HUMAN BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

High School

Science and Music Seen Through a Bibliometrics Lens
David An, The Culver Academies

Art and science are essential features of our living world. To better understand the relationship of these two features, it is necessary to trace how they have involved with each other historically. Systematic and comprehensive reviews on the publications in the fields of art and science research would provide perspective and evidence on their evolvement, yet such studies have been rare. Using music as a representative, bibliometric analyses were herein performed to model how art has evolved along with and/or adapted to scientific research. Key points covered in this study include the variance in interests in music research across the world, developments in global efforts in music research over time, bibliometric comparisons between art and science, the historical development of music studies, the evolution of music studies in relation to scientific development, and the future direction of developing music studies. This study should serve as a starting point for exploring the relationship between art and science as well as an introduction to scholarly research to those new to the field.

COVID-19’s Effect on Mental Health
Piper Braden, Pine Crest School

Preliminary research about the effect of lockdown due to COVID-19 on mental health. The plan is to administer a survey in the upcoming weeks to assess the effects of lockdown on mental health in teenagers 14-18.

Analyzing the Predictors of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Tasluba Bushra, The Bronx High School of Science

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is when a presumably healthy infant under the age of one year passes away unexpectedly due to an unexplained cause. SIDS is determined to be the cause of death once no other explanation is found after an investigation or autopsy. Since the start of the Safe to Sleep (formerly known as Back to Sleep) campaign in 1994, rates of SIDS have decreased dramatically but since then the rates of SIDS have plateaued. As of 2017, SIDS is the fourth leading cause of infant mortality in the United States. In 2017, there were 3,600 infant deaths due to SIDS. To determine the predictors of SIDS, data from CDC Wonder was analyzed. It was found that male infants have a significantly higher rate of SIDS. Infants of Native American or Alaskan Indian and Black or African American descent had the highest risk of SIDS. Asians had the lowest SIDS death rate. In the United States, infants in the Southern region had the highest risk of SIDS. Birthweight and prematurity were also found to be strong predictors of SIDS. Addressing the disparities among demographics will help identify setbacks within the healthcare system and help identify risk factors that will help prevent infant mortality due to SIDS. Further research needs to be conducted on the genetics behind SIDS to find the cause.

An Examination of the Relationship Between Screen Time and Achievement Motivation in an Adolescent Population
Jaiyoun Choi, Westview High School

My project aimed to examine the link between screen time and achievement motivation in high school students by utilizing a cross-sectional study. A survey formulated on google forms was used to collected data on both screen habits and the level of achievement motivation in an adolescent population.

The Impact of the Legalization of Recreational Marijuana on Racialized Arrests
Maya El-Sharif, Pine Crest School

My project looks at how the legalization of marijuana has changed total arrest rates, and African American arrests specifically.

An Examination of the Association Between Empathy as a Disposition and Adherence to COVID-19 Safety Guidelines
Mandy Feuerman, American Heritage School Boca/Delray

The purpose of this project was to understand how empathy as a stable personality trait relates to adherence to COVID-19 safety guidelines. Empathy was measured along the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), which consists of four sections with separate scores for each. These sections were perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress, and fantasy. The hypothesis was that there will be a positive association between empathy as measured by the IRI and adherence to Covid-19 safety guidelines. A survey including all the questions on the IRI as well as questions about adherence to safety guidelines was responded to by 142 students between the ages of 14 and 18. The empathy subscores and empathy averages were calculated for each participant. The participants were given a guideline score based on the guidelines they indicated following and the extent to which they followed them. The data were then analyzed in Microsoft Excel with the data analysis toolpak. According to the analysis, there was a moderate positive association between average empathy score and guideline score, with a correlation coefficient of .44. The r-square was 20%, indicating that 20% of the variability regarding following of safety guidelines can be accounted for by empathy average. With a p-value of .006, the data can be found to be statistically significant. The data can be applied to public health messaging, as it should be stressed to less empathetic people that the pandemic is an emergency and that safety guidelines are about self-preservation as much as they are about helping others.

Ecological Momentary Assessment used as a method to predict functioning in schizophrenia patients
Ellaheh Gohari, American Heritage School Plantation

Schizophrenia patients often inaccurately self-report their activities and work skills when compared to objective information. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) was used to sample daily activities and work skills in these patients within the course of 30 days to see if this method portrays a more accurate picture of the schizophrenia patients' daily functioning.

Comparing Probiotics and Current Antidepressants on the Regulation of Gut Microbiota and their Effect on the Drosophila Depressive State
Baano Golawala, American Heritage School Boca/Delray

This project sets outs to examine whether there is a correlation between a healthy gut flora and a healthy mind, by providing probiotics to depressed fruit flies, and measuring their anxiety level. The goal of this research is to determine whether probiotics can be prescribed as a way to combat several mental disorders.

Acculturation as a Protective Measure Against Disordered Eating Behaviors.
Alannis Jáquez, The Bronx High School of Science

Eating disorders are widely known to be related to income, race, self esteem, stress and access to food. However, there is very little research on how the stress of feeling out of place from a dominant culture can affect eating habits. I hypothesized that as the level of acculturation increased in participants, there would be fewer reported disordered eating symptoms. We found that there was no significant association between level of assimilation and eating behaviors, however, we attribute these results to our small sample size.

White Matter Connectivity and Executive Function
Larissa Ma and Sophia Lehrman, American Heritage School Plantation

This study explored the association between the microstructural properties of the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus II, a white matter tract, and executive function in children with ADHD with the aim to improve diagnostics.

Digital Phenotyping Autism: Investigating Objective Vocal and Movement Quantification for Characterizing Autism Severity
Emilin Mathew, American Heritage School Plantation

During COVID-19, psychologists have raised concerns on how effectively autism diagnoses can evaluate social behavior in this new environment (children wearing masks, staying distanced, etc). Additionally, the gold standard for the autism diagnosis has numerous faults such as not being objective and requiring costly training for clinicians. The purpose of my research was to use computer vision analysis with motion tracking technology and vocalization analysis to test whether movement and vocalization could become new predictive determiners for autism severity.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the South Asian Population
Sruthi Medepalli, Lynbrook High School

On this website, you can find summaries and overviews of existing research on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as take a dive into the original research I conducted, which focuses on the South Asian population. There are designated sections for treatment, diagnosis, the DSM-5, the mental health assessment we used, and multiple charts of data.

Systematic Literature Review of the Filtration Efficiency of Various Masks
Katherine Minielly, Pine Crest School

Mask Systematic Literature Review

To be Defined or Not to Be? Addressing Internal Questions in the Online Community for Gender Diverse Youth
Chaeyoon Ok, Convent of the Sacred Heart

The online community plays a pivotal role in the transgender community. To better understand how gender-diverse youth equip online communities during their critical stage of gender identity development and body changes, I collected online postings from TrevorSpace, one of the most active forums among gender-diverse youth in the US. While existing research largely focuses on the connectedness and social aspects of online communities, findings from this research illustrate how trans children are using online communities to navigate and explore their gender identity. The thematic analysis reveals two conflicting needs during this exploration process, a desire to identify their own gender identity yet not to be restricted by labels. More specifically, I found that 1) gender-diverse youth use the community to question and understand their gender identity by sharing their experience; 2) and these experiences vary for individuals in regards to the intensity of gender dysphoria and their coping mechanisms; 3) yet, the debate centers around the meaning of trans--for example, whether trans youth need to experience dysphoria or physically transition to be considered trans; 4) the growing impact of trans social influencers is pointed out as one of the sources of such exclusionary perspectives defining trans within the community. Altogether, this research points to the importance of acknowledging the spectrum of the trans experience. The findings from this research can contribute to diverse academic fields, ranging from human-computer interaction (HCI) to gender studies, providing implications to design a more inclusive digital platform for gender-diverse youth.

MINet: A Novel Telemedicine Tool for Automatically Assessing Motivational Interviewing (MI) Conversations Using Natural Language Processing
Ashlyn Roice and Alicia Roice, Mountain House High School

Studies from the NIH have shown that over 70% of the time during virtual counseling sessions, counselors are experiencing doubt in their abilities, leading to increased worry about whether they are truly helping their patients. To mitigate this worry and to allow more focused therapy, we created MINet, a telemedicine tool that leverages natural language processing and ML in order to rate motivational interviewing conversations as high or low quality, using linguistic landmarks such as word count, Jaccard similarity, counselor-to-patient ratios, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis.

The Effect of Long Term Isolation on Mental Health: A Literature Review
Carolina Senhorini Seixas, American Heritage School Boca/Delray

This is a literary review done to come to conclusions regarding what is known about the effect of long-term social isolation on mental health. This research is extremely valuable as it analyzes articles and scholarly sources for any drawbacks, and summarizes the reliable information found.

Inferring Dysconnection Syndrome Using fMRI Modeling Techniques
Isaac Singer, Pine Crest School

Dysconnection syndrome is the inability of the brain's specialized regions to communicate properly. This symptom is commonly found in neurological disorders such as Schizophrenia and Parkinson's Disease. Dyconnection is characterized by an abnormal firing of signals across synapses between large scale networks of the brain. My research focuses on using neuroimaging, specifically fMRI, in order to highlight activation frequencies of specific regions. As neuroimages are captured during task based cognition, healthy and affected subject's brain functions are contrasted. We find that the abnormality of the brain's connection is directly linked to the abnormality of human behavior in Schizophrenia.

Understanding the Relationship between Personality Traits and Emoji Usages Habits in Naturalistic Settings
Han Wang, Beijing National Day School

Facial emojis are increasingly used in digital communication as non-verbal signals (e.g., gestures, facial expressions, eye contact) are mostly unavailable. Emoji provide a way to express nonverbal conversational cues in digital communication. Previous research on emoji use hints that people with different personality traits might interpret emojis differently (e.g., Jones, Wurm, Norville, & Mullins, 2020). We aim to investigate the potential influence of individuals’ personality on their emoji use in different contexts through a mixed-methods approach. We surveyed 116 participants (age range 15- to 25-years) from China to collect data on the affective valence of 40 facial emojis. Twelve facial emojis were selected and classified into three categories (positive, neutral, negative) based on their perceived valence. Then, another group of participants will be asked to read 20 paragraphs of short digital conversations. Their task is to imagine themselves as the designated character in each conversation and choose the emoji that they think is the best fit to respond. The associations between their choices in different contexts and their personality traits measured by the big-five personality scale will be investigated using multinominal logistic regression. Interviews will be further conducted with 15 participants to explore their views on the role of emojis and digital communication. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts will be conducted. Theoretically, this study may contribute to a deeper understanding of the link between personality and emoji usage in different contexts. Practically, the results can help reducing misunderstanding in digital communication and improving user experiences in different social communication applications.

Modeling the Human Haptic Code: A Deep Learning Approach to Neuroprosthetic Development
Cleah Winston, Homeschool

Individuals who have lost a limb often are in the need of wearing prosthetics in order to regain their ability to move. Unfortunately, current prosthetics do not allow for a realistic sense of touch. My project brings neuroprosthetic development another step forward in solving this wide-spread problem by using machine learning models to understand how and where tactile features are represented on the cortex of the brain.

Undergraduate

Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Efficacy of Antidepressants
Noor Alyasiry and Mckimmon Engelhardt, Saint Louis University

This systematic review investigated the direct relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and antidepressant medications (ADM). To expand a recent review (Nanni et al., 2012) and reflect the current understanding of the relationship between ACEs and ADM, we searched PsychInfo and Medline databases and cited references from 2010-2020. Terms searched included ADM and each of the ACEs as well as child abuse and maltreatment. Combined searches yielded 2219 articles (1780 after duplicate removal) for review with 20 articles meeting study criteria. Inclusion criteria included conjointly examining ACEs and ADM for depression in humans and exclusion criteria included bipolar and psychosis comorbidities. Most studies testing ADM efficacy or psychotherapy against or in conjunction with ADMs used clinical trials (often randomized) with some case series and cross-sectional studies. Findings showed ACES were associated with an increased likelihood of using ADMs, had an interaction between DNA methylation and ADM efficacy, are linked to suicide risk when using ADM, are linked to ADM responsiveness but response may be dependent on patient age or age when ACE(s) occurred, and no studies were found to support psychotherapy was superior to ADM alone or in combination. ADMs, endorsed in two or more studies, demonstrating success to reduce depressive symptoms with those with ACEs include vortioxetine, venlafaxine, fluoxetine, paroxetine, and citalopram/escitalopram. Reduced ADM responsiveness with those with ACEs could be related to an interaction with specific single nucleotide polymorphisms affecting serotonin and norepinephrine expression or timing of abuse (e.g., aged 4-7).

Breaking the Barriers of Traditional Service Learning in a Pandemic with E Service-learning: Impacts of a COVID-19 Module in a Non-Major Biology Course
Ryleigh Fleming, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Marco Esteban, Dougherty Valley High School

Our presentation showcases how Dr. Samiksha Raut pivoted from making use of traditional service learning to using something novel - e service-learning due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases, which causes institutions to shut down across the nation. This 4 week module was implemented in her non-major biology course (BY-101). It not only gave students the chance to learn about COVID-19 through guest lectures and pre-recorded lecture, but it gave students the chance to impact their local community by educating others by creating a good infographic that could be distributed via social media.

How Gender Impacts Investors’ Disposition Effect
Shu Miao, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China

I will use information collected by the software and survey to find out the impact that gender and personalities together cause on the level of Disposition Effect and try to give investors some advice about how to prevent Disposition Effect

Graduate

Free Campus Meals as a College Recruiting Nudge
Ashley Donaldson Burle, Saint Louis University

Campus visits offer prospective students an impression about life at postsecondary institutions and can influence students' college choice. This study sought to determine whether small, inexpensive changes, such as providing free campus meals, have lasting impacts on the overall campus experience thus nudging students’ decisions to apply or enroll.

Assessing Patients needs during and after COVID-19 at NYU Dentistry.
Priyanka Chokshi, New York University

The presentation talks about the impact of COVID-19 on patients at NYU Dentistry.

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