Aresty Rutgers Undergraduate Research Journal

Foreword to Volume I, Issue VI Aresty Rutgers Undergraduate Research Journal

Sung Jae Lee — 2025-06-10

Quality Improvement of an AI System for Determining Pass-Fail in the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery: Accuracy on a Cohort of New Users

Finn Kliewer — 2025-06-10

Surgical residents must pass the fundamentals of laparoscopy surgery test to proceed with their training. While simulation gives them an environment to practice outside the operating room, it lacks supervision. To fill this gap, we recently proposed an AI system that evaluates pass-fail in the fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery. In this quality improvement study, we sought to evaluate the model’s accuracy when detecting a failure. To do this, we performed software testing on a cohort of high school students. The students were asked to conduct the essential peg transfer FLS task under the supervision of our AI system, which evaluates them in real-time as they perform the task. Out of 18 students, the system correctly predicted the student error in 13 cases. The model must catch up on student errors due to underlying model mispredictions in the remaining five. The model was not trained to handle such edge cases where it failed. These results show the potential of AI to make grading more fair, objective, and efficient.

Imaginary Gardens: Solarpunk Illusions and Realities in the "Garden City" of Singapore

Evan Keeton — 2025-06-10

By extending its vision in 2014 of building a sustainable state through the framework of a “Garden City”, Singapore has set itself up to become the world’s first “Smart Nation”. With a focus on energy and resource solutions, the city-state has heavily relied on state-driven technocratic interventions to create what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long calls “meaningful and fulfilled lives” for all. This technocratic, human-centered development draws a parallel to “Solarpunk”, a model of environmental utopia. The Solarpunk genre gathers speculative fiction works which imagines post-transitional climatic utopias. This model draws ties to the concepts of circular economies, degrowth economies, and decolonization of energy. Inspired by energy and environmental humanities scholar Rhys Williams, it can be understood that the Solarpunk environmental model offers the elements necessary for ongoing global energy transition. It is important to note that Singapore’s current energy transition solutions, embedded in its Smart Nation vision, inform some Solarpunk imaginaries. Specifically, it utilizes an interdisciplinary method by conducting a close reading of both designer and governmental reports on two smart projects in Singapore: Gardens by the Bay and Jewel Changi Airport. It compares the aesthetic, design, purpose, and meaning of these structures to existing conceptions of Solarpunk. These projects embody Solarpunk in their aesthetic and ethos, but they are appropriated for uses and meanings that undermine this embodiment. While Singapore’s ecologically reflective solutions offer some climatic hope, they reaffirm the need to rethink the energy transition in the name of climatic justice, freedom, and environmental harmony.

TFF-3 Modulates Responsiveness to Bronchodilators in Airways

Mira Yin — 2025-06-10

Rhinovirus (RV) is the major cause of exacerbations, or worsening of symptoms, in asthmatic children and adults. This often reduces the efficacy of therapeutic interventions such as bronchodilators — a type of medication used to promote airflow and alleviate asthma symptoms. The exact mechanisms through which RV exposure decreases responsiveness to bronchodilators remain unclear. Previous data demonstrates that airway cells release a specific signature of inflammatory mediators following RV exposure. Other research has shown that Trefoil Factor 3 (TFF-3), one of the mediators identified by our screen, regulates cell motility in other cell types. We show that RV exposure attenuates relaxation in both the airway and human airway smooth muscle (HASM). Given our data, we aim to examine whether or not TFF-3 attenuates the relaxation of HASM and airways.

Primary non-diseased human airway smooth muscle (HASM) was used to examine the consequences of TFF-3 in modulating HASM and airway relaxation. Following RV-C15 exposure, it was found that the airway and HASM relaxation was attenuated. TFF-3 exposure also attenuated both airway and HASM relaxation. Additionally, TFF-3 exposure partially weakened iso-induced reversal of carbachol-induced phosphorylation of the myosin light chain. Within the cADDis Live Cell Assays, which provide real-time kinetic measurements of cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate (cAMP) production, TFF-3 attenuated formoterol-induced cAMP production. Researching how bronchodilation pathways change following RV infection can lead to the development of effective treatments and pharmaceutical solutions to alleviate worsening asthma symptoms during a viral exacerbation of the disease.

MENA Descendants & Genetic Abnormalities

Maya P. Guennouni — 2025-06-10

This study aims to assess the impact of consanguinity in the Middle East and North Africa. The region, also referred to as the MENA region, spans from Morocco to Iran. These identified Arab countries have an increased risk of genetic disorders that can result in sickle cell anemia and thalassemia (“Middle East & North Africa” 2024). Specifically, this study investigates the increased prevalence of these disorders in the MENA region, as well as the contributing factors behind the practice, such as education level and age at the time of marriage. An in-depth comparative analysis of previous research on this topic was undertaken to draw the correlation between the levels of consanguineous marriages in the MENA region and the levels of genetic variation disorders. The analysis shows that there is a correlation between the two variables while highlighting the practices to counteract such variations in the Middle East. These findings suggest a greater need for adaptive medical practices in the United States to adequately assist the growing number of Arab Americans nationwide.