Honors Projects

Showing 151 - 200 of 662 Items

Non-Naturalism and Naturalism in Mathematics, Morality, and Epistemology

Date: 2018-05-01

Creator: Nicholas DiStefano

Access: Open access



He Mauka Teitei, Ko Aoraki, The Loftiest of Mountains: The Names of Aotearoa’s Highest Peak and Beyond

Date: 2024-01-01

Creator: Joseph B. Lancia

Access: Open access

My thesis discusses the cultural, political, and social dynamics of mountains with separate Indigenous and Western names and identities. Centering on Aoraki/Mount Cook—the highest peak in Aotearoa New Zealand—I integrate personal experiences as ethnographic data through narratives, mainly of my time hiking while studying abroad in New Zealand and during the two recent summers I spent exploring Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Through its name, Aoraki/Mt. Cook maintains Indigenous Māori and Western perspectives: Aoraki being a Māori atua (god) and Captain James Cook being a significant colonial figure in the Pacific. The slash upholds both identities while ensuring that they exist together. These dynamics are explored in depth and extended to mountains in places including Colorado, Alaska, and Australia. While discussing Rocky I rely heavily on Oliver Toll’s Arapaho Names & Trails (2003) which contains a substantial collection of Arapaho knowledge of the area and I give strong attention to Nesótaieux (Longs Peak and Mount Meeker). Additionally, I look at Mount Blue Sky, Denali, and Uluru/Ayers Rock to discuss mountains that have had formal name changes and how legacies are maintained through toponyms. With discussing varying identities and perceptions of each example and the knowledge held in names I encourage readers to do research into local Indigenous knowledges to further their and others’ understandings of places. I emphasize the concepts of historical silences, the revealing of knowledge, and the importance of language to articulate that Indigenous knowledge might be difficult to find but is never truly lost.


Fall forward, spring back: Drivers of synchrony in the sea star crawl-bounce gait transition

Date: 2024-01-01

Creator: Brady R Nichols

Access: Open access

The Froude number is the ratio of kinetic energy to gravitational potential energy used during locomotion and is often used to analyze gait transitions. Here, I compare and contrast the human walk-run gait transition, which occurs at a consistent Froude number of 1 because there exists a mechanical speed limit to walking, and the sea star crawl-bounce gait transition, which occurs around Froude numbers of 1*10^-3. In this thesis I investigate why sea stars exhibit two gaits despite lacking brains and moving at Froude numbers far below other known gait transitions, hypothesizing (1) that the crawl-bounce transition may be mechanical and thus still depends on the Froude number, and (2) that the crawl-bounce transition is best modeled gradually compared to the instantaneous human walk-run transition. Thirty sea stars were filmed and the resulting kinematic data is used here to inform thinking about the crawl-bounce transition. I first discuss damped driven harmonic motion of a single oscillator, but eventually turn to using coupled oscillators and deriving that a coupling constant between metronomes on a moving base is the Froude number, which is therefore relevant for the crawl-bounce transition. I lastly discuss a purely mathematical analogue of the crawl-bounce transition as a Hopf bifurcation in horizontal speed and vertical velocity phase space, which leads to a rough model with results qualitatively similar to observed kinematic data from films, and indicates that a gradual transition is in fact a good fit for the crawl-bounce transition.


Miniature of Origin of Rhyolite from Magma Mush: Plutonic Lithics from the Ohakuri Ignimbrite, Taupō Volcanic Zone, New Zealand
Origin of Rhyolite from Magma Mush: Plutonic Lithics from the Ohakuri Ignimbrite, Taupō Volcanic Zone, New Zealand
This record is embargoed.
    • Embargo End Date: 2027-05-15

    Date: 2024-01-01

    Creator: Christine Reimer

    Access: Embargoed



      Policy Making, Decision Making, and Advocacy: The U.S. Asylum System Since 9/11

      Date: 2024-01-01

      Creator: Clara Jergins

      Access: Open access

      Immigration justice advocates and immigration restrictionists alike are unhappy with the way that the U.S. asylum system functions. This project seeks to develop a better understanding of policy changes and the politicized influence of the president and executive authorities over the asylum system since 9/11—in particular, these individuals’ ability to implement their policy preferences through the hiring and instruction of Asylum Officers and Immigration Judges. Through case studies of nonprofit organizations, it identifies the key points in the asylum process where asylum has been restricted, and the ways in which these restrictions can be responded to. On the basis of these factors, this project identifies four key changes, made by Congress, through which the asylum system could be improved: the establishment of an Article I immigration court, encoded testimonial and credibility standards, universal representation, and an end to asylum seeker detention. These changes are asserted to depoliticize the asylum process and to create a stable asylum system in which those that should qualify for asylum do qualify.


      DS-PSO: Particle Swarm Optimization with Dynamic and Static Topologies

      Date: 2017-05-01

      Creator: Dominick Sanchez

      Access: Open access

      Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is often used for optimization problems due to its speed and relative simplicity. Unfortunately, like many optimization algorithms, PSO may potentially converge too early on local optima. Using multiple neighborhoods alleviates this problem to a certain extent, although premature convergence is still a concern. Using dynamic topologies, as opposed to static neighborhoods, can encourage exploration of the search space at the cost of exploitation. We propose a new version of PSO, Dynamic-Static PSO (DS-PSO) that assigns multiple neighborhoods to each particle. By using both dynamic and static topologies, DS-PSO encourages exploration, while also exploiting existing knowledge about the search space. While DS-PSO does not outperform other PSO variants on all benchmark functions we tested, its performance on several functions is substantially better than other variants.


      Fitness and sex effects of a novel microsporidian parasite on its Daphnia host

      Date: 2025-01-01

      Creator: Gracie Scheve

      Access: Open access

      Parasitism can influence host ecology and evolution in powerful ways, although the specific impacts on host fitness and life history may be context dependent and involve complex trade-offs. In this study, I investigated the effects of a novel microsporidian gut parasite on Daphnia ambigua, a freshwater zooplankton with a cyclical parthenogenetic life cycle. Combining extensive field sampling at Sewall Pond, Maine, with chronic exposure experiments in the lab, I assessed the parasite's impact on Daphnia fitness and propensity to shift from asexual to sexual reproduction. Field observations revealed a correlation between gut parasite prevalence and increased production of males and sexual females, independent of known sex inducers such as crowding, food limitation, and photoperiod. Lab experiments confirmed that chronic spore exposure significantly reduced Daphnia survival and reproductive output, particularly in clones previously naïve to this strain of the parasite. However, no induction of sex or male offspring was observed in response to parasite exposure under laboratory conditions. This suggests that more complex environmental interactions might be triggering sex in Daphnia. While sex provides the benefit of increased genetic diversity for future generations, I hypothesize that while Daphnia undergo sexual reproduction their ability to resist or tolerate parasite infection is diminished. Phylogenetic analyses indicate the parasite is closely related to the less virulent microsporidian Ordospora pajunii but genetically distinct, potentially constituting a new species or genus. These findings provide insight into the ecological and evolutionary tradeoffs involved in host-parasite interactions and introduce a new host-parasite system for this study.


      Miniature of Chains for Change: Mathematical Modeling of Boston’s Eviction Court Cases
      Chains for Change: Mathematical Modeling of Boston’s Eviction Court Cases
      Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

          Date: 2025-01-01

          Creator: Brian Liu

          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



            Mesurer l’identité : pourquoi les jeunes français se détournent du vin ?Measuring Identity: What’s Turning the Young French Away from Wine?

            Date: 2025-01-01

            Creator: Siyi (Jonathan) Li

            Access: Open access

            We use a randomized discrete‑choice experiment with 381 French adults to investigate why France’s wine consumption decline is most pronounced among the young. The treatment group subjects were primed via a video about France’s viticultural heritage, which raises the probability of choosing French red wine over French amber beer by 14 percentage points for Generation X but lowers it by 15 points for Generation Z. Using observational data collected after the experiment, 2SLS estimates show that the decline of wine in France is primarily due to a weakened sense of “French wine identity.” The study provides the first causal evidence for the role of identity in consumption choices and cautions that heritage‑based marketing may backfire with younger cohorts, suggesting instead modernity‑ and sustainability‑oriented strategies for the wine sector.


            Miniature of Building (Cellular) Barriers: Identifying cellularization dynamics involving somatic Xchromosome eliminations in Bradysia coprophila embryonic development
            Building (Cellular) Barriers: Identifying cellularization dynamics involving somatic Xchromosome eliminations in Bradysia coprophila embryonic development
            This record is embargoed.

                Date: 2025-01-01

                Creator: Aale J. Agans

                Access: Permanent restriction



                  Convolutional Squeeze and Excitation Networks

                  Date: 2025-01-01

                  Creator: Kavi Sarna

                  Access: Open access

                  Squeeze-and-Excitation (SE) networks improve CNN feature learning by channel-wise attention, but their global pooling strategy discards spatial context. In this work, we reinterpret the SE block’s excitation mechanism as a convolution operation, which leads to a novel patched pooling design. Instead of global average pooling, we propose to divide feature maps into patches and pool within each patch, preserving local spatial information for attention. The excitation step is implemented with 1x1 convolutions (replacing the original SE fully-connected layers), enabling the model to learn adaptive channel reweighting efficiently across those patches. This Convolutional Squeeze-and-Excitation (CSE) approach yields spatially aware feature recalibration with minimal overhead. We evaluate CSE across multiple CNN architectures (including a custom ConvNet and ResNet) on image classification tasks (Fashion-MNIST, CIFAR-10). The results show consistent accuracy improvements over standard SE blocks. Moreover, we demonstrate the generality of patched pooling by integrating it with other attention modules like Efficient Channel Attention (ECA) and Global Context (GC), achieving further gains. Our findings highlight that incorporating localized pooling in SE-style attention significantly enhances representation learning across diverse scenarios.


                  Miniature of Gracefully Navigating Industry Exit: Modeling Regional Climate Change-Driven Decline in Maine’s Lobster Fishery and the Urgent Need for Statewide Comprehensive Cost Data
                  Gracefully Navigating Industry Exit: Modeling Regional Climate Change-Driven Decline in Maine’s Lobster Fishery and the Urgent Need for Statewide Comprehensive Cost Data
                  Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                      Date: 2025-01-01

                      Creator: Luisa Isabelle Louchheim

                      Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                        Miniature of Modulation of migratory and breeding phenologies by Maine’s common loons (Gavia immer) in response to climate conditions
                        Modulation of migratory and breeding phenologies by Maine’s common loons (Gavia immer) in response to climate conditions
                        Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                            Date: 2025-01-01

                            Creator: Henry Grant Marriott

                            Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community




                              Rescentment: Reclaiming the Olfactory Sense in Contemporary Asian Diaspora Literature

                              Date: 2025-01-01

                              Creator: Maya Juliette Le

                              Access: Open access



                              Miniature of When Populists Come to Power: A US-UK Comparative Analysis
                              When Populists Come to Power: A US-UK Comparative Analysis
                              Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                  Date: 2025-01-01

                                  Creator: Ari Edward Bersch

                                  Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                    Miniature of The Art of Distancing Desire: Queer Female Possibility in British and French Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture
                                    The Art of Distancing Desire: Queer Female Possibility in British and French Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture
                                    Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                        Date: 2025-01-01

                                        Creator: Julia Smart

                                        Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community




                                          Personally Relevant Indoor Nature Imagery’s Impact on Students’ Well-Being, Connection to Nature, and Eco-Conscious Behaviors

                                          Date: 2019-05-01

                                          Creator: Sarena Sabine

                                          Access: Open access

                                          Previous research has shown that experiences in nature are predictive of increased connection to nature, well-being, and pro-environmental behavior. The current study investigated whether daily exposure to indoor nature imagery would also improve well-being and eco-conscious behaviors, and whether personally relevant images would enhance this hypothesized effect. Participants completed a test assessing baseline connection to nature and well-being, specifically satisfaction with life, positive and negative emotions, and stress. In the 2 (Nature vs. Built) X 2 (Familiar vs. Unfamiliar) study design, 125 participants either received a poster from a photo that they submitted (a personally-relevant nature scene or personally-relevant built scene) or a poster of an unfamiliar natural or built scene. After four weeks of daily exposure to this new poster in their home, participants completed a post-test which included the same measures of well-being and connection to nature, along with a novel eco-conscious behaviors measure involving environmental petitions. The nature intervention significantly improved participants’ satisfaction with life. The personal relevancy of images did not enhance well-being, either alone nor in interaction with image content. The finding that daily exposure could lead to improved well-being has implications for addressing mental health concerns.


                                          Miniature of "We are your wives, sisters, daughters, mothers and friends:" United States' Women's Stories from the Public to the Archive
                                          "We are your wives, sisters, daughters, mothers and friends:" United States' Women's Stories from the Public to the Archive
                                          Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                              Date: 2019-01-01

                                              Creator: Sadie LoGerfo-Olsen

                                              Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                Miniature of Urban Modernity and Turbulent Water: Toward a Transnational History of Expansion in Northern Japan, 1866-1882
                                                Urban Modernity and Turbulent Water: Toward a Transnational History of Expansion in Northern Japan, 1866-1882
                                                Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                                    Date: 2018-05-01

                                                    Creator: Ethan Barkalow

                                                    Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                      N,N’-Dimethyimidazolium-2-Carboxylate as a Ligand Precursor for the Accession of a Constrained Olefin Dimerization Catalyst

                                                      Date: 2020-01-01

                                                      Creator: Michael Harris

                                                      Access: Open access

                                                      A significant market share of modern plastics is held by long-chain hydrocarbon polymers, such as polyethylene and polypropylene, properties of which can be dramatically changed by addition of linear α-olefins. Production of linear α-olefins involves the creation of many unwanted byproducts, representing significant quantities of both economic and ecological waste. While catalysts have been designed to selectively produce industrially useful olefins, these catalysts often encounter challenges such as synthesis of other unwanted byproducts, slow reaction times, and difficulty of synthesis. Based on one such prior catalyst, we report here synthetic work towards a cobalt catalyst with a constrained N-heterocyclic carbene supporting ligand predicted to allow for more favorable product distributions. Synthesis of two precursors to a sterically unhindered N-heterocyclic carbene, as well as development of a synthetic protocol for the coordination of N,N’- dimethylimidazolium-2-carboxylate to Cp*Co(ethene)2 was completed. Activation of the precatalyst and preliminary catalytic experiments were performed, though abbreviated research periods made complete analysis impossible. Finally, we report evidence of the formation of a novel cobalt-NHC dimer as a temperature controlled byproduct of the desired catalyst synthesis.


                                                      Miniature of “One of Folly’s Failures”: <i>Plessy v. Ferguson</i> (1896) and the Decline of the Thirteenth Amendment
                                                      “One of Folly’s Failures”: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the Decline of the Thirteenth Amendment
                                                      This record is embargoed.
                                                        • Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14

                                                        Date: 2020-01-01

                                                        Creator: Grace Ann Fenwick

                                                        Access: Embargoed



                                                          Mechanisms underlying variable responses to the neuropeptide C-type allatostatin (AST-C) across isoforms and among individuals in the American lobster, Homarus americanus

                                                          Date: 2020-01-01

                                                          Creator: Audrey J. Muscato

                                                          Access: Open access

                                                          Central pattern generators (CPGs) produce patterned outputs independent of sensory input. The cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster (Homarus americanus) is driven by a CPG called the cardiac ganglion (CG), which is composed of nine neurons, making it a model system of study. Modulation of CPGs allows for functional flexibility. One neuropeptide family that modulates the CG is C-type allatostatin (AST-C I-III). Previous research has shown variation in the responses of the CG across the three isoforms and among individuals. First, we investigated why AST-C I and III elicit responses that are more similar to each other than they are to the responses elicited by AST-C II. We hypothesized that an amino acid difference in the conserved sequence was responsible for the observed variation in responses. We synthesized isoforms of AST-C that replaced the endogenous amino acid and recorded responses to these isoforms. The identity of one particular amino acid in the conserved sequence seems to be responsible for variations in responses in frequency. Next, we focused on variation among individuals in their responses to AST-C I and III. We hypothesized that the mechanism behind this individual variation is differential expression of AST-C receptors and/or their downstream targets. We recorded physiological responses of the cardiac system to AST-C and then sequenced CG RNA from the same lobsters. Differential expression of one of the AST-C receptors and a number of downstream factors is correlated with physiological response. These findings inspire further experimentation investigating molt cycle as the underlying cause.


                                                          Alongside Despair: Signs of Life on the River des Peres

                                                          Date: 2020-01-01

                                                          Creator: Marina Henke

                                                          Access: Open access

                                                          This River des Peres is a partially enclosed river which runs through St. Louis, Missouri. Used since prior to the city’s founding, the des Peres has gone through two considerable engineering projects: one in 1901 in light of the World’s Fair, and one in 1923, which encapsulated more than half of the river and placed nearly five miles of it underground. Presently, the des Peres constitutes the backbone of the sanitary and sewer system of St. Louis city and county. Ultimately, the river offers a broad meditation on what it means to live around and in a “natural” waterway that is simultaneously not natural at all. Themes of St. Louis are equally reflected in the river: of environmental racism, of Midwestern decline, and of urban decay and renewal. Additionally, those who interact with the river prove a broad cast of characters. Through using a selection of interviews with locals, alongside an engagement with the work of contemporary poet Donald Finkel, this piece of creative nonfiction explores the multiplicity, and ultimately the value, of distorted natural spaces.


                                                          Miniature of Non-genomic effects of steroids on teleost fish olfaction: behavioral and anatomical approaches
                                                          Non-genomic effects of steroids on teleost fish olfaction: behavioral and anatomical approaches
                                                          Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                                              Date: 2020-01-01

                                                              Creator: Leah B Kratochvil

                                                              Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                Miniature of Wnt Signaling is Dispensable to Formation of the First Tooth in <i>D. Rerio</i>
                                                                Wnt Signaling is Dispensable to Formation of the First Tooth in D. Rerio
                                                                This record is embargoed.
                                                                  • Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14

                                                                  Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                  Creator: Zachary C. LeBlanc

                                                                  Access: Embargoed



                                                                    Miniature of Tapping at the Windows: A Collection
                                                                    Tapping at the Windows: A Collection
                                                                    This record is embargoed.
                                                                      • Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14

                                                                      Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                      Creator: Samuel Milligan

                                                                      Access: Embargoed



                                                                        Performing Sor Juana: Reimagining a Mexican Literary Figure in the 21st Century

                                                                        Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                        Creator: Uriel López-Serrano

                                                                        Access: Open access

                                                                        Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (c. 1648-1695) was a Mexican nun, poet, playwright, and scholar from the colonial era. She has become an icon for various global, social, and political movements. This project looks at four dramatic works created by Sorjuanistas who reimagine Sor Juana’s story for contemporary audiences living in the United States. The works included in this essay are Estela Portillo-Trambley’s Sor Juana (1986), Karen Zacarías’s The Sins of Sor Juana (2001), and Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s “Interview with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz” (1998/2014) and her newest work, Juana: An Opera in Two Acts (2019), libretto by Carla Lucero. In addition to reimagining Sor Juana’s story, these dramatic works expose the sexism, racism, and xenophobia perpetuated by U.S institutions of power that discriminate against Latin@ and Chican@ individuals. By shedding light on the social injustices that existed during the colonial era, an embodied Sor Juana teaches audiences how to resist and mobilize against such oppressive powers. Sor Juana’s narrative on stage is necessary because she is a role model for Latin@s/Chican@s. Sorjuanistas remind us that the body can be used to retell the narratives of the silenced individuals who are victims of oppression. By developing heritage performances, Sorjuanistas challenge histories that silence and overlook social injustices. Witnessing Sor Juana on stage triggers emotional responses to the past which allow historical actors to obtain intellectual, emotional, and political agency in an effort to affirm and remember particular contemporary and future commitments to fighting social injustices.


                                                                        Miniature of An Analysis of Hezbollah’s Media Platforms, Focusing on Themes, Narratives and Strategy
                                                                        An Analysis of Hezbollah’s Media Platforms, Focusing on Themes, Narratives and Strategy
                                                                        Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
                                                                        • Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01

                                                                          Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                          Creator: Nichole Irving

                                                                          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                            Miniature of Noninvasive Memory Modulation Via Targeted Theta TACS Entrainment of the Frontoparietal Network
                                                                            Noninvasive Memory Modulation Via Targeted Theta TACS Entrainment of the Frontoparietal Network
                                                                            Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
                                                                            • Restriction End Date: 2026-06-01

                                                                              Date: 2021-01-01

                                                                              Creator: Brandon S Lee

                                                                              Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                                Down in arms: Marine climate stress inhibits growth and calcification of regenerating Asterias forbesi (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) arms

                                                                                Date: 2021-01-01

                                                                                Creator: Hannah L. Randazzo

                                                                                Access: Open access

                                                                                Anthropogenic CO2 is changing the pCO2, temperature, and carbonate chemistry of seawater. These processes are termed ocean acidification (OA) and ocean warming. Previous studies suggest two opposing hypotheses for the way in which marine climate stress will influence echinoderm calcification, metabolic efficiency, and reproduction: either an additive or synergistic effect. Sea stars have a regenerative capacity, which may be particularly affected while rebuilding calcium carbonate arm structures, leading to changes in arm growth and calcification. In this study, Asterias forbesi were exposed to ocean water of either ambient, high temperature, high pCO2, or high temperature and high pCO2 for 60 days, and the regeneration length of the amputated arm was measured weekly. Ocean acidification conditions (pCO2 ~1180 μatm) had a negative impact on regenerated arm length, and an increase in temperature of +4°C above ambient conditions (Fall, Southern Gulf of Maine) had a positive effect on regenerated arm length, but the additive effects of these two factors resulted in smaller regenerated arms compared to ambient conditions. Sea stars regenerating under high pCO2 exhibited a lower proportion of calcified mass, which could be the result of a more energetically demanding calcification process associated with marine climate stress. These results indicate that A. forbesi calcification is sensitive to increasing pCO2, and that climate change will have an overall net negative effect on sea star arm regeneration. Such effects could translate into lower predation rates by a key consumer in the temperate rocky intertidal of North America.


                                                                                Miniature of Identification and characterization of genes involved in <i>Helicobacter pylori</i> lipopolysaccharide and glycoprotein biosynthesis
                                                                                Identification and characterization of genes involved in Helicobacter pylori lipopolysaccharide and glycoprotein biosynthesis
                                                                                Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.

                                                                                    Date: 2021-01-01

                                                                                    Creator: Andrew James Mulholland

                                                                                    Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                                      Determining the sites at which neuromodulators exert peripheral effects in the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American Lobster, Homarus americanus

                                                                                      Date: 2021-01-01

                                                                                      Creator: Audrey Elizabeth Jordan

                                                                                      Access: Open access

                                                                                      Networks of neurons known as central pattern generators (CPGs) generate rhythmic patterns of output to drive behaviors like locomotion. CPGs are relatively fixed networks that produce consistent patterns in the absence of other inputs. The heart contractions of the Homarus americanus are neurogenic and controlled by the CPG known as the cardiac ganglion. Neuromodulators can enable flexibility in CPG motor output, and also on muscle contractions by acting on the neuromuscular junction and the muscle itself. A tissue-specific transcriptome gleaned from the cardiac ganglion and cardiac muscle of the American lobster was used to predict the sites and sources of a variety of crustacean neuromodulators. If corresponding receptors were predicted to be expressed in the cardiac muscle, then it was hypothesized that the neuropeptide had peripheral effects. One peptide for which a cardiac muscle receptor was identified is myosuppressin. Myosuppressin has been shown to have modulatory effects at the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster. In previous research, myosuppressin had modulatory effects on the periphery of cardiac neuromuscular system alone. It remains an open question of whether myosuppressin acts on the cardiac muscle directly, if it is exerting its effects at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), or both. To test this, I performed physiological experiments on the isolated NMJ. Myosuppressin did not modulate the amplitude of the excitatory junction potentials. Since no modulatory effects were seen at the NMJ, the cardiac muscle was isolated from the cardiac ganglion and then glutamate-evoked contractions were stimulated. I showed that myosuppressin increased glutamate-evoked contraction amplitude. These data suggest myosuppressin exerts its peripheral effects at the cardiac muscle and not the NMJ.


                                                                                      Miniature of Los trucos debajo de la mesa: Juegos y simulacros en la cultura y literatura argentina
                                                                                      Los trucos debajo de la mesa: Juegos y simulacros en la cultura y literatura argentina
                                                                                      Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
                                                                                      • Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01

                                                                                        Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                                        Creator: Eliana Miller

                                                                                        Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                                          Miniature of Investigating the Effect of Side Chains with Hydrogen Bonding Capabilities on Peptoid Catalysts for Enantioselective Trifluoromethylation of 4-Chlorobenzaldehyde
                                                                                          Investigating the Effect of Side Chains with Hydrogen Bonding Capabilities on Peptoid Catalysts for Enantioselective Trifluoromethylation of 4-Chlorobenzaldehyde
                                                                                          Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
                                                                                          • Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01

                                                                                            Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                                            Creator: Rebecca Londoner

                                                                                            Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                                              Characterization of O-Linked Glycosylated Neuropeptides in the American Lobster (Homarus americanus): The Use of Peptide Labeling Following Beta Elimination

                                                                                              Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                                              Creator: Edward Myron Bull

                                                                                              Access: Open access

                                                                                              Neuropeptides are a class of small peptides that govern various neurological functions, and the American lobster (Homarus americanus) provides a model system for their characterization. Neuropeptides are commonly post-translationally modified (PTM), and one common PTM is glycosylation. Past research in the Stemmler lab has found glycosylated neuropeptides in H. americanus; however, the extent and biological role of this modification has not been well characterized. This study was undertaken to determine the number of glycosylated peptides in the sinus glands of H. americanus and to develop an approach to tag the site of glycosylation using beta-elimination chemistry. LC-MS paired with high pH reverse phase fractionation was used to survey for glycosylated neuropeptides and beta elimination with an amine tag was used as an approach to characterize the site of glycosylation. Our results indicate that high pH fractionation is a useful approach to simplify complex mixtures of neuropeptides and improve glycopeptide detection. Efforts to use beta elimination and tagging to characterize glycosylated neuropeptides have been less successful. Beta elimination of full length peptides resulted in peptide degradation. An approach utilizing chymotrypsin to reduce peptide size coupled with beta elimination and labeling with 2-dimethylaminoethanethiol showed less evidence for degradation, and this approach yielded data isolating two potential serine residues for the site of glycosylation; however, the data was not sufficient to distinguish the two sites. Work to optimize reaction conditions using a glycopeptide standard showed that multiple isomeric products were formed during beta elimination. With the goal of optimizing reaction conditions, future work will further examine reaction kinetics to eventually apply the approach to the entire sinus gland


                                                                                              Classifying Flow-kick Equilibria: Reactivity and Transient Behavior in the Variational Equation

                                                                                              Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                                              Creator: Alanna Haslam

                                                                                              Access: Open access

                                                                                              In light of concerns about climate change, there is interest in how sustainable management can maintain the resilience of ecosystems. We use flow-kick dynamical systems to model ecosystems subject to a constant kick occurring every τ time units. We classify the stability of flow-kick equilibria to determine which management strategies result in desirable long-term characteristics. To classify the stability of a flow-kick equilibrium, we classify the linearization of the time-τ map given by the time-τ map of the variational equation about the equilibrium trajectory. Since the variational equation is a non-autonomous linear differential equation, we conjecture that the asymptotic stability classification of each instantaneous local linearization along the equilibrium trajectory indicates the stability of the variational time-τ map. In Chapter 3, we prove this conjecture holds when all of the asymptotic and transient behavior of the instantaneous local linearizations is the same. To explore whether the conjecture holds in general, we ask: To what degree can transient behavior differ from asymptotic behavior? Under what conditions can this transient behavior accumulate asymptotically? In Chapter 4, we develop the radial and tangential velocity framework to characterize transient behavior in autonomous linear systems. In Chapter 5, we use this framework to construct an example of a non-autonomous linear system whose time-τ map has asymptotic behavior that differs from the asymptotic behavior of each instantaneous linear system that composes it. Future work seeks to determine whether this constructed example can arise as a variational equation, and thus provide a counterexample for our conjecture.


                                                                                              Reading & Teaching Chaucer: the "Good Wif"?

                                                                                              Date: 2020-01-01

                                                                                              Creator: Sophie Friedman

                                                                                              Access: Open access

                                                                                              This two-chapter project applies formalist and feminist thinking to the thirty-line description of the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s medieval, British work The Canterbury Tales. It is an interdisciplinary project; it studies how to read and teach Chaucer at the secondary level based off of these two approaches. In this formalist chapter, I study narrative voice, rhyme, irony, and ekphrasis, writing about the history and function of each of those tools and their role in the passage. I argue that the formalist close reading approach is an excellent teaching tool that generates thorough, rigorous, and joyful reading. In this feminist chapter, I compile a critical literary history of scholarly feminist and pre-feminist engagement with the passage over time. I read into an underlying genotype text, arguing that the Wife of Bath was a female entrepreneur who used textiles as a means of social, professional, and aesthetic expression and empowerment. Then I advocate for a feminist ethical teaching approach—one where we use the text as a non-ethical space in which to explore ethical questions surrounding gender. Ultimately, I argue that feminist and formalist approaches are interdependent and complementary; for both reading and teaching Chaucer, they stand stronger together.


                                                                                              A Stepping-Stone? An Analysis of How the Minimum Wage Impacts the Wage Growth of Individuals in Monopsonistic Industries

                                                                                              Date: 2022-01-01

                                                                                              Creator: Levi McAtee

                                                                                              Access: Open access

                                                                                              Do minimum wage increases serve as stepping-stones to higher-paying jobs for low-pay workers? This paper analyzes the impact of state minimum wage policy on the one-year wage growth rates of individuals across the wage distribution and whether that impact changes for individuals in highly monopsonistic industries. I review the recent literature on the disemployment effect, the impact of the minimum wage on wage growth rates, the nature of monopsonistic industries, and the relationship between the minimum wage and monopsony power. I offer theoretical reasons why the minimum wage may impact the wage growth rates of individuals in monopsonistic industries differently than it impacts those of individuals in competitive industries. I then re-estimate Lopresti’s and Mumford’s (2016) panel fixed effects model to determine how the effect of a minimum wage increase depends nonlinearly on the size of the increase. Using data from 2005-2008, Lopresti and Mumford found that small minimum wage increases have a significant negative impact on wage growth rates, while large minimum wage increases have a significant positive impact. Using data from 2016-2019, I find similar results. As my primary empirical contribution, I test whether individuals in highly monopsonistic industries experience minimum wage changes differently than individuals in more competitive industries. I find monopsony power in the form of high labor immobility primarily impacts the wage growth rates of high-pay workers and does not influence how low-pay workers experience minimum wage changes. Finally, I recommend policymakers impose larger minimum wage increases to avoid impeding the wage-growth of low-pay workers.


                                                                                              The Structure and Unitary Representations of SU(2,1)

                                                                                              Date: 2015-05-01

                                                                                              Creator: Andrew J Pryhuber

                                                                                              Access: Open access



                                                                                              Guarding Whiteness: Disability, Eugenics, and Rhetorical Agency in Southern Renaissance Fiction

                                                                                              Date: 2023-01-01

                                                                                              Creator: Philip Carl Bonanno

                                                                                              Access: Open access

                                                                                              This project explores fiction from white authors in the Southern Renaissance, specifically William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers. By examining their work alongside some of the performers that appeared historically in freak shows of the South, chapter one investigates how physically enfreaked individuals (usually phenotypically white) have access to power and the powers of whiteness. Chapter 2 interrogates how the South pathologizes promiscuity as mental illness with words such as moronic or feeble-mindedness, and the ramifications it has for the stratification on class divides among Southern elites and “White Trash.” The chapter seeks to answer the question of why, for a short period in the 1940s, white women were more likely to be punished with forced sterilization than Black women. Chapter 3 uncovers the rhetorical agency used by Benjy in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, looking at how he resists the powers of whiteness through crip time and his trauma responses to his family that seeks to reinsert the Antebellum South. Using an intersectional approach of critical whiteness studies, disability studies, crip theory, and queer theory, relies on a variety of scholars including, but not limited to; David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, Richard Dyer, Matt Wray, Jasbir Puar, Ellen Samuels, and Allison Kafer. The primary works examined include promotional materials of historical freaks, McCullers’ The Ballad of a Sad Café, William Faulkner’s The Hamlet and The Sound and the Fury, and Flannery O’Connor short stories “Good Country People” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost.”


                                                                                              Miniature of Parole lievitanti: La panificazione spirituale di S. Caterina di Bologna
                                                                                              Parole lievitanti: La panificazione spirituale di S. Caterina di Bologna
                                                                                              This record is embargoed.
                                                                                                • Embargo End Date: 2027-05-19

                                                                                                Date: 2022-01-01

                                                                                                Creator: Katherine Aiello McKee

                                                                                                Access: Embargoed



                                                                                                  The development of begging calls in Yellow Warblers

                                                                                                  Date: 2015-05-01

                                                                                                  Creator: Jackson F Bloch

                                                                                                  Access: Open access

                                                                                                  Nestling birds use begging calls to solicit resources from adults. Efficient transmission of calls is necessary for motivating parental feeding and outcompeting siblings. However, ambient acoustic masking and costs such as predation may influence the structure of the calls. While many interspecific comparisons of begging behavior have been made, the ontogeny of calls is understudied. In this study, Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) begging calls were recorded and analyzed at different stages of nestling development to document changes in acoustic structure and gain insight into the selective forces that influence call development. Begging calls increased in peak frequency, frequency range, and amplitude during the 5-day recording period. Call duration did not change with age. Call structure did not differ between nestlings living in distinct acoustic environments. As begging calls increase in amplitude with age, perhaps due to increased food needs and competition from nestmates, nestlings may compensate for increased predation risk by increasing the peak frequency of the calls. Higher frequency calls attenuate more quickly than do low frequency calls and fall outside the frequency range of maximum hearing sensitivity for some potential predators. Previous studies on warbler begging have shown that nestlings of ground-nesting warblers, which are subject to higher rates of predation, beg at higher frequencies than do nestlings of tree-nesting warblers. This study supports the hypothesis that changes to begging call structure during development mirror the differences in call structure of species under different predation risks.


                                                                                                  Miniature of Phenotypic divergence between sites in photosynthetic thermal response despite low genetic differentiation in Gulf of Maine <i>Ascophyllum nodosum</i>
                                                                                                  Phenotypic divergence between sites in photosynthetic thermal response despite low genetic differentiation in Gulf of Maine Ascophyllum nodosum
                                                                                                  This record is embargoed.
                                                                                                    • Embargo End Date: 2028-05-18

                                                                                                    Date: 2023-01-01

                                                                                                    Creator: Olivia Bronzo-Munich

                                                                                                    Access: Embargoed



                                                                                                      “Something most girls don’t do” An Ethnographic Study of Women in Extreme Sports

                                                                                                      Date: 2022-01-01

                                                                                                      Creator: Jacqueline Boben

                                                                                                      Access: Open access

                                                                                                      Extreme sports, like skateboarding, whitewater kayaking, and skiing, have historically been male-dominated. As women’s participation in these sports grows, my research asks: how do women navigate sports spaces and cultures that have for so long been defined by men? To answer this question, I draw on ethnographic research on communities of skateboarders, whitewater kayakers and skiers conducted during the summer of 2021 in Bozeman, Montana. I found that the specific landscapes where these extreme sports take place are often conceptualized by participants as more masculine spaces. Within these spaces and communities, women participants often leverage gender performances associated with masculinity to gain entry into these male-dominated communities. Performing in more masculine ways mitigates feelings of hypervisibility, while also helping to build connections to established members of the community. More than simply fitting in, women find that these gendered performances also help them to build competence in the sport. At the same time, women are transforming skateboarding, whitewater kayaking, and skiing through their participation by creating opportunities for more dynamic and fluid gender performances.


                                                                                                      Miniature of Theories of Thanks: Affect Studies, Reciprocity, and Theoretical Perspectives on Gratitude
                                                                                                      Theories of Thanks: Affect Studies, Reciprocity, and Theoretical Perspectives on Gratitude
                                                                                                      This record is embargoed.
                                                                                                        • Embargo End Date: 2027-05-19

                                                                                                        Date: 2022-01-01

                                                                                                        Creator: Clayton James Wackerman

                                                                                                        Access: Embargoed



                                                                                                          Church Space as Queer Place? LGBTQ+ Placemaking, Assimilation, and Subversion within Progressive Faith-Based Spaces in Maine

                                                                                                          Date: 2023-01-01

                                                                                                          Creator: Salina Chin

                                                                                                          Access: Open access

                                                                                                          In popular discourse, understandings of queerness and religiosity as antithetical proliferate. However, the political involvement of Portland, Maine’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement points to a more complex relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and progressive religious institutions. Through participant observation, archival research, and semi-structured interviews with nine LGBTQ+ community members and informants, I reveal the crucial role of Portland’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement from the late 1980s into the present day. On the one hand, progressive faith-based spaces across Maine provide safe spaces for queer political organizing. On the other hand, “ephemeral placemaking” in progressive faith-based spaces represents an assimilationist political strategy that stresses LGBTQ+ respectability. Thus, I argue that queer placemaking in progressive faith-based spaces reflects both subversive and assimilationist politics. LGBTQ+ activists utilize ephemeral placemaking strategies within progressive faith-based spaces to challenge political opposition from the religious Right while also reinforcing what Mikulak (2019) terms “godly homonormativity”: the normalization of LGBTQ+ identity and the upholding of heteronormativity by emphasizing respectability and monogamy. My analysis of queer political organizing within progressive faith-based spaces “queers” religion and LGBTQ+ politics, disrupting dominant narratives of religion as homophobic and LGBTQ+ politics as radical.


                                                                                                          Miniature of The Photocatalytic Degradation of 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) and Related Estrogens
                                                                                                          The Photocatalytic Degradation of 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) and Related Estrogens
                                                                                                          Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
                                                                                                          • Restriction End Date: 2028-06-01

                                                                                                            Date: 2023-01-01

                                                                                                            Creator: Kevin Jairre Fleshman

                                                                                                            Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                                                                                                              Stretch Feedback in the Lobster Heart: Experimental and Computational Analysis

                                                                                                              Date: 2016-05-01

                                                                                                              Creator: Katelyn J Suchyta

                                                                                                              Access: Open access