Honors Project

Abstract: Beyond the Blocks with Cedric Buessing: A Deep Delve into a Championship Mindset is a documentary film created to demonstrate the difficult balancing act between academic success and athletic dedication on the University of Indianapolis Swim and Dive team, seen through the lens of Cedric Buessing. The feature length documentary will be premiered for the UIndy community on April 16, 2025. It featured interviews with Buessing, members of the team, head swimming coach, head athletic trainer, and team sports psychologist to get firsthand experiences on the topic. The project also featured footage from meets over the last three seasons, as well as a look into daily student- athlete activities. This project showed the upper limit of student-athletes’ lives, which emphasized the collective attempts to preserve metal health, academic achievement, and injury prevention whilst chasing a National Championship. The documentary intended to understand and recognize the multiple responsibilities these student- athletes have in the pool and the classroom, whilst trying to navigate through waves of burnout, lacking motivation, and injury. As a swimmer myself, this project was my attempt to showcase the ins and outs of our everyday lives, in the hopes of educating and inspiring the audience who watched the documentary. As viewers of sports, it is hard to truly empathize with the athletes you watch unless you have been in their shoes, which is something that this project aimed to resolve.

Abstract: In this project, we used gold (III) chloride solution at varying concentrations to create gold nanoparticles and develop invisible bio-ink and latent fingerprints on different surfaces in order to test how small a concentration can be to still produce observable results. The hope is to potentially lower costs in forensic applications. The results were analyzed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy to visualize the gold nanoparticle groups and to determine the size of the gold nanoparticles produced. It was found that for porous surfaces, for both the fingerprints and bio-ink, only the 1 mM solution produced viable results, while the 0.5 mM solution could be used as a preliminary screening test for fingerprints, and the 0.1 mM solution did not produce results. For nonporous surfaces, for both the fingerprints and bio-ink, all three concentrations of the gold (III) chloride solutions produced results, but only the 1 and 0.5 mM concentrations could be applied in a forensic setting. The presence of the gold nanoparticles was proved through the use of SEM, and through UV-Vis, the nanoparticles absorbed light at 515 nm, which accounts for the pink/red hue of the nanoparticles on the samples.

Abstract: Republican-led state governments have increased their scrutiny of reform-minded prosecutors, arguing that they are allowing crimes to go unpunished in their districts. These prosecutors’ noncompliance is instead their ability to use discretion to decide whether to pursue particular charges. Departing from previous theories that suggest prosecutors want to appear “tough-on-crime” around Election Day, I hypothesize that partisan prosecutors’ desire for reelection will cause them to address their constituents’ demands more closely in election years. Specifically, I hypothesize that incumbent Democratic prosecutors facing competitive elections in urban districts will pursue the most progressive behavior out of any incumbent prosecutor. To test this, I compiled data from four state courts to assess whether some prosecutors are behaving more progressively closer to Election Day. Based on data analysis, I find mixed support for my hypothesis. My findings suggest that the relationship varies by state and measures of progressiveness. While most prosecutors do not face significant competition in the general election, primary competition may be more indicative of progressive behavior. These results suggest a need for more research on how elected prosecutors demonstrate responsiveness to their constituents.

Abstract: This research study examines parents’ awareness and attitudes towards the environmental impacts on developing premature infants who had a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay. While in the NICU, there are certain measures put in place to protect the premature neonates’ underdeveloped body systems, however, the question remains: do these practices carry over to home care post-discharge? This study presents the different attitudes, feelings, and knowledge that parents have about environmental practices done to minimize stimuli for developing infants. A qualitative approach was selected as the research method for this study, through the use of six semi-structured interviews. The research findings indicate there is a lack of education done at the bedside regarding environmental stimuli, most parents do not understand the impact of sensory stimulation on development, and parents are willing to be taught about the impacts of sensory stimulation and how to reduce it.

Abstract:The linyphiid spider, Neodietrichia hesperia, was described by Crosby and Bishop in 1933 and the genus has held this lone species (was monotypic) for decades. In 2016, Dr. Milne collected spiders at Blossom Hollow Nature Preserve in southern Indiana in a similar genus, Lophomma, that looked similar to N. hesperia. Upon examination, he concluded that morphological evidence supported that this Lophomma belonged in Neodietrichia as a second species in that genus. I used molecular evidence in the form of COI barcoding to determine if these morphological conclusions were backed up by the genetics among closely related species. I extracted, amplified, confirmed via gel electrophoresis, and purified DNA from multiple N. hesperia and N. depressum specimens from various locations around the United States. Additionally, I helped create a phylogeny of Neodietrichia specimens (both from us and from genetic databases) to help confirm their relationship. We confirmed that the collected specimens from Blossom Hollow belonged to the sister species of N. hesperia, just as the morphological evidence had suggested. These data helped us revise the genus and publish our results in the animal taxonomic journal, Zootaxa, in 2023.

Abstract: Best practices in steganography recommend that algorithms used to embed a file within an image cause as few visible alterations to the image as possible. The algorithm developed in this research project uses LSB insertion to alter the least significant bit of each byte in the image and replace them with the bits containing the file to be embedded within the image. The focus of the project was to create a program successfully demonstrating best practices using LSB insertion steganography. A survey was administered after the completion of the program to verify that there was no visible difference between images before and after they had files embedded within them. Results suggest that there was no visible difference for color images.