March 4, 2008

1. GSD Research Competition Winners

2. Charrette Generates New Ideas for Hearse Design

3. Research Incentive Grant Proposals Due March 14
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1. GSD Research Competition Winners

Bumpers College undergraduate and graduate students presented 23 research papers and 24 posters at the Student Research Competition Feb. 25 in the Arkansas Union sponsored by Gamma Sigma Delta, the honor society of agriculture. The winners were:

Undergraduate Oral Presentations

1st Place - Keshia Koehn; Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences -- Stormwater runoff analysis for the University of Arkansas campus area.

2nd Place - Amanda Bettasso, Navam Hettiarachchy, Vidya Chitturi and Michael Johnson; Food Science - Investigating the effectiveness of malic acid, nisin and grape seed extract incorporated into whey protein coatings to inhibit the growth of Listeria monocytogenes on ready-to-eat poultry

3rd Place - Tifanie Silver, C. Tucker, J. Powell, J. Reynolds, Z. Johnson, B. Lindsey, P. Hornsby and T. Yazwinski; Animal Science - Investigation into the current efficacies of several nemotacides for use in cattle according to the fecal egg count reduction test

M.S. Oral Presentations

1st Place - Wayra G. Navia-Giné, Joshua S. Yuan, Feng Chen and Kenneth L. Korth; Plant Pathology - Medicago truncatula (E)-B-ocimene synthase is induced by insect herbivory along with increased emissions of volatile ocimene

2nd Place - Jamie Underwood, C.P. West and D.P. Malinowski; Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences - Summer dormancy and survival of tall fescue in relation to endophyte presence

3rd Place Tie - Harun Toksoz and Craig Rothrock; Plant Pathology - Efficacy of sterol-inhibiting fungicides and SAR chemicals for the control of black root rot of cotton

3rd Place Tie - Tara N. Wood, Don C. Steinkraus, Mike Richardson, Donn T. Johnson and Robert N. Wiedenmann; Entomology - Survival of Japanese beetle (Popilla japonica Newman) larvae in various turfgrass species in Northwest Arkansas

Ph.D. Oral Presentations

1st Place - Marites A. Sales, Nilda R. Burgos, Vinod K. Shivrain and Yong In Kuk; Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences - Acetolactate synthase gene mutations in red rice confer tolerance to imazethapyr

2nd Place - Peter Horevaj and Eugene A. Milus; Plant Pathology - Resistance of winter wheat to fusarium head blight and mycotoxin accumulation

3rd Place - Vishal Jain; Food Science - Pilot scale production and optimization of conjugated linoleic acid-rich soy oil by photo-irradiation

M.S. Poster Presentations

1st Place - Vijayalakshmi Ganesh, N.S. Hettiarachchy, S. Eswaranandam and M. G. Johnson, Food Science - Effective control of Salmonella tyrhimurium in infected spinach by electrostatic spraying, conventional spraying and dipping of natural antimicrobials

2nd Place - Eduardo M. Kawakami and Derrick M. Oosterhuis; Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences - Physiological effects of 1-methylcyclopropene on well-watered and water-stressed cotton plants

3rd Place - M.A. Eberle, C.S. Rothrock and R.D. Cartwright; Plant Pathology - Characterizing Pythium species associated with rice stand establishment problems in Arkansas

Ph.D. Poster Presentations

1st Place - Lakshmi Kannan, Narayan C. Rath, Rohana Liyanage and Jackson O. Lay, Jr.; Cell and Molecular Biology - Thymosin beta 4 regulation by TLR ligands in chicken macrophages

2nd Place - Androniki Bibi, Derrick Oosterhuis and Evangelos Gonias; Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences - Exogenous application of putrescine on cotton ovaries under two temperature regimes

3rd Place - Gulab Rangani and Vibha Srivastava; Cell and Molecular Biology - Exploring the mechanism of gene slicing mediated by DNA methylation.
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2. Charrette Generates New Ideas for Hearse Design

Something Different -- Interior design students take measurements and photos of a hearse for a charrette Feb. 21. Their assignment: to come up with new ideas for a vehicle that has looked about the same, inside and out, since it was pulled by horses. The management of Federal Coach of Fort Smith put up prize money for the contest.		Tight Space -- Abigail Freeman, left, and Elizabeth Truxaw take measurements.		What If? -- From left, Natalie France, Catherine Quinn and Amy Pendergist work in the studio on their design ideas.

Federal Coach, a leading manufacturer of limousines, buses and hearses in Fort Smith, sponsored a charrette for interior design students to provide new ideas for hearse designs.

A charrette is an intensive collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. The morning of Feb. 21, a Federal Coach employee parked a hearse on Maple Street and it remained all day for students to measure and study as they scurried back and forth between design studios in the Human Environmental Sciences Building and the street.

At about 5 p.m., they presented their ideas to Federal Coach Vice President Peter Chapman and Human Resources Director Jennifer Pogne, who selected the top three to receive prizes $500, $300 and $200.

The winning teams were:

First place: Brittany Taylor, Laura Houser, Lindley Summer, Alison Davis and Taylor Lovelady.

Second Place: Amanda Giles, Lauren Baker, Tricia Quinn and Chika Sugihara.

Third Place: Megan Milawski, Nicole Allison and Bruce Imhoff.
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3. Research Incentive Grant Proposals Due March 14

Proposals for the annual Research Incentive Grants Program are due in the Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) grants and contracts office by March 14. Since this program uses AES F&A (indirect) funds, only faculty with a greater than 50% AES appointment are eligible to apply.

This program uses AES funds to support small seed grants to develop preliminary data for external grant development. The program consists of three categories: one for new faculty in their first five years of appointment, another for established faculty looking to move into other research arenas and a final category for multidisciplinary grant development. Guidelines are available through the AES grants office website at: http://www.uark.edu/admin/aesbus/grant_files/PDF_files/Guidelines_Research_Incentive_Program.PDF
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