The 5th Annual

NC State University

Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium

 

NSF Statistics VIGRE Traineeship

 


Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the corresponding author.

 

 

 

              

 

Student Author(s): 

Gracien-Orelien, Katina

Home Institution:

North Carolina State University

Program:

NSF Statistics VIGRE Traineeship

Department(s):

Quantitative Psychology

Research Mentor(s): 

Abigail Panter/Quantitative Psychology, UNC-Chapel Hill

Title of Presentation:

Correlates of Symbolic Racism in Incoming Law School Students

 

 

Symbolic racism is the combination of traditional American values and a negative perception of black people. Traditional American values reflect an ideology that through hard work citizens can achieve and obtain their aspirations. Individuals who are symbolic racists oppose policies designed to aid African Americans achieve their goals, whether in academics or in the workplace. This investigation explores whether a person’s race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class relate to their mean endorsements of symbolic racist attitudes. A three hundred-question survey that was given out to over 8,000 entering law school students across the nation was used to obtain questions that were relevant to symbolic racism. As part of a larger study about the role of race in educational diversity in incoming law schools in the U.S., an item was administered that asks respondents to respond from strongly disagree to strongly agree was chosen: “Because Irish, Italians, Jews, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.” Mean endorsement rates were examined for this question by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class. The findings thus far have shown that there were gender differences in symbolic racism. Males had higher symbolic racism scores than women. Further analysis, will provide information on affects of socioeconomic status on Symbolic Racism. These findings will shed light on subgroups of students who hold certain perspectives and suggest that when students who have symbolic racism are exposed to a diversified student body their perceptions of African Americans will change to a more positive view. With these changed perceptions, the educational environment will be more conducive to learning which will benefit all students.

 

 

Student Author(s): 

Hornsby, Fawn E.

Rogers, Charles R.

Thornton, Sarah A.  

Home Institution:

North Carolina State University

University of Texas at El Paso

Program:

NSF Statistics VIGRE Traineeship

Department(s):

Statistics

Mathematics

Research Mentor(s): 

William F. Hunt Jr./Statistics

Andrew Moore/Statistics

Title of Presentation:

A Voyage of Discovery Using Statistics:

Investigating Ambient Mercury Air Pollution at a Trillionth of a Gram

 

 

 

Mercury is a toxic pollutant that can cause adverse health effects in humans through bioaccumulation in fish.  It is released into the atmosphere in several ways, most of which involve industrial processes.  From the atmosphere, mercury enters the water via wet and dry deposition where it bio-accumulates in fish.  On account of this concern, mercury air monitoring sites were established in Elizabeth and New Brunswick, NJ.  The Tekran Continuous Mercury Analyzer was used to measure elemental, particulate and reactive gas mercury during 2004 and 2005.  Because of a peculiarity in the way the instrument operates, the mercury levels were measured beginning at random start times after midnight, so that no two measurements were collected during the same time period.  We created a method for dealing with this, so the data could be compared.  We examined two years of data collected at the two NJ sites.  Using the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)’s data quality standards, we examined the seasonal, weekly, and diurnal patterns in addition to the statistical distributions of each form of mercury.  The data were divided into 8 three-hour time blocks; the midpoint of the hourly data was used to assign the hourly measurements to the 8 three-hour time blocks.  Diurnal patterns were found for each form of mercury.  Each form of mercury appears to be log-normally distributed.  Regional and local patterns were examined and possible sources of mercury were identified using wind data and  trajectories.  Each phase of mercury was compared with precipitation, ozone, fine particulate and temperature levels.  Seasonal patterns were examined to determine when higher concentrations of mercury are most likely to  occur.  Using statistics, we turned raw data on three levels of mercury into useful information for environmental scientists.

 

 

 

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