McLelland wins SAU research grant

 Impacts of sedimentation, fecal coliform, total fecal chloral chloriform in small ponds is the title of Grace McLelland's research. It was recently awarded an SAU Research Committee grant.

The research is designed to sample "non point" impacts on several campus ponds. McLelland notes:

"This pollution of freshwater ponds can be divided into two types: point pollution which is an identifiable source of pollution where the pollution is discharged, meanwhile non-point pollution comes from multiple different places that run into a specific source but cannot be pinpointed."

She follows that up: "The interest is to see how the different areas of land affect the different ponds in sedimentation, fecal coliform, and total coliform in the ponds."

She hopes to collect, analyze, and present her data in a variety of fora including the Southern Regional Honors Council meeting in Charlotte, NC. That meeting will be held from March 30 to April 1, 2023.

Good luck!

Students Receive Electronics Kits

UNO Ultimate Starter Kit from RoboLinking

Two honors students, Seth Loftin and Ryan Eppinette, each recently received an electronics kit to use in their physics lab couse under Dr. Gary Boucher.

In an e-mail, Dr. Boucher wrote, "After giving thought as to what I could do with these students as an extra, I decided that a digital electronics approach would fit with the theme of circuits in the course.  It is also something I have taught many times at LSUS.  My suggestion to both of the students, and they like the idea, is to purchase an Arduino project kit from Amazon, and teach them how to use a microprocessor/microcontroller to do various circuit functions."

As most faculty who teach honors courses at SAU know, the Honors College has funds designated to elevate contract honors courses to honors level. Dr. Boucher's course is a good example of that process.

On Our Way to NCHC 2014

Casey O'Hara, Addison Ochs, and Kara O'Neal at DFW

Our trip began badly. Expedia booked us on a nonexistent flight and failed to e-mail us that the flight was no more. So, we arrived early for our 1:20 pm flight only to discover that we had just missed the morning flight by half an hour.

American rebooked us for a 6:10 pm flight. We had to kill time in Texarkana; we ate at Jimmy Johns and then saw movies. Kara and the Kardas' saw Mazerunner while Addison and Casey took in Fury.

After, we walked around the mall before catching our late plane. In Dallas, we had a two-hour layover so we dined at Pappacitos before catching our fully booked flight to Denver.

We arrived in Denver just after 10 pm MST. Hopefully, the rest of our trip will be less eventful. There is a meeting of the Research Committee Friday. On Saturday, all will be in action with the students presenting at breakfast and Kardas presenting a poster from 1 to 3.

Milkweed

Milkweed (Asclepias sp.)

Found some milkweed (aka butterfly plant) in town today; bought two. I'll plant those somewhere near the house. Honors College will try to get more for its new public service project--planting milkweed on campus to help raise the number of monarch butterflies in this part of the country.

Hollensworth Discusses Genetics

Honors student Lillian Hollensworth recently gave a talk to the Union County (AR) Genealogical Society. Her talk revolved around the use of information from 23andMe, a service that provides a kit for obtaining genetic information.

Saltwater Aquarium

Addison Ochs and Casey O'Hara and their saltwater aquarium

For their honors project for Dr. Claude Baker's class honors students Addison Ochs and Casey O'Hara are constructing a saltwater aquarium. It will be used to teach students in marine biology and other classes.

Acheulean Axes and the Movius Line

Samson King and his poster on Acheulean Axe and the Movius Line

Samson King also produced a poster for the Geographic Information Systems class. His poster examined the worldwide distribution of Acheulean axes, a type of prehistoric tool.

Samson will graduate tomorrow and hopes to pursue graduate studies in biological science.

Hughes GIS Poster

Deana Hughes Explains her Posters to a listener

Carl Drexler's Geographical Information Systems (GIS) class presented their posters today. Deana Hughes's poster (top) related to the Grand Canyon. She spent the Fall 2012 semester at Northern Arizona University. The poster shows the Colorado River as is cuts through the Grand Canyon and discusses many geographical features of the canyon.

Biology Students Present Posters

Honors students in Dr. Krosnick's Biology Colloquium class presented posters today

Valerie Maangi presented a poster entitled "Dental Stem Cells and Their Potentiality in Tissue Regeneration." The purpose of her research was to study the potential benefits in using dental stem cells for tooth loss and the prevention of dental diseases and analyze current research and findings on the topic already.

 Deana Hughes presented a poster entitled "The Scoop on Poop Groups." In this research, Hughes surveyed elk and mule deer populations in the Kaibab National Forest on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The purpose of the research was to examine elk and mule deer populations in order to ensure that the non-native elk were not out-competing native mule deer for precious resources.

Lauren Russell presented a poster entitled "Investigation of Pond Water Quality at Southern Arkansas University." The purpose of the research was to study the effects of the surroundings on the ponds at SAU and begin to establish a water quality baseline for these ponds, something not in place on the SAU campus.

Students Visit Stennis Space Center

(From L to R) Michelle Beavers, Zachary Pinson, and Hali Pinson pose in front of the NASA Engineering & Test Directorate at the Stennis Space Center.

Three students, all recipients of a NASA Research Infrastructure Grant, began to formalize their research plans by visiting NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. While there they met with operators, testers, engineers, and others. The visit lasted an entire working day and also included visits to several testing towers. Dr. Ramona Travis, chief technologist of the Stennis Space Center, hosted the visit. She and Dr. Kardas planned the visit over the course of the last several months.

Above is the view of Test Tower B from atop of another nearby tower. Most of the test towers at Stennis were first constructed during the 1950s and others are much newer. The Saturn rocket motors were tested at Test Tower B.

While the students did not get a chance to witness an actual test, they saw pictures of previous tests and got a chance to closely examine where the tests take place.

The Stennis Space Center is one of NASA's smallest in terms of personnel, but the second largest (second only to the Kennedy Space Center) in terms of geographical area. The reason the site is so large is because the rocket motor tests are so loud. The towers are all located in the center of the complex so that the noise they create will only minimally disturb the people and cities nearby.

The SAU NASA research project will investigate how female and male undergraduate engineering students feel about their future job prospects given that more female engineers leave the profession after they graduate and begin to work.

Get the SAU Map App

Get the SAU Map App for iPad by linking to the Apple Store

The Map App allows users to navigate the SAU Campus and to identify buildings three ways: click on building icon, click on building name, search for name.

Map runs on iPad. But, an iPhone version will be out soon. Thanks to Suraj Manandhar for seeing this project through to completion.

Here is a preview of what the map looks like:

Students Win NASA Grant

Two students recently won a grant from NASA via the Arkansas Space Science Consortium in the amount of $27,300. The two students, Courtney Phillips and Zachary Pinson, (pictured below) will conduct research titled:

Prospective job satisfaction: Female ENGR Students

Here is a brief description of their planned research:

Inspired by recent research on differential attrition of engineering graduates by gender (Fouad & Singh, 2011) this project will survey female and male undergraduate engineering from public universities in Arkansas. The main variable to be assessed will be prospective job satisfaction. Other variables will include GPA and the "Big Five" personality factors: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism along with GPA and math proficiency. We will create a questionnaire and administer it face-to-face to groups at the various colleges offering undergraduate engineering programs.

 Courtney Phillips

Zachary Pinson

Magnolia/Columbia County Literacy Council Needs Help

Magnolia/Columbia Literacy Council’s Teen Tutoring Program is in dire need of additional funding. This program was formed in 2001 when the literacy council tested 60 teens (16-17 year olds) to see if they qualified for the GED program and only 3 made the scores necessary to enroll according to state law. The literacy council recognized that something needed to be done about this problem and initiated the teen tutoring program to tutor these teens until they could score the required 8.5 (eighth grade, fifth month). Since that time approximately 70 teens have graduated. These teens would never have graduated without the teen tutoring program.


This vital program exists on grants and donations only. THE LITERACY COUNCIL NEEDS HELP. No federal or state money goes toward its support. THEY are $15,000.00 short of what it will take to run a morning and an afternoon class this year.


Peoples Bank Community Enrichment Endowment through the Arkansas Community Foundation has chosen to match dollar for dollar every contribution UP TO $5,000 made to this program before February 28, 2012. Thanks to the generous donations of $1,500.00 from the Rotary Club of Magnolia and another anonymous donor giving $1,500.00 our funds for matching are NOW up to $3,600.00. YOU MAY HELP BY DONATING AND spreadING the word TO OTHERS about THE NEEDS OF THIS very worthy cause.


Checks (tax deductible) mail to: Magnolia/Columbia County Literacy Council, P.O. Box 1440 Magnolia, AR 71754-1440. For more information call 870-901-6028.

NCHC Panels Accepted

Good news arrived recently. The National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) has accepted the two proposals SAU submitted. They will be presented at their meeting in Phoenix (October 19-23, 2011). The panels are:

• An iPad 2 for Every Student in Honors Seminar: A Pilot Program. Panelists: Edward P. Kardas, Deborah Wilson, and Suraj Manandhar
• Using the Non-Cognitive Questionnaire in Honors College Admission and Retention. Panelists: Deborah Wilson and Edward P. Kardas

The NCHC meeting is the "mother ship" venue for honors staff, faculty, and students. It is the premier locale for sharing and learning about the latest trends and findings in honors. Ms. Wilson teaches in the SAU Honors College. Suraj is the graduate assistant assigned to the college and Kardas is its director.

SAU Students and Faculty to Present at SRHC

Several SAU students recently had their research proposals accepted for presentation at the 39th annual meeting of the Southern Regional Honors Council.

 Xi Wu, junior chemistry major will present:

Artificial Neural Network Approach to the Prediction of Estrogenic Activity of Environmental Chemicals


Courtney Fricks, junior psychology major and Samson King, sophomore biology major will present:

Alzheimer's Medications Prescribed in Southwest Arkansas and East Texas

Chris Harris, sophomore political science major, Carter Jones, junior Spanish major, Samson King, sophomore biology major, Thomas Kue, junior computer science major, and Suraj Manandhar, graduate computer science major, will present:

Preliminary Research Prior to Implementing an iPad enabled Honors Seminar Course

This research was done in conjunction with SAU faculty members Edward P. Kardas and Deborah Wilson.

Nimendra Mawalagedara, sophomore political science major will present:

Hamas: The Transition from Terrorism to Democracy

SAU faculty members Deborah Wilson and Edward P. Kardas, along with Rebecca Oliver, director of the Arkansas State University Honors College, Barbara Pemberton, director of the Ouachita Baptist University Honors College, and Loretta McGregor, chair of the department of psychology at Arkansas State University (and former SAU faculty member) will present a panel discussion titled:

When good students fail and what to do about it

The Southern Regional Honors Council will meet in Little Rock from March 31 to April 2 at the Peabody Hotel. More information about the meeting can be found by clicking HERE

Press Release: SAU iPad 2 Pilot Study

 Here is today's "official" press release on our iPad 2 Pilot Study.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAGNOLIA — The Southern Arkansas University Honors College will conduct a pilot study during the fall 2011 semester by providing iPad 2 tablet computers for all 60 of its anticipated students enrolled in the introductory course, Honors Seminar.

             

These students will receive their own iPad 2 to keep and the Honors Seminar course’s format will be adjusted to maximize the power of the iPad 2 as a teaching device, according to Dr. Edward P. Kardas, director of the Honors College. The iPad 2 is the highly anticipated successor to the iPad, released last year with sales exceeding 14 million units to date.

             

The iPad 2 will likely add two cameras, additional RAM, a faster processor and will be thinner and lighter than the original. The device will allow students to access the Internet, send and receive e-mail, read online course materials, download textbooks, network with other students, faculty and friends over the campus’ Wi-Fi network or any other open wireless network.

             

Currently, four honors students enrolled in the Cognitive Science course are preparing the way for the pilot project. A $3,000 grant from the SAU Faculty Development for Teaching with Technology Committee purchased the four iPads being loaned to the students for the spring semester. These students will conduct preliminary research on using the current iPad in various educational settings. Later in the semester, they will present their findings at the Southern Regional Honors Council meeting to be held in Little Rock from March 31 to April 2. Their work will determine what software should be loaded onto the iPad 2 before giving them to the incoming students in the Honors Seminar class.

             

The Honors Seminar covers four main topics: the academic experience, the Honors College itself, critical thinking, and diversity. Students write extensively on each of those topics, and their final drafts are published online on the class blog: sauhc.blogspot.com.

            

 Soon, the iPad 2 may come to replace the book bag and the laptop, and tomorrow’s students may only have to carry a small tablet computer, Kardas said. In it they will find all their books, written assignments, and e-mails. They might browse the Internet, roam the stacks of a library, read a newspaper, visit with friends, or ask their professor a question whenever they wish. SAU is taking the first steps to exploring that digital future.

             

The pilot study will require no new funding. The incoming honors class will receive an iPad 2 in place of their usual first-year stipend. In subsequent years they will receive the monetary value of their stipends. Entering students who already own an iPad or iPad 2 will receive the stipend the first year.

           

If the pilot study is successful more SAU classes may be taught using the iPad 2. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            For additional information, contact Kardas at (870) 904-8897 or epkardas@saumag.edu.

The iPad 2 is coming to SAU Honors College

The Southern Arkansas University Honors College will conduct a pilot study next year by providing iPad 2 tablet computers for all 60 of its anticipated students enrolled in the introductory course, Honors Seminar. These students will receive their own iPad 2 to keep and the Honors Seminar course’s format will change so as to maximize the power of the iPad 2 as a teaching device. The iPad 2 is the highly anticipated successor to the iPad released last year with sales exceeding 14 million units to date. The iPad 2 should add two cameras, additional RAM, a faster processor, and be thinner and lighter than the original. The iPad 2 will allow students to access the Internet, send and receive e-mail, read online course materials, download textbooks, network with other students, faculty, and friends over the campus’ WiFi network or any other open wireless network (such as those at McDonald’s or Starbucks). Currently, four honors students enrolled in Cognitive Science are preparing the way for the pilot project. Thanks to a $3000 grant from the SAU Teaching with Technology Committee each was loaned an iPad for the spring semester. Those students will conduct preliminary research on using the current iPad in educational settings. Later in the semester, they will present their findings at the Southern Regional Honors Council meeting to be held in Little Rock from March 31 to April 2. Their work will determine what software should be preloaded onto the iPad 2 before those are given to the incoming students in the Honors Seminar class. That class has four main aspects: the academic experience, the Honors College itself, critical thinking, and diversity. Students write extensively on each of those topics and their final drafts are published online on the class blog: sauhc.blogspot.com. Soon, the iPad 2 may come to replace the book bag and the laptop and tomorrow’s students of may only have to carry a small tablet computer. In it they will find all their books, written assignments, and e-mails. Whenever they wish they might browse the Internet, roam the stacks of a library, read a newspaper, visit with friends, or ask their professor a question. SAU is taking the first steps to exploring that digital future. The pilot study will require no new funding. The incoming honors class will receive an iPad 2 instead of their usual stipend their first year at SAU. In subsequent years they will receive their stipends. Entering students who already own an iPad or iPad 2 will receive the stipend the first year. If the pilot study is successful then more SAU classes may be taught using the iPad 2.

Identification of Ampliconic regions on Zebra Finch Z Chromosome

Nitish Narula, Honors College biology student, submitted this abstract to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students.

Sex determination in mammals and birds is governed by sex chromosomes. Mammals have an X-Y sex chromosome system where males are XY and females XX. In contrast, birds have a Z-W system where males are ZZ and females are ZW. Finished sequences of avian and mammalian sex chromosomes have revealed the presence of large arrays of repeated segments, called amplicons. Amplicons are large, euchromatic, highly identical repeats. Ampliconic genes are predominantly expressed in the testis. Additionally, these regions evolve rapidly through gene acquisition, gene amplification and gene conversion. To study the evolution of ampliconic sequences in birds, we compared the genome of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) to the only other sequenced bird, the chicken (Gallus gallus). The chicken Z amplicon is 11 Mb long, comprising of 15% of the chicken Z chromosome and 1% of the total genome. It contains four families of genes that are expressed in the testis. We find that genes in the zebra finch that are homologous to those of the chicken Z amplicon are not amplified in the zebra finch genome. Instead, the zebra finch Z chromosome has independently amplified different sets of genes, consistent with the observation that amplicons are rapidly evolving. From these preliminary results, we predict that the zebra finch Z chromosome does have amplicons that have not been captured in whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequence. BAC-based finish sequencing will be necessary to reveal their structures. Given that genes in sex chromosome amplicons are predominantly expressed in the testis, these zebra finch Z ampliconic genes are likely to be involved in male fertility.

Daniel Tye (right), a sophomore Honors College student, competed today against the Sjeng chess playing program in a contest held at the Reynolds Campus and Community Center at Southern Arkansas University. Jeremy Dunklin (left) moved the pieces on the chessboard for the computer program. The Sjeng chess engine won the world speed chess championship in 2008 and is installed on all new Apple Macintosh computers. In the chess match today, Daniel held his own until he made a fatal error. He failed to see that he had left his queen unprotected. The computer program "saw" the error and after that Daniel could not save the game.

Until the late 20th century few thought that machines would ever be intelligent

enough to compete against humans in complex cognitive tasks. However, as computers became smaller and more powerful, programmers began to exploit larger computer memories and increased processing speeds. They also quit trying to make computers play like humans and, instead, created "brute force" programs that could examine the consequences of potential moves far beyond the capacity of any person.

In 1997, the unthinkable happened. An IBM computer nicknamed "Deep Blue" defeated the reigning world chess champion at the time, the Russian Garry Kasparov. Since then, similar computer programs have proliferated and today only the best chess players can hope to beat them. Chess playing programs are only one sign that the science of artificial intelligence has arrived.

After, Daniel played against two of the spectators including Caleb Shaw (in white t-shirt).

2010 Honors General Psychology Brains

If it's February in the Spring semester, it must be time to build-a-brain. Here are the latest batch of Play-Doh brains created in Dr. Chrisanne Christensen's Honors General Psychology class.

This one is from--Kahle Harned, Chris Harris, and Kristen Sams.

This one is from--Majesta Miles, James Schlag, and Sarah Irvin.

This one is from--C. J. Heaton, Emilie Vest, and Catherine Smead.

This one is from--from Darrell Gray, John Lee, Andrew Jaques, and ?