April 04, 2014

Mark Wurdeman '14

Abstract:

Personality has been studied in many animals by looking at a number of identifiers. Many of these studies have been carried out on rodents, yet the majoraty have been done in laboratories with lab animals. No experiment has been done in the natural habitat of a subject without direct human interaction with the subjects. Our experiment tested wether or not Eastern Grey Squirrels (Sciurus Carolinensis) were shy around novel objects placed near food and if so how did individual squirrels differ in their level of shyness and the way that they responded to a novel object. We found that Grey Squirrels are neophobic and some individuals reacted differently from others toward novel objects. We believe that the neophobia is a safety measure to avoid danger and bad food.

Community Based Organization and Their Efficacy in HIV/STD Prevention

Emma Napoleon '14Abstract:

For years the fight against HIV/ AIDS has been fought by community based organizations (CBOs) serving local populations. Research interventions have been created and tested in controlled settings as a basis of disease prevention, however it is these CBOs who are using intervention designs to make a difference in disease prevention through community education techniques. Research done by Jemmott et al. explores the efficacy CBOs using the established intervention program “Be proud! Be Responsible” by using 86 CBOs in a cluster randomized-controlled trial. A total of 1707 African American adolescents age 15-28 were given a pre-intervention, 3-, 6-, and 9- month follow-up surveying self-reported condom use. In comparison to the control groups, CBOs who used the intervention program were more likely to report consistent condom use with a 95% confidence interval of 1.06 versus 1.84, as well as a greater proportion of condom protected intercourse in the experimental group with a 95% confidence interval of 0.00 versus 0.12. The primary results of the self-reported follow ups show that community based organization can be effective in reducing disease rates when using established interventions. This statistical finding is the first that proves intervention outside of controlled settings can increase disease prevention. Further use of similar intervention techniques are very important to community outreach and education on HIV/STDs and the immediate populations CBOs serve.