliefs and position which is dehumanization. Next slide please. Our group has created a conflict map for our project that includes the other parties involved, more than just the grassroots parties listed in our conflict analysis. this map includes the middle-range and top-range leaders as well as the parties of the grassroots we already mentioned as well as delving into each party’s interests, needs, values, and rights, which is linked in our website. Next slide please. Alrighty, to address this situation we came up with an advocacy plan. Our plan was to create a blog educating the public on the importance and key elements of LGBTQ plus representation in primary education. As a result, we created this website on Google sites; we had four blog posts “How to Implement LGBTQ Representation,” “The Importance of Representation,” “The Role of Parents”nd “Schools and Curriculums.” The main goal of this was for people, at least a couple people, to read it and just kind of understand the other view, even if they don’t necessarily agree, just to understand that this topic is a lot more complex than it looks on the surface. As a result, one of the biggest challenges for this situation as a whole was trying to remain neutral. We all hold an opinion on this, we’re all cognitively biased towards one party, and so to be able to split those apart and write concisely in a neutral position was very hard. although it did allow us to learn to mediate between others in ways that involve all of the parties involved. And that was our project for our student advocacy. Thank you so much for watching!
Categories
College of Engineering and Computing OSCAR

A Continued Study of Manufacturing Methods for PEEK/HA

Author(s): Elijah Pointer

Mentor(s): Dr. Shaghayegh Bagheri, Volgenau School of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering)

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) possesses characteristics such as biocompatibility, non-toxicity, radiolucency, corrosion resistance, incredible toughness, rigidity, and an elastic modulus similar to bone, all of which make it a promising material for orthopedics. Despite its many favorable qualities, pure PEEK must be supplemented with a compound like Hydroxyapatite (HA) to boost its otherwise low osteogenic capabilities. The only difficulty with utilizing PEEK/HA composite material is the elaborate process required to manufacture it. This research is a continued study of different methods to produce PEEK/HA for orthopedic usage.
Hello, my name is Elijah Pointer and my research this semester was a continued study of manufacturing methods for PEEK/HA under Dr. Bagheri.

In this video, I will first explain what PEEK/HA is and how it can be applied. Next, I will describe the filament extrusion process and different manufacturing methods of the material. Lastly, I will provide my results, difficulties, and progress since last semester.

*
PEEK/HA is a composite material composed of polyether ether ketone and hydroxyapatite. In short, a composite material is a combination of different materials with the intent of combining or improving specific attributes.

PEEK is a high performance polymer with characteristics such as, but not limited to: biocompatibility, non-toxicity, radiolucency, and a bone-like elastic modulus. One of its few drawbacks is its inherent biological inertness. Supplementing it with an additive such as HA, however, reduces PEEK’s inertness and can encourage bone growth.

This in particular opens up the possibilities of utilizing PEEK/HA in orthopedics, and, given its plasticity, even 3D printing bone scaffolds and implants. This could be used to repair bones as you can see in the image on the left. A basic, but real 3D printed PEEK scaffold is shown on the right.

To use PEEK/HA material in 3D prints, the composite material is often made into pellets and drawn into filament using an extruder such as this one. Pellets are dropped into the funnel, where an auger pushes them further into the barrel, where they are melted down and pushed out of the nozzle as a thin filament.

The first manufacturing method I employed to create PEEK/HA material was dry mixing. This method involves mixing the PEEK pellets with HA powder one to two times at 3000 rpm for 30 seconds. I would then extrude the pellets into filament.

The second method, re-extrusion, is really just an extension of dry mixing. Basically, I would create the dry mixed filament but then cut it into pellet sized pieces and run them through the extruder one to two more times to better mix the composite material.

In situ was the final method I employed. Unlike dry mixing, the in situ method chemically forms PEEK/HA in one go. As such, it is the most complex and time consuming of the three. It involves adding various compounds into a heated mixture and gradually increasing the temperature until the solution is formed. It is then poured out into a tray and broken into extrudable pieces.

Each method aimed to improve the thoroughness of the PEEK/HA mixture at the cost of time and simplicity. The original goal of my research was to 3D print mechanically testable samples using each method, but given the inherent difficulty of extruding and printing with a high melting point thermoplastic, I spent most of this semester just trying to print dry mixed samples.

The image on the left details cylindrical PEEK compression samples which I printed for practice before using the composite material. This allowed me to get a better understanding of the intricacies of 3D printing with PEEK before beginning the process with PEEK/HA. The image on the right details my two closest attempts at creating rectangular prism PEEK/HA compression samples. The one on the left failed during printing due to a section of the extruded filament diameter being too large for the 3D printer to use. The one on the right experienced a similar problem in addition to gaps in the layers likely due to the problematic diameter again or uneven cooling.

Overall, practice with regular PEEK filament and utilization of better adhesive techniques brought me one step closer to printing a complete and testable sample compared to the previous semester. However, when I continue this project this coming summer, I might consider using an automated filament winder to obtain a more consistent diameter. I also want to investigate the effects of speed on the quality of the prints as well.

Thank you.

Categories
College of Engineering and Computing College of Science OSCAR

Slot Blot Assay as Method for Testing Sensitivity and Specificity of Antibodies

Author(s): Ewen Crunkhorn

Mentor(s): Caroline Hoemann, Department of Bioengineering

Lectin-like oxidized LDL receptor-1 (Lox-1) was recently reported as a marker for myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) in the blood circulation of patients with lung disease and COVID-19-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In previous studies, however, there were numerous inconsistencies in the expression pattern of Lox-1, with a variety of commercially available antibodies. This study utilized a slot blot approach to identify antibodies with a specific and high affinity binding to the extracellular and intracellular domains of Lox-1 (ECD and ICD, respectively). In the slot blot assay, protein samples are drawn under vacuum onto PVDF-F membrane then subjected to immunodetection with a horseradish peroxidase-based detection method. Recombinant Lox-1 ECD protein (BioTechne), recombinant Lox-1 ECD with RIPA and Laemmli, and ICD peptide (Biomatik) were used at 3 different concentrations as positive controls, and BSA was included as a negative control. HL60 cells, which were found by our laboratory to express negligible levels of Lox-1, and HEK293 cells expressing abundant levels of full-length Lox-1 protein were used to determine specificity of the antibodies for endogenous Lox-1 protein. Five antibodies previously used in research were tested using these negative (BSA, HL60 extract) and positive controls (recombinant protein, HEK293-Lox-1+ extract, primary antibody). Overall, this slot blot assay shows promise as a quick, qualitative way to determine antibody specificity and sensitivity. More refinement is required to ensure that all samples are properly placed onto the membrane.
Hello, my name is Ewen Crunkhorn, and my research project was on validating the slot blot assay as a method for testing sensitivity and specificity of commercial antibodies.

The lab I did my experiment with was studying Lox-1 expression in Covid-19 immune response, specifically in immune suppressive cells. However, during experimentation different antibodies showed conflicting molecular weights, and upon further literature review, these molecular weights were supported in studies that used a specific antibody, but were still in conflict across antibodies. As such, we sought a way to show the specificity and sensitivity of an antibody to Lox-1. The slot blot was identified as a potential avenue for validation.

We chose a variety of factors as follows. Two versions of the extracellular domain, or ECD (one denatured to show potential conformational bindings) and one version of the intracellular domain, or ICD, at 3 concentrations to test for sensitivity. Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) , a bovine protein, and cell extracts shown to have negligible amounts of Lox-1 were used as negative controls, while the antibody itself and cell extracts shown to contain high levels of full length Lox-1 were used as positive controls.

Here we have the ICD antibody results. The first antibody is from ThermoFisher, and only a very faint band of the antibody positive control is seen, so it would have to be retested at higher concentrations. The second is Abcam, and shows even binding to the cell extracts, but only faint binding to the ICD. This would also have to be retested as the positive control band is not visible, but does suggest that the antibody is more sensitive to other protein species. Finally the Biorbyt antibody showed very high recognition of the ICD peptide and positive control. It also bound to both cell extracts, though much fainter.

Here we have the two ECD antibodies. The Biotechne antibody shows only faint binding at the highest non-denatured ECD concentration, which suggest a conformational binding to Lox-1. The Sigma antibody only shows binding the negative control cell extracts, suggesting that it recognizes a species other than Lox-1. Both would need to be retested as the positive control bands are not visible.

In conclusion, the slot blot shows promise as a method to validate commercial antibodies for laboratory use, but needs refinement for publication data.

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College of Humanities and Social Science OSCAR

Migration as the Foundation for Political Attitudes in Hong Kong

Author(s): Gabriel Yu

Mentor(s): Byunghwan Son, Global Affairs

Much of the established literature on Hong Kong’s political culture is myopic in sociohistorical scope. Commonly-cited forces which inform the political attitudes of Hong Kongers, typically characterized as liberal and democratic, include exposure to Western liberal values via British colonial rule and Mainland China’s pervasive influence as a former neighbor and present sovereign. While these are still relevant factors to consider in any analysis of contemporary Hong Kong politics, to consider them as preeminent in the formation of Hong Kong’s political culture unfortunately overlooks finer details such as the social makeup and origin of Hong Kong’s population and the pluralism present among political attitudes. This paper thus presents a novel view of political socialization in Hong Kong. Underpinning the modern political culture of Hong Kong is the refugee and migrant origin found in the majority of the territory’s population. In Hong Kong, refugee status is often synonymous with political apathy, but in this paper that notion is qualified to a considerable degree. Combining qualitative historical-conceptual analysis and empirical survey data, this paper argues that migrant and refugee influx is what provided the foundation for a postmaterialist development of Hong Kong’s modern political culture and its preference for liberal democratic values.
Hello, my name is Gabriel Yu. I’m a Global Affairs major at George Mason University, and my URSP project tackles a question which I’ve been meaning to answer for quite some time. Hong Kong is well-known for its history of mass protest demonstrations. Hong Kongers also strongly support liberal democratic values, and many of their protests have revolved around such values. But how did Hong Kong society come to be like this? Was it the British, their former colonizers, who introduced these values? Has China, which regained sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, played a role in fueling animosity among Hong Kongers? While I don’t discredit the impact Hong Kong’s colonial past has had on the city’s relationship with China, I think the origins of Hong Kong’s political attitudes actually lie in the very nature of its society’s formation and evolution. What makes Hong Kong quite unique, having few similar cases in this regard, is that its very essence is colonial. When the British gained Hong Kong in 1841, they were also creating Hong Kong. So over the course of its 180 years of history, Hong Kong’s population has grown from a measly few thousand to nearly seven and a half million people. These people had to come from somewhere, and the vast majority of them trace their origins to China. How strongly Hong Kongers feel connected to China is another matter to discuss, but what this means is that nearly all Hong Kongers today either have migrant or refugee origins or are themselves migrants or refugees. So how did Hong Kongers go from starving refugees and wealth-driven migrants to politically-engaged citizens? Through my analysis of the relevant literature, I have found that in leaving China to settle in Hong Kong, people were essentially seeking wealth and/or safety. For much of Hong Kong’s history, China was a very difficult place to live. It has had to deal with violent social uprisings, invasion, and civil war, among many other issues. In Hong Kong, people were largely kept safe from these issues. But while life in Hong Kong was certainly easier than life in China, there was still no democracy in the British colony, and colonial officials largely kept their focus on generating income, not attending to the needs of the population. It was only in the 1970s when the colonial government, under Governor Murray MacLehose, began to take proactive efforts to make Hong Kong a better place to live. Democracy was also slowly being introduced into Hong Kong during this time, and the idea of democracy was not falling on deaf ears in the case of Hong Kongers. By the 1980s and 90s, Hong Kongers were wealthier and more well-educated than they had ever been, notwithstanding persistent issues such as income inequality. The point is, in order to protect the way of life they’ve acquired in Hong Kong, one which was nearly impossible to get in China, the people of Hong Kong must have democracy so that they can rule themselves. As political scientist Ma Ngok says in his 2011 article Value Changes and Legitimacy Crisis in Post-industrial Hong Kong, “the democrats’ major argument for the necessity of democracy after 1997 was that it is the best system to guarantee autonomy, freedom, and rule of law. In other words, a popularly elected government was more likely to stave off intervention from Beijing and defend Hong Kong’s way of life.” But since true democracy has never been implemented in Hong Kong, its people have habitually turned to protest to express their desires. As Australian journalist Antony Dapiran wrote in his 2017 book “City of Protest”, “protests have always had at their core anxiety about Hong Kong’s identity.” Furthermore, survey data from 2018 by the World Value Survey indicates that for the most part, democratic rule is considered to be important by most Hong Kongers. To conclude, I want to point out that Hong Kong remains an unconventional case within democratization literature. Although it possesses the societal foundation for democratization, as I have uncovered, its colonial past left democratization incomplete, and Chinese rule today has been far from diligent in completing this task. The people of Hong Kong have never been in control of their own political fate, and it remains to be seen whether their wishes, whatever they encompass, will eventually be granted. Thank you for watching.