New Directions: The Break of United States Hegemony in the Colombian Conflict

Matthew F. Danielson will be graduating this spring with degrees in Political Science and English with a concentration in writing. His senior project in Political Science explored the diversity of Indiana’s political culture, and his senior English project, which is also his senior Honors project, uses the literary theory of New Historicism to examine the Merrie Melody cartoons of 1952. He is a current recipient of the Withers Scholarship and is in the process of applying to law schools

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Prepare, Motivate, Lead: The Development of a Peer Mentoring and Leadership Service Learning Capstone Course for Psychology Majors

We developed a service learning capstone course: PSY 392 Peer Mentoring and Leadership. Whereas service learning courses typically provide service to an organization external to the campus, here advanced psychology majors serve as support resources/peer mentors for first-year students during their summer orientation experience, and then throughout their first semester

Cutie Fruity

Current beer brands fall short in offering packaging and branding that is visually appealing to women. To solve this, I want to create a unique Beer Brand for Women using visual design that is different than many of the current brands on the market. My goal is to see if I can create packaging and promotional materials that will address the different buying habits of women. Through my studies and research at IPFW I have learned that men and women have different ideas on what is visually appealing. This research and study prompted me to explore this topic. To prove this idea, I created all the branding, marketing and advertising material required for a new brand of beer. This new company will produce and package beer with designs implemented to appeal to the female market. I used colors and designs that were specifically created to visually appeal to my target audience. The proposed impact that my project will have is an increase in beer sales to women, and possibly a different way that other companies package and market to women.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1043/thumbnail.jp

The Role of Scytonemin in the Adaptation to Oxidative Stress in Cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are photosynthesizing organisms that live in environments open to solar ultraviolet radiation. In order to survive in these environments, some cyanobacteria produce sunscreen pigments. For these organisms, sunscreen pigments such as scytonemin intercept photons before they can harm cellular machinery, DNA, or produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are toxic to the cells. The specific aims of this project were to determine how the presence of scytonemin in the cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme contributes to fitness under oxidative stress and to provide insight into the molecular response to oxidative stress with and without the protection of scytonemin. To assess the physiological response, cells were first induced to produce scytonemin with long-wavelength UVA radiation. Then they were stressed with methylene blue for 30 min to induce production of ROS and evaluated for antioxidant enzyme activity. A control group without scytonemin and methylene blue stress were similarly evaluated. The gene expression response to oxidative stress was also measured with quantitative-PCR (qPCR) by targeting basic metabolic genes such as psbA (photosynthesis), rbcL (carbon-fixation), and nifH (nitrogen- fixation). In addition, the expression response of genes which encode for antioxidant enzymes such as katE and cat (catalase) and superoxide dismutase (sodA), were also measured. For the antioxidant enzyme activity analysis, cells with scytonemin produced less antioxidant activity than those without scytonemin, regardless of the presence or absence of oxidative stress. In the evaluation of the gene expression response, the results were more variable. Gene expression of nifH was upregulated in cells with scytonemin and oxidative stress, while the expression of rbcL was downregulated under similar conditions. In cells with scytonemin, expression of cat and katE were upregulated, while sodA was downregulated. Interestingly scytonemin appeared to suppress the antioxidant enzyme activity response while increasing the transcriptional response of catalase enzymes. This discrepancy could be explained by the fact that gene expression occurs before the translational or enzymatic response. Since the cells were only stressed for 30 min it is possible that the corresponding functional proteins were not active at the time of cell harvesting. Future studies will involve a temporal analysis of this response in order to better understand the contributions of scytonemin in coping with oxidative stress in N. punctiforme.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1002/thumbnail.jp

The Structure of Formalization

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