Honors Projects

Showing 291 - 300 of 564 Items

This is What You Want: Stories

Date: 2017-05-01

Creator: Savannah Blake Horton

Access: Open access

This is What You Want: Stories is a collection of nine stories exploring the role of humor in dark situations. It is a work of fiction.


Virtual Reality Accessibility with Predictive Trails

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: Dani Paul Hove

Access: Open access

Comfortable locomotion in VR is an evolving problem. Given the high probability of vestibular-visual disconnect, and subsequent simulator sickness, new users face an uphill battle in adjusting to the technology. While natural locomotion offers the least chance of simulator sickness, the space, economic and accessibility barriers to it limit its effectiveness for a wider audience. Software-enabled locomotion circumvents much of these barriers, but has the greatest need for simulator sickness mitigation. This is especially true for standing VR experiences, where sex-biased differences in mitigation effectiveness are amplified (postural instability due to vection disproportionately affects women). Predictive trails were developed as a shareable Unity module in order to combat some of the gaps in current mitigation methods. Predictive trails use navigation meshes and path finding to plot the user’s available path according to their direction of vection. Some of the more prominent software methods each face distinct problems. Vignetting, while largely effective, restricts user field-of-vision (FoV), which in prolonged scenarios, has been shown to disproportionately lower women’s navigational ability. Virtual noses, while effective without introducing FoV restrictions, requires commercial licensing for use. Early testing of predictive trails proved effective on the principal investigator, but a wider user study - while approved - was unable to be carried out due to circumstances of the global health crisis. While the user study was planned around a seated experience, further study is required into the respective sex-biased effect on a standing VR experience. Additional investigation into performance is also required.


Miniature of Photochemistry of Cyano-Substituted 8-Amino-2-Naphthol
Photochemistry of Cyano-Substituted 8-Amino-2-Naphthol
This record is embargoed.
    • Embargo End Date: 2026-05-20

    Date: 2021-01-01

    Creator: Jialin Xie

    Access: Embargoed



      Miniature of Freezing temperatures drive functional trait clustering more than habitat structure in eelgrass communities in the Gulf of Maine
      Freezing temperatures drive functional trait clustering more than habitat structure in eelgrass communities in the Gulf of Maine
      This record is embargoed.
        • Embargo End Date: 2026-05-18

        Date: 2023-01-01

        Creator: Bridget Marjorie Patterson

        Access: Embargoed



          Miniature of Accounting for Gender Differences in Cultural Industries: Evidence from Film and the Fine Arts
          Accounting for Gender Differences in Cultural Industries: Evidence from Film and the Fine Arts
          Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

              Date: 2020-01-01

              Creator: Madeleine Rose Dupré

              Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                Miniature of Egg Size, Breeding Phenology, and Parental Investment in Leach’s Storm Petrels
                Egg Size, Breeding Phenology, and Parental Investment in Leach’s Storm Petrels
                Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                    Date: 2020-01-01

                    Creator: James L. O'Shea

                    Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                      Brutal Encounters: Primitivity, Politics, and the Postmodern Revolution

                      Date: 2021-01-01

                      Creator: Archer Thomas

                      Access: Open access

                      The switch from late modernism to postmodernism in Western aesthetic theory and criticism took place in the mid-to-late 20th century, radically changing the face of cultural criticism. Much has been written on how postmodernism broke from modernism, but what factors paved its way in the decades following the Second World War? This paper argues that postmodernism represents both a reaction to and a necessary evolution of late modernism, specifically as it manifests in architecture, politics, and the politics of architecture. It focuses on the crisis of confidence among Western left-wing circles following the upheaval of the Second World War and posits that, because of this upheaval, primitivism came to dominate the epistemology of a renewed modernism led by figures such as Clement Greenberg, Reyner Banham, and the practitioners of “the New Brutalism.” The paper then explores how the Western left-wing reaction to developments like decolonization and postwar modernization challenged primitivity’s newfound importance, resulting in a shift towards a “postmodern populism” in aesthetics and politics by the 1960s as described by Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Robert Venturi, and Reyner Banham.


                      How do long-term above-ground biomass dynamics vary between different forest stand types at Harvard Forest?

                      Date: 2023-01-01

                      Creator: Maya Y. Chandar-Kouba

                      Access: Open access

                      Monitoring forest carbon storage is necessary in accurately modelling the global carbon cycle. In the Northeast, terrestrial forests represent a major carbon sink with above-ground biomass (AGB) accounting for 40% of stored forest carbon. Therefore, understanding how AGB varies spatiotemporally is essential in predicting future carbon storage. Repeated measurements in permanent, long-term plots provide an opportunity to examine how carbon stored in AGB is changing over time. I used 29 years of data from the Harvard Forest Environmental Monitoring Systems (HF EMS) Site to determine how stand composition, intrinsic factors, and extrinsic environmental factors influenced rates of carbon storage in AGB over time. Using a partition around medoids (PAM) clustering method, I separated the 34 ground plots at the EMS stand into their respective stand types. I found that each stand type at the HF EMS plots accumulates carbon at consistent rates throughout the study period, although rates of carbon accumulation between stands were significantly different. Red Pine stands experience a rapid decline in biomass in 2018 due to the introduction of the Southern Pine Beetle. Across all stand types, sporadic mortality events determine variations in yearly rates of carbon accumulation, although this has little significant influence on total AGB accumulation. Leaf area index (LAI) and foliar N contents have no effect on growth increments. Extrinsic environmental variables had mixed effects on growth and mortality, highlighting the complexities of predicting forest carbon storage under changing climate conditions.


                      Miniature of Identification of MPKs Involved in the Wall Associated Kinase Regulated Stress Response in Arabidopsis thaliana
                      Identification of MPKs Involved in the Wall Associated Kinase Regulated Stress Response in Arabidopsis thaliana
                      Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                          Date: 2013-05-01

                          Creator: Patrick J Lariviere

                          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                            Rhythmic behaviors: Understanding neuromodulation at the neuromuscular level

                            Date: 2023-01-01

                            Creator: Kenneth Garcia

                            Access: Open access

                            Neuromodulation allows for the flexibility of neural circuit dynamics and the outputs they produce. Studies of the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) have expanded our knowledge on the actions of neuromodulators, small molecules that most often activate G-protein coupled receptors and reconfigure circuit activity and composition. In these systems, modulation has been found to occur at every level, from sensory-motor coupling to neuromuscular transmission (Harris-Warrick and Marder 1991). Neuromodulators have complex effects on motor output; they can alter the firing of individual neurons while also modulating muscle properties, neuromuscular transmission, and sensory neuron response to muscle activity (Fort et al. 2004). We investigated this further by recording the motor output produced by the gastric mill rhythm of the lobster STNS under neuromodulator conditions. How is this neuromuscular system as a whole modulated to produce motor flexibility? We hypothesized that these neuromodulators act on individual receptors of component neurons of central pattern generator (CPG)-effector system themselves and at the periphery, coordinately altering muscle contraction by altering all levels of the crustacean neuromuscular system. Application of NRNFLRFamide, RPCH, oxotremorine, and proctolin to the gastric mill 4 (gm4) muscles of the Cancer crab showed that neuromodulators that have been found to have variable, yet significant effects on the activity of the neurons of the STNS directly alter the activity of the gm4 muscles as well, suggesting that coordination of peripheral actions and direct neuronal modulation regulates patterned motor output.