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New Algorithms For The Multiplication Table Problem, Evan Blom May 2024

New Algorithms For The Multiplication Table Problem, Evan Blom

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In 1955, Paul Erdős initiated the study of a function that counts the number of distinct integers in an (n × n) multiplication table. That is, he studied M(n) = |{i · j, 1 ≤ i, j ≤ n}|. Much research has been done in regards to both asymptotic and exact approximations of M(n) for increasingly large values of n. Recently, Brent et. al. investigated the algorithmic cost in computing this function. Instead of computing M(n) directly, their approach was to compute it incrementally. That is, given M(n−1), they could quickly compute M(n) using another function δ(n) to count the …


A Statistical Look Into How Common Soccer Metrics Influence Expected Goal Measures In The Professional Game, Tristan George Rumsey May 2024

A Statistical Look Into How Common Soccer Metrics Influence Expected Goal Measures In The Professional Game, Tristan George Rumsey

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The advent of sports analytics has ignited a fervor across all sporting disciplines, particularly soccer, where clubs are sprinting to harness vast data reserves to elevate team performance, spearhead effective marketing endeavors, and bolster financial gains crucial for club expansion. Much like Billy Beane's transformative "Moneyball" approach, soccer clubs are in pursuit of innovative strategies to transcend financial limitations and achieve triumph. In soccer, where goals are scarce commodities, heightened offensive efficacy becomes imperative. Presently, one metric stands out as pivotal in gauging a team's goal-scoring success: expected goals (xG). This metric quantifies the likelihood of a given shot or …


Tpm^Ph Derivative Of Tungsten; Hydrogen-Bonding In 7-Coordinate Cation Complex, Olivia Ryon Simcox May 2024

Tpm^Ph Derivative Of Tungsten; Hydrogen-Bonding In 7-Coordinate Cation Complex, Olivia Ryon Simcox

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Tpm^Ph, or tris(3-phenylpyrazolyl)methane reacts with tungsten hexacarbonyl to form the ligand-metal complex tris(3-phenylpyrazolyl)methane tungsten tricarbonyl, or Tpm^PhW(CO)3. The further complexes of Tpm^PhW(CO)3 and Tpm^PhMo(CO)3 are not known. This project aims to explore how the addition of a phenyl substituent to the pyrazole ring on Tpm impacts the synthesis of [Tpm^PhW(CO)3I]+X– and [Tpm^PhW(CO)3H]+X–. The inclusion of this phenyl substituent may impact the possible hydrogen bonding of then hydrogen contained in the carbon-hydrogen bond. This work aims to explore the extent of hydrogen-bonding of the carbon-hydrogen bond of the Tpm^Ph ligand in cationic metal complexes.


Volume 10 Full Text, Bjur Staff Apr 2024

Volume 10 Full Text, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.


Stream Gauging: Investigating The Flow Rate And Residence Time In Laguna Bacalar, Mexico, Elizabeth J. Kowalczyk Apr 2024

Stream Gauging: Investigating The Flow Rate And Residence Time In Laguna Bacalar, Mexico, Elizabeth J. Kowalczyk

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Stream gauging is a standard tool used to measure the flow rate of various bodies of water. Knowing the flow rate of a body of water allows for the residence time of a body of water to be calculated. Currently, there is very little information regarding the flow rate and residence times of Laguna Bacalar. This system has been observed hydrologically consistently only in the past 6 years. In this study, 13 stream-gauging locations of interest were identified and gauged for their respective flow rates using the midsection method. Once the flow rates were acquired, maps depicting the Laguna Bacalar …


Table Of Contents And Front Matter, Bjur Staff Apr 2024

Table Of Contents And Front Matter, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.


Enhanced Breast Cancer Tumor Classification Using Mobilenetv2: A Detailed Exploration On Image Intensity, Error Mitigation, And Streamlit-Driven Real-Time Deployment, Aaditya Surya, Aditya Keshary Shah, Subash Tarun Sasikumar, Jarnell Kabore Apr 2024

Enhanced Breast Cancer Tumor Classification Using Mobilenetv2: A Detailed Exploration On Image Intensity, Error Mitigation, And Streamlit-Driven Real-Time Deployment, Aaditya Surya, Aditya Keshary Shah, Subash Tarun Sasikumar, Jarnell Kabore

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This research introduces a sophisticated transfer learning model based on Google’s MobileNetV2 for breast cancer tumor classification into normal, benign, and malignant categories, utilizing a dataset of 1576 ultrasound images (265 normal, 891 benign, 420 malignant). The model achieves an accuracy of 0.82, precision of 0.83, recall of 0.81, ROC-AUC of 0.94, PR-AUC of 0.88, and MCC of 0.74. It examines image intensity distributions and misclassification errors, offering improvements for future applications. Addressing dataset imbalances, the study ensures a generalizable model. This work, using a dataset from Baheya Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, compiled by Walid Al- Dhabyani and colleagues (2020), emphasizes …


Building Community Resiliency Against Disasters, Zachary L. Doering May 2023

Building Community Resiliency Against Disasters, Zachary L. Doering

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Disasters impact people in many different places around the world. The impact to communities by disasters is shaped by their constructed vulnerability. The goal of this research project was to better understand how the vulnerability and resiliency of different communities was shaped at six different sites across the U.S. and to construct a collection of best practices to raise the resiliency of populations and locations in the face of many different forms of possible disasters in the future. These concepts and conclusions were drawn from internet research of the chosen sites. Phase 1 of the research determined noteworthy sites and …


Volume 9 Full Text, Bjur Staff Apr 2023

Volume 9 Full Text, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.


Air Temperature And Diet Are Not Associated With Oxygen Consumption Rate In Banded Crickets, Gryllodes Sigillatus, Nicole Bailey, Connor Oakes, Rachel Sleeth, Mallorie Smith Apr 2023

Air Temperature And Diet Are Not Associated With Oxygen Consumption Rate In Banded Crickets, Gryllodes Sigillatus, Nicole Bailey, Connor Oakes, Rachel Sleeth, Mallorie Smith

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

All living organisms acclimate to their environments, with ectothermic species particularly susceptible to environmental change, specifically temperature. Ectothermic insects like crickets directly alter their physiological processes depending on the environment in which they live. Temperature is vital in regulating processes such as metabolism, respiration, and reproduction, among other things. What remains unclear is how a change in the environment, specifically extreme temperature change and dietary alterations, affects physiological processes. In this study, we performed experiments on ectothermic banded crickets to examine the effects of temperature change and the interaction of temperature and diet on oxygen consumption. For both experiments, we …


Effects Of Anthropogenic Noise On Body Mass In Gryllodes Sigillatus, Jessica L. Venturi, Joyce Zheng Apr 2023

Effects Of Anthropogenic Noise On Body Mass In Gryllodes Sigillatus, Jessica L. Venturi, Joyce Zheng

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Insects use vibrational structures to produce and sense airborne sounds in intraspecific communication. These signals are important in courtship as well as defensive behavior against predators. For example, insects can detect the presence of nearby predators using vibrations. With an increase in anthropogenic activity, processing these signals and the constant threat they represent may increase stress on insects, subsequently affecting their behavior and physiology. Our experiment was designed to determine whether anthropogenic noise, possibly perceived as a stressor, will decrease the body mass of banded crickets, Gryllodes sigillatus. We predicted that the anthropogenic noise would stress the crickets, leading to …


Truth, Not Accuracy: Native American Fiction Vs. White Settler Colonialism, Charles Democker Apr 2023

Truth, Not Accuracy: Native American Fiction Vs. White Settler Colonialism, Charles Democker

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

For centuries, depictions of Native American culture have largely been constructed by White authors and have thus reflected white settler colonialist ideology. This paper suggests that one way to counter this point of view when studying Native American history is to turn to fiction, specifically fiction written by Indigenous authors. Taking as an example Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich’s Plague of Doves, a novel based on the real-life massacre of a frontier family in the late nineteenth century, this paper argues that the creative fiction of Indigenous authors can counter the biased, incomplete, and often incorrect official histories of White–Native interactions. …


Bad Boy Bias: Linguistic Bias In The Law, Parth Sharma Apr 2023

Bad Boy Bias: Linguistic Bias In The Law, Parth Sharma

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper seeks to establish and put in use methodology capable of analyzing the significant linguistic bias found within American jurisprudence. It summarizes the limited preexisting empirical work done and adds a new original empirical study on linguistic bias in the courtroom. It examines a large number of cases through various software and examines the prevalence of certain labels (badges of bias). In doing so, this paper seeks to find the most common labels and seeks to determine the amount of emotional variability present within the courtroom. Based on these results, the paper provides recommendations, answering how best to efficiently …


Higher Education Students’ Perceptions Of Online Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Abby O’Bryant Apr 2023

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions Of Online Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Abby O’Bryant

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This article focuses on the impacts of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic on students at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Using survey data (n = 64) and semistructured interviews with currently enrolled students (n = 17), key impacts of online learning on the student body were analyzed. The respondents reported disengagement in lectures, negative impacts on their mental and physical health, negative thoughts about dropping out and transferring, apprehension about the quality of course content, and dissatisfaction with tuition. The paper utilizes qualitative data analysis to report the findings.


The Physics Research Problem: A Brief Analysis Of Financial And Administrative Factors Relating To Recent Trends In Research Output In Physics In India, Varad Dhodapkar Apr 2023

The Physics Research Problem: A Brief Analysis Of Financial And Administrative Factors Relating To Recent Trends In Research Output In Physics In India, Varad Dhodapkar

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper attempts to view and interpret data from various sources such as the World Bank database, research and development (R&D) reports by the Indian government, Nature Index, Scopus index, and others to examine the effect that the various government financial initiatives and administrative features and policies concerning funding of institutions of higher attainment have had on India’s research output in the field of physics. In addition to this, the inconsistent standards of funding across various institutes of higher education, investment in R&D activities made by other nations in comparison to India, the share of physics research output of various …


Survival Of Deaf Jewish People During The Holocaust Era, Phyllis D. Rifkin Apr 2023

Survival Of Deaf Jewish People During The Holocaust Era, Phyllis D. Rifkin

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project uses academic and personal research to explore the experiences of Deaf Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The author is a member of the Deaf community and a Deaf Interpreter, as well as the daughter of a Deaf Jewish Holocaust survivor. She examines the construction of Deafness in the eugenics era and chronicles the stories of Deaf Jewish survivors. A recurring theme in these narratives is Deaf survivors’ strategic use of silence to facilitate survival.


Almost 30 Years Later: Anti-Femicide Activism In Mexico From 1993 To 2022, Kathryn Webb Apr 2023

Almost 30 Years Later: Anti-Femicide Activism In Mexico From 1993 To 2022, Kathryn Webb

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

What factors have influenced the strategies of the anti-femicide social movement, and what has this movement accomplished after continuously advocating for almost 30 years? Analyzing news articles, scholarly journals, books on social movements, and Twitter accounts, I argue that the inaction of the government was a root cause of the movement’s change in strategies, from peaceful petitions to highly visible vandalism, and that institutional barriers prevent progress on this issue even in the current day. I demonstrate that transnational activism through international institutions such as the United Nations had a limited impact on effecting domestic change but that using social …


Work-Life And Health Experiences Of Computer Science Faculty Parents Of Children With Developmental Disabilities During Covid-19, Molly Armstrong Apr 2023

Work-Life And Health Experiences Of Computer Science Faculty Parents Of Children With Developmental Disabilities During Covid-19, Molly Armstrong

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents of children with developmental disabilities (PCDD) had been shown to experience more stress than parents of children without developmental disabilities (non-PCDD). COVID-19 may have exacerbated difficulties for PCDD. To compare differences in COVID-19 experiences between PCDD and non-PCDD, 202 parents working as computer science (CS) faculty reported their experiences of mental health symptoms, physical health symptoms, work-life conflict levels as experienced during the pandemic, and any changes in their childcare responsibilities because of COVID-19. Participants completed surveys on their experiences during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, the first academic year after the start of …


Agency Actualization And Artistic Awakening: The Poetic Rhetoric Of Freedom School Students, Eden Doyle Apr 2023

Agency Actualization And Artistic Awakening: The Poetic Rhetoric Of Freedom School Students, Eden Doyle

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper analyzes the rhetoric of poems written by Freedom School students in Mississippi amidst the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Much of the rhetoric documented, explored, and valued from this era is of adults with the power and means to have their voices heard and respected; however, this paper argues the value of these students’ unique Black experience as one that is underexplored and greatly compelling. The social and political context surrounding the inception of Freedom Schools is discussed, as well as the need for further research and scholarship on the intellectual activity and rhetorical artifacts of the …


The Effects Of Covid-19-Induced Stress, Anxiety, And Depression On The Eating Behavior Of College Women, Natalie Simpson Apr 2023

The Effects Of Covid-19-Induced Stress, Anxiety, And Depression On The Eating Behavior Of College Women, Natalie Simpson

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Increases in the prevalence of disordered eating patterns have been linked to distress and poor mental well-being. Additionally, COVID-19 has been linked to both depressive and anxious symptomatology, along with increased feelings of distress (Fitzpatrick et al., 2020). Because disordered eating is particularly prevalent among college-age women, this study sought to determine how depression, anxiety, and stress affect eating behaviors of college women in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. One hundred seventy-nine women, aged 18–24, at Butler University gave informed consent before completing a questionnaire pertaining to their demographics, their stress surrounding COVID, and their weight change since March …


An Evaluation Of Women’S Social Status In Colonial Hong Kong With A Feminist Lens - Case Studies, Heng Du Apr 2023

An Evaluation Of Women’S Social Status In Colonial Hong Kong With A Feminist Lens - Case Studies, Heng Du

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Even though Hong Kong remained under British control from 1842 to 1997, denizens were not modernized in a way comparable to that of the British. To the contrary, while governing Hong Kong, British colonizers allowed continued reference to ancient Chinese customs in the area. Such policy diminished women’s chances of receiving fair treatment in matters such as property management and divorce. Unlike in Hong Kong, women were legislated to be parallel to men in matrimonial and property inheritance petitions in China, Britain, and colonial Singapore. This study is based on two exemplary cases judged by authorities in colonial Hong Kong. …


The Effect Of Covid-19 On Substance Use And Mental Health On A College Campus, Georgia L. Coffman Apr 2023

The Effect Of Covid-19 On Substance Use And Mental Health On A College Campus, Georgia L. Coffman

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this research, the author surveyed a university population to determine the impact that COVID-19 has had on substance use and mental health. Current research provides significant data indicating worsening mental health and substance use. This paper looks at how applicable those trends are to a small private university in Indianapolis, Indiana. The data included 261 respondents composed of students, faculty, and staff of the university. The results reveal that college students, faculty, and staff experienced statistically significant increases in feelings of unhappiness, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, agitation, and irritability during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic. Data analysis of …


Identifying Disinformation In Scholarly Publishing, Natalie M. Mclendon Apr 2023

Identifying Disinformation In Scholarly Publishing, Natalie M. Mclendon

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper examines the pro-Confederacy movement’s attempt to distort history through textbook revision to argue in favor of strengthened media literacy as a brace against the effects of disinformation and propaganda. Previous definitions of misinformation and disinformation overlap and are as yet unclear and, therefore, should be further studied. “Lost Cause” mythologists worked diligently to propagate school textbooks which portrayed skewed versions of history that cast Southern Confederates’ cause as noble and honorable while obscuring the real reason for the Civil War. While undergraduate students can rely on the CRAAP and BEAM methods of identifying problematic texts, they should be …


Table Of Contents And Front Matter, Bjur Staff Apr 2023

Table Of Contents And Front Matter, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.


Building Capacity For Socio-Ecological Change Through The Campus Farm: A Mixed-Methods Study, Francesca A. Williamson, Amber J. Rollings, Grant A. Fore, Julia L. Angstmann, Brandon H. Sorge May 2022

Building Capacity For Socio-Ecological Change Through The Campus Farm: A Mixed-Methods Study, Francesca A. Williamson, Amber J. Rollings, Grant A. Fore, Julia L. Angstmann, Brandon H. Sorge

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Given the ongoing socio-ecological crises, higher education institutions need curricular interventions to support students in developing the knowledge, skills, and perspectives needed to create a sustainable future. Campus farms are increasingly becoming sites for sustainability and environmental education toward this end. This paper describes the design and outcomes of a farm-situated place-based experiential learning (PBEL) intervention in two undergraduate biology courses and one environmental studies course over two academic years. We conducted a mixed-method study using pre/post-surveys and focus groups to examine the relationship between the PBEL intervention and students’ sense of place and expressions of pro-environmentalism. The quantitative analysis …


Studying Extended Sets From Young Tableaux, Eric S. Nofziger May 2022

Studying Extended Sets From Young Tableaux, Eric S. Nofziger

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Young tableaux are combinatorial objects related to the partitions of an integer that have various applications in representation theory. These tableaux are defined as a left-justified set of n boxes filled with the numbers 1 through n and organized in rows, with the length of each row corresponding to a summand in the partition. In recent work of Graham–Precup–Russell, an association has been made between a given row-strict tableau and three disjoint subsets I, J, and K, also called extended sets. In this project, we begin to classify which extended sets correlate to a valid row-strict or standard tableau. We …


An Examination Of The Statistics And Risk Management Concepts Behind The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act (Ppaca) Of 2010, Scott Sinclair May 2022

An Examination Of The Statistics And Risk Management Concepts Behind The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act (Ppaca) Of 2010, Scott Sinclair

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is the overarching federal law that has impacted the intricacies of the health insurance market for more than a decade. Using the supervised learning method of multiple linear regression, the relationship between the medical loss ratio rebates and predictor variables such as the state, health insurance market, and the number of insurance companies owing rebates will be analyzed, along with the actuarial value of metal tiers and geographic rating area factors in terms of their relationship to the insurance premium for a standard family of four, defined as a forty-year-old couple with …


Using Nasa's Tess Mission To Search For Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf Stars, Corinna Peña May 2022

Using Nasa's Tess Mission To Search For Extremely Low Mass White Dwarf Stars, Corinna Peña

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Extremely low-mass white dwarf stars (ELM) are white dwarf stars with a mass lower than 0.45 solar masses that could not have evolved through normal processes within the lifetime of our universe. Therefore, these objects can only be created through a common envelope phase or a stable Roche lobe overflow while in a binary. These objects have periods between a few minutes to a few hours, so they are very short lived which makes them very rare. My goal for this project was to find these ELM stars by using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data. I analyzed this …


Investigation Of The Analytical Utility Of The Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (Icp-Ms) For The Quantification Of Proteins Via Lanthanide Labeling, Caitlin Elizabeth Dunlap May 2022

Investigation Of The Analytical Utility Of The Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (Icp-Ms) For The Quantification Of Proteins Via Lanthanide Labeling, Caitlin Elizabeth Dunlap

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The discovery and ability to provide an absolute concentration of biomarkers in the body can facilitate early diagnoses of diseases. This information can also be used for more accurate and unique treatments for those patients. While major advances in molecular mass spectrometry allows for a sensitive identification of these biomarkers, they are limited to only four orders of magnitude in their dynamic ranges. Due to this, detection and quantitation of low abundant proteins, which tend to make up these vital biomarkers, is very difficult. On the other hand, ICP-MS offers a wider dynamic range (up to 12 orders of magnitude) …


A Limited Look At The Educational Experiences Of Black Stem Professionals From The Butler Community And Beyond, Victoria Ann Templin May 2022

A Limited Look At The Educational Experiences Of Black Stem Professionals From The Butler Community And Beyond, Victoria Ann Templin

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This project looks at the STEM educational experiences of Black professionals from both the Butler community and outside of it. It focuses on the perspectives of five individuals (three Butler graduates and two non-Butler graduates) interviewed via Zoom and analyzes how their experiences compare to those of other Black STEM professionals across the nation. After completing the interviews and conducting thorough background research, all data was examined. It was found that what was discussed during the interviews paralleled what was discovered in the research, such as the importance of mentors and broadening the image of what a scientist looks like. …