Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Kodysynth, Ryan Kody

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

KodySynth is a VST digital synthesizer that can be loaded into any digital audio workstation such as FL Studio, Ableton, or Garageband. The program was made using the JUCE library which helped with streamlining the process and making it easier to create clean and intuitive looking graphics. The project also needs the Maximilian Library of sounds to create the sound waves that listeners will hear when playing the synthesizer. Users will also be able to plug in a MIDI keyboard to play KodySynth. The functionalities include a choice of 5 oscillator wave types, as well as an attack, decay, sustain, …

Analysis Of Microbial Diversity In Disturbed Soil, Tyler G. Sanda

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper uses the composition and abundance of microbial species to analyze soil recovery in disturbed land. Surface mining disturbs ecological communities throughout the world. As organizations seek to reclaim these disturbed lands, a proper analysis of recovery is needed. In previous studies, recovery of disturbed land was limited to surface examinations, which do not characterize the possible unseen devastating effects of the subsoil. Soil microorganisms are extremely sensitive to environmental changes such as strip mining. It is proposed that these microorganisms may serve as better indicators of recovery post disturbance. Our analysis indicates microbial recovery, however it may not …

Metabolomic Profiling Of Chiari Malformation Type I: Comparison Of Bioinformatic Programs For Untargeted Analysis, Hunter W. Korsmo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Chiari Malformation Type I is a neurodegenerative trait that can result from disease or from acquiring. Metabolomic analysis was done on normal pressure hydrocephalous and Chiari CSF samples using LC-MS and multiple bioinformatic programs. After analysis from multiple programs, we were able to analyze the stringency in statistical algorithms done by each program and determined qualities that are shared between programs that offer multiple details. We identified dysregulation in glucuronated metabolites in CSF of Chiari versus NPH. Using LC-MS, we established the experimental MS/MS of glucuronic acid in attempt to identify similarities in mass-to-charge features primarily identified. We could not …

The Experimental Determination Of The Moment Of Inertia Of A Model Airplane, Michael Koken

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this project is to suggest that the moment of inertia for irregular shaped objects can easily be determined experimentally. The objects considered in this experiment were a solid wooden block and a model airplane. To ensure that the method and configuration is sufficient a wooden block with known moments of inertia was first tested, and the results from the experiment were compared to the known and accepted values. For this particular experiment, the periods were determined by timing how long 10 oscillations lasted for 10 different trials, and then taking the average of those 10 trials to …

Statistics-Bierce Library Study, Tyler J. Hushour

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This is a report from two surveys that I created and administered to students and faculty at Bierce library who came to the Circulation Desk or the Tech Desk, as well as some of my other findings when periodically looking around the library to see where students like to study or hang-out. There was a written survey given at the Circulation Desk, and a different survey given at the Tech Check-Out Desk. The project is for Melanie Smith-Farrell, the head of Access Services, and is based on a similar study Ian McCullough did in the science library. While this is …

Mercury Increases In Lake Tanganyika Since ~1850, Troy A. Bole

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A series of three sediment cores were collected in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, and were analyzed for mercury concentrations. For all three cores, a decrease in mercury (Hg) levels was observed from the 1600’s (appx. 20 ng/g) until concentrations reached a minimum during the mid-1800’s (appx. 10 ng/g). The mid-1800’s marked a change from decreasing mercury levels to an increase over the following century. The core tops (circa 2006) have concentrations greater than 70 ng/g. The onset of the rise in mercury concentrations coincides with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid to late 18^th century. Relationships between …

Normal Subgroups Of Wreath Product 3-Groups, Ryan Gopp

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Consider the regular wreath product group P of Z₉ with (Z₃ x Z₃). The problem of determining all normal subgroups of P that are contained in its base subgroup is equivalent to determining the subgroups of a certain matrix group M that are invariant under two particular endomorphisms of M. This thesis is a partial solution to the latter. We use concepts from linear algebra and group theory to find and count so-called doubly-invariant subgroups of M.

Synthesis And Fluorescent Properties Of A New Flavonoid Compound, Ashley L. Ingle

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Flavonoids are highly luminescent compounds that are used in diagnosing and treating certain diseases.They are composed of two aromatic rings (ring A and ring B) and a six-membered heterocyclic pyran ring (ring C) that contains a carbonyl and hydroxyl group, which are responsible for unique photophysical characteristics associated with flavonoids. The target flavonoids (compound 1, or 1, and compound 2 or 2) were synthesized, purified and characterized by NMR spectroscopy. The photophysical properties of the flavonoid were investigated in varying solvents by using UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy. Such properties include Excited State Intramolecular Proton Transfer (ESIPT), Intramolecular Charge …

Pressure Dependence Of Polycrystalline Magnesite And Dolomite, Cole Blasko

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Intermediate depth (170-400 km) deep focus earthquakes are observed in subducting slabs, but unlike shallow (50-170 km) and deep (400-660 km) deep focus earthquakes, the mechanism(s) responsible for them are not clear. Two common alteration products observed in peridotites, magnesite and dolomite, are stable along the pressure-temperature path of a subducting slab. Low pressure experiments indicate that these minerals are weaker than olivine, but there are no data about the pressure dependence of the strength of magnesite or dolomite. Magnesite and dolomite cylinders (1mm by 1mm) were deformed in stacked series to 25-30% strain using the deformation-DIA (DDIA) at Argonne …

Efficient Implementation Of Reductions On Gpu Architectures, Stephen W. Timcheck

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With serial, or sequential, computational operations' growth rate slowing over the past few years, parallel computing has become paramount to achieve speedup. In particular, GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) can be used to program parallel applications using a SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) architecture. We studied SIMD applications constructed using the NVIDIA CUDA language and MERCATOR (Mapping EnumeRATOR for CUDA), a framework developed for streaming dataflow applications on the GPU. A type of operation commonly performed by streaming applications is reduction, a function that performs some associative operation on multiple data points such as summing a list of numbers (additive operator, …

Game Collection Development And Marketing, Todd R. Locker Jr

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The reasons for completing this project include expanding my knowledge of programming features and methodology, and to learn about game platform development and design. This was done by using the Java programming language to create a game platform which can host a variable number of games. One of the most notable features that was utilized is the JavaFX platform. Much programming experience was gained from this platform and all the features and methods it provides for customization. The application that was produced is graphical user interface based and created with event-driven programming. The result of this project was a custom …

Preservation Of Sea Anemone Burrows In Silurian (~432 Million Years Old) Carbonate Rocks Of Southeastern Indiana, Usa, Marissa Tomin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Preservation of trace fossils (ichnofossils) in siliciclastic environments is often quite different from preservation in carbonate environments, representing an important source of variation that must be well understood in order to enhance interpretations of paleoenvironments and paleoecology. This study focuses on Conostichus, a relatively common burrow constructed by solitary sea anemones. These trace fossils are generally well-preserved (i.e., they display detailed external features) in siliciclastic rocks but are typically little more than conical masses in carbonate rocks. However, certain specimens recovered from the middle Silurian Massie Formation at the Napoleon quarry of southeastern Indiana are composed entirely out of …

Implementation Of Cuda Accelerated Bayesian Network Learning, Joseph Haddad

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Bayesian networks can be used to analyze and find relationships among genetic profiles. Unfortunately, Bayesian network learning is an NP­-hard algorithm and thus takes a significant amount of time to generate an output. There has been research in this area in attempts to make this algorithm quicker, such as utilizing consensus networks. Consensus networks are aggregations of many “cheaper” Bayesian networks that are used to formulate a bigger picture. These “cheaper” networks have their search­ spaces restricted, and thus more are required to extract the relationships among the data points.

To accomplish this, I implemented Bayesian network learning in C++, …

Iphone Swift 3 Development For “What’S Good?”, Cameron Reilly

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Cameron Reilly

Major: Computer Science Management Track

Project Sponsor: Michael Collard

What’s Good?

“What’s Good?” is an iOS application that uses augmented reality to present information about nearby restaurants to the user in real time. Users can hold up their device and look through their camera to see information presented above the restaurant including it’s name, average cost, and average review rating. The user’s location is gathered and used in tandem with the Zomato API to select what data display as those dining locations are currently near the user. Using the gyroscope, compass, and accelerometer to tell the exact orientation …

Creating A Game With Procedural Generation, Kirsten Baker

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In today’s world, gaming is ever growing in popularity. The amount of games is forever increasing and there are many genres of games to suit any player’s desires. I have created a game that generates explorable mazes. Originally written in Java as a 2D game, I translated it into C# and utilized the Unity game engine to make it 3D. The randomly generated mazes would allow players to have endless fun navigating through the different levels and customizing it to fit their preferences.