Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Journal

During the COVID-19 pandemic, inmates at USP Lompoc were subjected to increased exposure of the virus due to inaction from staff, guards, and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). This paper focuses on the history behind prisons and incarceration as a punishment, the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to events happening in Lompoc, and includes interviews from two former inmates at USP Lompoc, Bernd Appleby and Ron Shehee. Looking at the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affected inmates at Lompoc, the conscious refusal by staff and guards to follow instructions given by the Attorney General, the absence of personal protective equipment, and the lack of structure and testing led to the death and health issues of inmates. Appleby and Shehee highlight the apathy, power imbalance, and inhumane conditions they faced during their time at USP Lompoc. They share specific details into accounts from other prisoners and the health and administrative problems that inmates faced.

Incarceration not only affects inmates but their communities as well and more visibility around the injustices at USP Lompoc is needed to show that the ineffectiveness of prisons to handle a pandemic comes at the cost of inmates and their lives.

The Klamath river—the second longest river in California, stretching 257 miles from South Crescent City to Oregon—has been an object of environmentalist and humanitarian concern since the 1970s. And it was long before the acknowledgement of the Klamath’s worsening state that climate change, along with anthropogenic factors such as dam implementation, agricultural runoff, commodified farming, and racist governmental policy, had begun to irreversibly damage the once flowing water supply and diverse flora and fauna that used to characterize the Klamath area. These long-standing issues have culminated in mass environmental degradation in the Klamath basin—drought, poisonous algae blooms, mass fish kills, pollution—that threaten the Klamath ecosystem at large. Indigenous tribes like the Yurok people, who have lived in the Klamath area for decades, have been disproportionately negatively affected by the environmental degradation of the Klamath.

This study investigated bee forewing vein density as it relates to body size and taxonomic group. Within the entomological field of study, it is known anecdotally that wing venation is primarily conserved at the genus level more than any other taxonomic level. Using dorsal and slide-plated wing images, wing vein density (WVD) and intertegular span (ITS) was measured for bee species within different genera and families. A novel way of effectively measuring WVD was developed, a measurement that combines many previously used vein morphology characteristics. The study found that both taxonomic level and body size influence WVD, of which the taxonomic level of genus has the most significant effect, regardless of body size. Thus, this paper found that WVD can be useful for determining genus within a family and gives further insight into insect wing vein evolution.

Over 100 million people worldwide use oral hormonal contraception (OC), and yet there is still little knowledge surrounding the consequences of contraceptives on the human brain. In particular, the intersection of autobiographical memories, stress, and OC is important to study for real-world applicability. Previous research has shown that women on OC demonstrate a negativity bias when recalling an event by reporting more information for negative experiences compared to other emotional situations. This negativity bias could be an indication of the ease of recall which is defined by the speed, accuracy, and intensity of the memory search. The present study examined the reported ease of autobiographical recall of OC users compared to those who are naturally cycling (NC) for negative and neutral events. It was predicted that those on OC would report an easier time recalling a stressful event and report less difficulty for the neutral event compared to NC women. There were no significant differences between those who are NC and on OC in terms of ease of recall ratings for either event. However, within NC women rated remembering negative events more easily than neutral. Suggestions for future studies are discussed.

The Student Resource Building at UC Santa Barbara, finished in 2007, houses a multitude of departments in addition to the Cultural Resource Centers (CRCs). This paper focuses on the history behind student activism, a focus on Asian American student activism, for a resource center for Asian American students. Starting in the late 1980s to early 1990s, the small population of Asian American students and other students of color resulted in students organizing and working with student administrators, including more faculty of color, more focus on student retention, and support for first-generation college students. In March 1998, the Daily Nexus wrote an article that included a quote stating that missing dogs were due to the Vietnamese and Hmong population living in IV. What followed is a series of protests that would ultimately lead to the establishment of the Cultural Resource Centers, housed in the future Student Resource Building. Student activists, to this day, continue to fight for more resources and support in ways that parallel the Asian American activists a few decades prior.

Stroke recovery is a difficult process, so there are many forms of robot-assisted therapy (RAT) that seek to make it easier for patients and physical therapists. However, machines designed for this type of therapy are often expensive unitaskers that limit their therapy assistance to only one part of a limb. We have developed a series of prototypes that have the potential to aid in drawing therapy for stroke rehabilitation and assessment, as drawing can engage every muscle group in the arm and is often used as a method of estimating limb and neural pathway function. Our current focus is refining a system of surface electromyography (sEMG) and internal motion unit (IMU) sensors processed via machine learning to quantify limb function and location in order to assist the user in creating their drawings. We believe this robot has the potential to be incredibly useful to artists with unsteady hands, physical therapists, and physical therapy patients.

Approach and avoidance motivational orientations play a striking role within close relationships, with approach-oriented goals predicting increased positive affect and relationship satisfaction. As research suggests that motivational orientations influence individuals’ ability to regulate their own emotions (i.e., intrapersonally), we posit that these motives may also moderate individuals’ ability to regulate the emotions of others, thus affecting social outcomes. We hypothesize that individuals whose partners use more affect-bettering (versus affect-worsening) emotion regulation strategies will show improved relationship outcomes, with this link being strengthened in individuals high (rather than low) in approach motives. 37 romantic couples (74 participants) completed daily diary surveys for 10 days, with one partner reporting their use of affect-bettering and affect-worsening emotion regulation strategies and the other partner reporting their relationship outcomes. Preliminary results show that participants high in approach motives experienced significantly improved relationship outcomes in response to their partners’ use of affect-bettering emotion regulation strategies. This has implications for extending our understanding of extrinsic emotion regulation strategies and approach-avoidance motives in the close relationships context.

Previous research examined the effect of familial conflict on college students and how this affects familial relationships and causes feelings of guilt. However, there has not yet been a study looking specifically at emotional burden stemming from not fulfilling familial expectations in regard to major choice at college. In this study, we examined the correlation between negative affective experiences and familial conflict over major choice. We focused on the experience of negative emotions when deviating from familial expectations, as well as the cultural differences and similarities between Asian and European Americans going through this experience. We assessed participants’ experience of familial expectations regarding major choice, their decision to fulfill or subvert those expectations, and their emotions as a result of their decision. Our findings showed that negative emotions such as sadness and guilt were stronger when subverting expectations while positive emotions such as happiness were stronger when fulfilling expectations. In addition, we found that Asian American students were more likely to experience a familial expectation regarding their major choice and reported significantly more guilt when subverting familial expectations than European Americans students. Overall, familial expectations play a crucial role in Asian American students' major choice and emotional well-being at college.

Teenage depression has long been a significant yet underreported and therefore undertreated disease. In recent years depression-centric narratives like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Dear Evan Hansen, and All the Bright Places have garnered both attention and controversy in print, film, and even Broadway, bringing the conversation around teenage mental health into the spotlight. While some of these depictions have been praised for promoting empathy and understanding, others have been criticized for including graphic or even sensationalized representations of teen depression and suicide. These depictions, fictional as they may be, contribute to the larger societal discourse on teen mental health. This paper examines one of the most influential works concerning adolescent mental health in recent years: Netflix’s Thirteen Reasons Why, with the aim of exploring how its status of both an “activist” work of art and a product affect its depiction of depression and anxiety — and how these depictions might affect a population that, in the wake of the pandemic, reports higher rates of depression and anxiety than ever.

The COVID-19 pandemic shed light on many of the inequalities people face because of their socioeconomic status. Some of these disparities include accessible health care, medicine, consistent income, and the everyday risk of exposure. However, this division between the upper and lower socioeconomic classes is not new. This can be seen time and time again throughout history, especially in the cases of past pandemics in early modern Europe. Diseases such as the Black Plague, leprosy, and cholera infiltrated and affected communities throughout Europe and Italy, the latter being the focus of this article. In it, we compare the ways that past pandemics affected people in cities like Rome and Venice, and who was affected most and why. Did the same disparities between socioeconomic classes exist as they do today with the current COVID-19 pandemic? Have we progressed much as a society? It is important to explore how these socioeconomic differences emphasize the inequalities within society when it comes to basic human needs and rights, like safety and public health, and how they track from centuries ago to the present day.