2018 Honors Theses (Spring)

Lipkind, Amelia D.

In this paper, I explore a topic about which I am passionate: handmade goods. The focus started out as being just about greeting cards, but now the idea has expanded further into the entire handmade industry. Handmade cards, pins, buttons, etc. make us stop and think and enjoy the simple things from life. The majority of us grouped in the millen...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Spencer Norman.

Appreciation for and the emotional response we have toward handmade goods in a technological era

Brooks, Aiden P.

Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Craig Fox.

Are "games" becoming art, and are they already art?

Kastroll, Lindsay M.

The acerbic quality of the 2016 Presidential Election prompted several psychologists to weigh in on the mental health of then-candidate Donald Trump, a trend that has continued into his presidency. One of the many diagnoses given to the president is that of sociopath, a label that is characterized by the absence of a conscience. This is a very s...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Emily Sweitzer.

Commanding without conscience: determining the frequency of sociopathic presidents' elections.

Brueggeman, Elizabeth A.

The purpose of a white noise machine is to help the brain mask or eliminate other distracting noises. Similar to a fan, it works by playing a range of frequencies all at once creating a whooshing noise. Environmental noises are the noises that you hear every day. The difference between the two is white noise is a constant flow of noise while env...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Gregory Davis.

The Effect of environmental noise and white noise on test scores.

Scripter, Zoe L.

The intent of this project was to explore the relationship between visual communication and strategic brand marketing. The idea was to research how visual communication elements are used in the development of brand identities based upon psychological and subliminal messaging. The theories behind design elements in marketing include evidence of w...
Honors Thesis Advisor, Joseph Schickel.

The Effects of visual communication on strategic brand marketing

Law, Seth A.

Artificial neural networks are a trending topic in computer science and machine learning. Rooted in today’s current understanding of how the brain works, artificial neural networks allow machines the capability to essentially learn and decide for themselves. Improvements in technology have provided the means for a proposition between finite auto...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Paul Sible

Exploring artificial neural networks with CartPole-v0 solution.

Hilsey, Shaina M.

In recent years, a significant increase in philanthropic nonprofit businesses have started across the country to benefit society as a whole. These entities aim to enhance and enrich society rather than the profits associated with large corporations. Today there are many nonprofit sources of funding in higher education; however, there is no fin...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Justin Barroner.

Funding her future: creating a non-profit business plan for female standardized test taker

Gruber, Marie C.

Studies have found an increase in the use of glottal fry in recent years among young adult English-speaking women in the United States (Yuasa, 2010; Wolk et al., 2012). This increase is especially salient in popular American culture, occurring in movies and on television shows. This study explored current research on the topic of glottal fry and...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Robert Skwarecki.

Glottal Fry in popular American culture: an intraspeaker variation study of The Bachelor

Andresen, Adam.

Hazard mitigation has been an increasing field of importance, especially for those who work in public safety. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the risks associated with natural hazards that are frequently observed. The goal for this project is to create an original methodology for determining natural hazard...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Chad Kauffman.

A Hazard vulnerability assessment and climatology for the State of Ohio from 1960-2016.

Martik, Maria K.

With eating disorders being one of the most common forms of chronic illness in adolescents and adults (Mirasol, 2018), the question of whether eating disorders are common in athletes is introduced, particularly with dancers. The present research produces a meta-analysis of the current data found, examining if there is a high probability of eatin...

A Meta-analysis of the frequency of eating disorders in dancers

Norris, Wesley J.

As the world becomes increasingly more reliant on computer-based systems, there comes an increased need for better security measures to combat bad actors. Operating systems play a major role in securing sensitive information such as cryptographic data, private user information, and system files. In this paper, I outline the importance of operati...
Honors Thesis Advisor, Dr. Weifeng Chen.

Operating system security: importance, methodology and implications

Moore, Bryan M.

Honors Thesis Advisor, Dr. Candice J. Riley.

The Pike Run Youth Fishing Festival as an example of youth recreation program planning

Britvich, Bradley R.

Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the environment where texts that illustrate environmental concerns also investigate the ways characters in literature treat the natural world around them. There are certain authors who are widely considered preeminent writers in the study of ecocriticism. However, I believe tha...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Keat Murray.

The Relationship between Chekhov's works and the natural world.

Haegele, Aaron N.

Predicting the timing and location of lightning initiation is a challenging but important task for operational meteorology, as many people are killed or injured each year by lightning. The advent of the GOES-‐16 satellite offers the potential for new answers to this challenge. This study takes advantage of newly availabl...
Honors Thesis Advisor, Dr. Mario Majcen.

Relationships between thunderstorm cloud-top temperature and lightning initiation

Berry, Emily A.

Ovarian cancer cells have the ability to become resistant to different chemotherapy drugs, including one of the most commonly prescribed drugs Doxorubicin. This drug specifically is focused on during our research. Many previous research studies have investigated causes of ovarian cancer cell resistance, such as the protective enzyme glutathione ...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Paula Caffrey.

The Roles of glutathione s-transferase in the response of ovarian cancer cells to resveratrol and doxorubicin chemotherapy.

Grimm, Kayla A.

On the surface, Heathers: The Musical may look like a typical musical set in the 1980s where there is big hair and denim jackets; however, the plot is more serious than what is shown on the surface. The show focuses largely on psychological and social issues such as bullying, suicide, and abusive relationships. Though the musical is fictional, t...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Michele Pagen.

"Shine a light" on mental health : a look into the psychological and social issues of Heather's the musical.

Armento, Matthew G.

“Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee” –Muhammad Ali. American athletes, over the years, have used their celebrity to heighten public awareness regarding social injustices in the hope of bringing about lasting change. Professionals, such as Bill Russell and Jim Brown, and amateurs, like the University of Wyoming’s “Black 14”and 1968 Olympian...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Melanie Blumberg.

Sports figures and symbolic speech: There is no gray.

Sheppard, Scott T.

An n-body gravitational simulator was created and used to analvze the efficiency and efficacy of parallelizing a workload across a number of parallel processing cores in personal computing systems. While parallelizing does have definite performance advantages, there exist hurdles and limitations to implementing such.
Honors thesis advisor: Paul Sible.

"The Efficiency and Efficacy of Parallel Computing"

Price, Emily F.

The coaches of the California University of Pennsylvania Athletic Department desire a new recruiting system that can keep track of recruits by the recruit's high school graduation year, contact information, position, scholarship, ACT/SAT scores, and other helpful data. By creating such a system, coaches can more efficiently send recruits informa...
Honors Thesis Advisor, Dr. Lisa Kovalchick.

User acceptance testing for college coaches

Sobti, Priya E.

This Honors Thesis is a research project on women in STEM fields and careers. More specifically, it concerns the gender bias in STEM and how it affects women currently in or wanting to pursue careers in those areas of study. This project will be divided into three sections detailing the past, present, and future of women in STEM fields, highligh...
Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Maggie Habeeb.

Women in STEM.