Honors Projects
Showing 201 - 250 of 662 Items
Identity Formation in the Lebanese-American Christian Diaspora
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Matthew Cesar Audi
Access: Open access
- Since the late 1800s, people have immigrated to the United states from Lebanon and Syria, and the community’s racial and ethnic position within the United States has been contested ever since. Previous research emphasizes that while people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are legally classified as “white” on the U.S. Census. However, many people from the region do not identify as white, and they often face discrimination or threats of violence. For people of Arab and Christian backgrounds this is further complicated because they are a part of the majority through their religion, but part of a minority through their ethnic background. In addition, media depictions of MENAs tend to be homogenizing and stereotypical. This thesis attempts to fill a gap in literature on Christian Lebanese American identities by conducting ethnographic interviews with Lebanese-Americans from a variety of generations. It pulls from theories of diaspora and race, emphasizing the importance of context and migration trajectories when understanding Lebanese American identities. My findings demonstrate wide-ranging diversity in how Christian Lebanese-Americans understand and articulate identity due to three major factors: divergent migrant pathways in multiple countries, generational difference given changing racial politics in the U.S., and generational difference given the impacts of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East upon young Lebanese-Americans.
A Machine Learning Approach to Sector Based Market Efficiency
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Angus Zuklie
Access: Open access
- In economic circles, there is an idea that the increasing prevalence of algorithmic trading is improving the information efficiency of electronic stock markets. This project sought to test the above theory computationally. If an algorithm can accurately forecast near-term equity prices using historical data, there must be predictive information present in the data. Changes in the predictive accuracy of such algorithms should correlate with increasing or decreasing market efficiency. By using advanced machine learning approaches, including dense neural networks, LSTM, and CNN models, I modified intra day predictive precision to act as a proxy for market efficiency. Allowing for the basic comparisons of the weak form efficiency of four sectors over the same time period: utilities, healthcare, technology and energy. Finally, Within these sectors, I was able to detect inefficiencies in the stock market up to four years closer to modern day than previous studies.
Host and symbiont-specific patterns of gene expression in response to cold stress in the temperate coral Astrangia poculata
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Kellie Navarro
Access: Open access
- The coral Astrangia poculata inhabits hard-bottom environments from the Gulf of Mexico to Massachusetts and withstands large seasonal variation in temperature (–2 to 26 °C). This thermal range and its ability to live in a facultative symbiosis makes this species an ideal model system for investigating stress responses to ocean temperature variation. Although it has been shown that aposymbiotic A. poculata upregulates more genes in response to cold stress than heat stress, the transcriptomic response of the holobiont (coral host and symbiotic algae) to stress is unknown. In this study, we characterize changes in gene expression in both the host and symbionts under cold stress (6ºC) and ambient (12ºC) seawater temperatures. We use RNAseq to visualize how patterns of global gene expression change in response to these temperatures within the transcriptomes of replicate corals (n=10, each temperature) and their symbiont partners. By filtering the holobiont assembly for known coral host and symbiont genes, we contrasted patterns of differential expression (DE) for each partner and the functional processes for each set of DE genes. Differential gene expression analyses revealed that the cnidarian coral host responds strongly to cold stress, while algal symbionts did not have a significant stress response. In the coral host, we found up-regulation of biological processes associated with DNA repair, immunity, and maintaining cellular homeostasis as well as downregulation of mechanisms associated with DNA repair and RNA splicing, indicating inhibition of necessary cellular processes due to environmental stress.
Neurophysiological Effects of Temperature on the Mammalian Spinal Central Pattern Generator (CPG) Network for Locomotion Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2026-06-01
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Eliza M. Rhee
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The combinatorial effects of temperature and salinity on the nervous system of the American lobster, Homarus americanus
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Katrina Carrier
Access: Open access
- The ability of nervous systems to maintain function when exposed to global perturbations in temperature and salinity is a non-trivial task. The nervous system of the American lobster (H. americanus), a marine osmoconformer and poikilotherm, must be robust to these stressors, as they frequently experience fluctuations in both. I characterized the effects of temperature on the output of the pyloric circuit, a central pattern generator in the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) that controls food filtration and established the maximum temperature that neurons in this circuit can withstand without “crashing” (ceasing to function but recovering when returned to normal conditions). I established a range of saline concentrations that did not cause the system to crash, and then determined whether combinatorial changes in temperature and salinity concentrations alter the maximum temperature the system tolerated. Even as burst frequency increased as temperature increased, phase constancy was observed. Interestingly, the system crashed at higher temperatures upon exposure to lower saline concentrations and lower temperatures in higher saline concentrations. I also established the range of saline concentrations that the lobster’s whole heart and cardiac ganglion (CG), the nervous system that controls the lobster’s heartbeat, can withstand. Then, I examined whether exposure to altered salinity and elevated temperature alters the crash temperature of the whole heart and CG. The CG crashed at higher temperatures than the whole heart in each saline concentration. Like the STNS, the whole heart and CG both crashed at higher temperatures in lower saline concentrations and higher temperatures in lower saline concentrations.
The Body Negotiating Unprecedented Movement
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Mei Bock
Access: Open access
- A collection of poems exploring threads including the Lower East Side, immigration, stray animals, art, and Chinese-American identity.
ELMO, A Possible Pectin Biosynthesis Scaffold Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Nuoya (Laura) Yang
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
An Analysis of Tidal Mixing Front Dynamics and Frontal Biophysical Interaction in the Harpswell Sound Shelf Sea
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lemona Yingzhuo Niu
Access: Open access
- Tidal Mixing Fronts (TMFs) are prominent hydrographic features of tidally energetic shallow shelf seas, representing the transition from mixed to stratified waters. These frontal boundaries often host enhanced phytoplankton primary productivity, as complete vertical mixing exhumes nutrients from depth to the light-lit surface. Existing observational programs for locating TMFs include infra-red satellite imagery of sea surface temperature (SST) and vertical profiling of temperature and density. However, challenges in observationally distinguishing mixed from mixing using only conservatively mixed hydrographic properties persist. A novel approach based on phytoplankton in-situ oxygen production response to light is proposed in this paper to distinguish stable mixed from actively mixing regimes, and thus to identify remnant versus active TMFs. This project focuses on Harpswell Sound, a shallow (< 40m) coastal reverse estuary, as a case study of TMF dynamics. Our data unambiguously reveal the cross-shelf structure of active, mixed, and stratified regimes. Competition between wind mixing and buoyancy due to solar heating and river plumes were found to be the primary drivers of the active and remnant front locations, while tidal currents were a secondary driver. Such dynamism explains both the temporally variable and spatially patchy phytoplankton blooms observed in the shallow shelf sea environment of Harpswell Sound.
Peripheral modulation of cardiac contractions in the American lobster, Homarus americanus, by the peptide myosuppressin is mediated by effects on the cardiac muscle itself
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Isabel Stella Petropoulos
Access: Open access
- A substantial factor for behavioral flexibility is modulation — largely via neuropeptides — which occurs at multiple sites including neurons, muscles, and the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Complex modulation distributed across multiple sites provides an interesting question: does modulation at multiple locations lead to greater dynamics than one receptor site alone? The cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster (Homarus americanus), driven by a central pattern generator called the cardiac ganglion (CG), is a model system for peptide modulation. The peptide myosuppressin (pQDLDHVFLRFamide) has been shown in the whole heart to decrease contraction frequency, largely due to its effects on the CG, as well as increase contraction amplitude by acting on periphery of the neuromuscular system, either at the cardiac muscle, the NMJ, or both. This set of experiments addresses the location(s) at which myosuppressin exerts its effects at the periphery. To elucidate myosuppressin’s effects on the cardiac muscle, the CG was removed, and muscle contractions were stimulated with L-glutamate while superfusing myosuppressin. Myosuppressin increased glutamate-evoked contraction amplitude in the isolated muscle, suggesting that myosuppressin exerts its peripheral effects directly on the cardiac muscle. To examine effects on the NMJ, excitatory junction potentials were evoked by stimulating of the motor nerve and intracellularly recording a single muscle fiber both in control saline and in the presence of myosuppressin. Myosuppressin did not modulate the amplitude of EJPs suggesting myosuppressin acts at the muscle and not at the NMJ, to cause an increase in contraction amplitude.
Beyond Religion: Reframing Liberal Democracy’s Treatment of Exemptions Within the Public-Private Separation This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Julianna Brown
Access: Embargoed
Modeling UV Light Through N95 Filters
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lorenzo Hess
Access: Open access
- Reuse of N95 FFRs helps mitigate the effects of shortages. UV-C exposure is an ideal method for the decontamination necessary for FFR reuse. Recent research quantifies the transmittance of UV-C through the 3M1870+ and 3M9210+ FFRs [1]. Other research measures the reduction in viral load in relation to UV-C exposure time [11]. We design and program a ray tracing simulator in MATLAB to characterize the distribution of scattered photons in N95 FFRs. We implement an object-oriented FFR with configurable physical characteristics. We use the simulator to record the number of photons available for decontamination in each sub-layer of the filtering layers of the 3M1870+ and 3M9210+ for a given number of photons incident to the layers. We make assumptions about the photon absorption and viral deactivation in each sub-layer to derive a relation between the number of incident photons and the number of viruses remaining. The transmittance computed by our simulator matches the experimentally measured transmittance. The diameter of the simulated scattered beam also matches the experimentally measured scattered beam diameters. Our data, combined with our assumptions about absorption and deactivation, however, fail to account for the dropoff in viral load observed at about 25 seconds of exposure time in the 3M1870+.
Exploring sex-specific and developmental outcomes of early life adversity on DNA methylation in parvalbumin-containing interneurons Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Emma Straw Noel
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Power Play: The President's Role in Shaping Renewable Energy Regulation and Policy
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Luke Bartol
Access: Open access
- With the impacts of climate change becoming more and more apparent every day, finding means of effective action to mitigate its effects become increasingly critical. While localized work can play an important role, federal action is necessary to have the most widespread and effective impact, especially on interconnected issues such as clean energy. Congressional action is the avenue of change at this level, however in an increasingly partisan and divided environment, progress on this front is far short of what is needed. Looking to the president is logical here, both as a single actor more insulated from partisan fights, but also as head of the branch in charge of implementing the nation’s laws. This paper looks to explore what means of influence the president has on the action taken by federal agencies and how such methods can be made more effective. Through a principal-agent framework, the role of regulatory and appointment powers are examined with a variety of historical and contemporary case studies. While only a subset of the powers afforded to a president, the areas explored offer wide latitude for action, in areas that are particularly important for energy development. The paper concludes with some reflections for the future, suggesting how these considerations can be practically applied.
"You get a lot besides just affordable housing; you get a support network”: Community Engagement in Sustainable Affordable Housing Development This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2029-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Katie Draeger
Access: Embargoed
Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) in the Lobster, Homarus Americanus: Isolation and Activity
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Ruby Chimereucheya Ahaiwe
Access: Open access
- The American lobster Homarus americanus uses its innate immune system for protection against foreign bodies and diseases. Hemocytes in the innate immune system are responsible for the rapid and effective cellular response against pathogens and infections observed in lobsters. These hemocytes, particularly semi-granulocytes and granulocytes, store antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which specifically target and destroy microbes. Hemocyte samples from the American lobster Homarus americanus hemolymph or circulatory fluid, mixed and fractionated into separated semi-granular and granular cell samples, were analyzed for possible AMP presence. A defensin AMP, Hoa-D1, (SYVRSCSSNGGDCVYRCYGNIINGACSGSRVCCRSGGGYamide; with C representing a cysteine participating in a disulfide bond) was successfully isolated and identified by mass using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Preliminary results also show the defensin AMP to be concentrated in the semi-granulocytes and granulocytes.Hoa-D1 was isolated via HPLC fractionation. Isolated Hoa-D1 and semi-granular and granular hemocyte extracts were tested for bioactivity against the gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli, using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion assay. The assay did not show any activity, an outcome attributed to concentrations of the AMP that were too low to have any antimicrobial effect on E. coli. Subsequent work on this study should involve increasing the concentration of Hoa-D1 in test samples. Studying function of AMPs in the American lobster can provide more information on the depth of their cellular immune responses in other crustaceans, and possibly contribute to the development of novel antibiotics for treating diseases in humans.
Assigning Legal Punishment: Individual Differences in Justice Sensitivity and Selective Attention
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Emily C. Weinberger
Access: Open access
- Selective attention and justice sensitivity (JS), a personality trait reflecting individual differences in perceptions of injustice, have been shown to affect how people assign punishments. In the present study peoples’ decision-making processes were investigated to better understand the inconsistencies in legal punishment decisions, particularly when using retributive versus restorative justice. Subjects participated in three phases of the experiment. First, subjects completed a justice sensitivity scale and then rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a criminal scenario. Second, participants’ selective attention was indicated by their recall of pertinent features from three ambiguous criminal scenarios. Finally, participants were primed with either restorative justice or neutral control words, and rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a new criminal scenario. Results revealed no significant associations between JS and ratings of punishment options, although patterns suggested negative relationships between observer JS and retributive justice ratings, and victim JS and restorative justice ratings. Results did show a significant effect of JS in predicting the facts remembered, such that as observer JS increased, more restorative justice facts were recalled, and as victim JS increased, fewer restorative justice facts were recalled. No significant effect of the restorative justice prime was observed. These results may contribute to better understanding of criminal justice policy in the United States.
Site, Power, and Experience: Three Contemporary Installation Works on Global Mobility
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Xiyin Sabrina Lin
Access: Open access
- This Honors Project investigates the themes of immigration, space, and mobility through the lens of contemporary installation art. It addresses a brief history of global contemporary art, arguing that art of the past two decades has been shaped by preoccupations with and tensions surrounding space. Using the works of Yanagi Yukinori, Alfredo Jaar, and Doris Salcedo as case studies, the essay analyzes how artists use the medium of installation to address institutional history, contemporary geopolitics, as well as individual and collective experience. It interrogates the different aspects of installation art, including temporality, site-specificity, and the use of language, to demonstrate how the medium allows artists to use their own position in the system to critique its inherent limitations.
Sensitivity Analysis of Basins of Attraction for Gradient-Based Optimization Methods
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Gillian King
Access: Open access
- This project is an analysis of the effectiveness of five distinct optimization methods in their ability in producing clear images of the basins of attraction, which is the set of initial points that approach the same minimum for a given function. Basin images are similar to contour plots, except that they depict the distinct regions of points--in unique colors--that approach the same minimum. Though distinct in goal, contour plots are useful to basin research in that idealized basin images can be inferred from the steepness levels and location of extrema they depict. Effectiveness of the method changes slightly depending on the function, but is generally defined as how closely the basin image models contour information on where the true minima are located, and by the clarity of the resulting image in depicting well-defined regions. The methods are tested on four distinct functions which were chosen to assess how each method performs in the presence of various challenges. This project ranks the five methods for their overall effectiveness and consistency across the four functions, and also analyzes the sensitivity of the methods when small changes are made to the function. In general, less sensitive and consistently effective methods are more applicable and reliable in applied optimization research.
The Best and the Brightest?: Race, Class, and Merit in America's Elite Colleges
Date: 2017-05-01
Creator: Walter Chacon
Access: Open access
Fluorescent Sugar Analogs as Probes for Bacterial Monosaccharide Uptake Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Foje-Geh Robert Tendoh
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Seize the Memes: Community, Personal Expression, and Everyday Feminist Politics Through Instagram Memes
Date: 2018-01-01
Creator: Tessa Westfall
Access: Open access
Clam shells and sea temperature: Evaluation of the oxygen isotopic climate proxy in Arctica islandica and development of a shell-derived sea temperature reconstruction from Isle au Haut, Maine Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Brielle Martin
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Africa and the International Criminal Court: Behind the Backlash and Toward Future Solutions
Date: 2017-05-01
Creator: Marisa O'Toole
Access: Open access
- Fifteen years into its operation as the preeminent international institution charged with the prosecution of the most serious international crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has faced and continues to face intense backlash from the African continent. Once the Court’s most fervent advocates, many African leaders now lambast the ICC. In recent months, three African countries and the African Union en masse have attempted withdrawal from the Court, thus pushing the ICC-Africa relationship into the international spotlight as a topic of acute global interest. This paper seeks to explore the critiques behind this backlash through both a historical and present-day lens, as well as from the perspectives of African leaders, victims-locals, and civil society actors. In doing so, it investigates historical critiques of the ICTY and ICTR, concerns raised during the Rome Statute negotiations, current African leader perspectives as viewed through the case studies of Darfur, Kenya, Uganda, and the AU-ICC relationship, and present African victim-local and civil society opinions of the Court. By understanding the current and multi-faceted African opposition to the ICC and such criticisms’ historical roots, as well as the pockets of hope for the Court within Africa, this analysis reveals the ICC’s main challenges in its relationship with the African continent. With such hurdles unveiled, the ICC can pursue several strategies, located primarily on the state and individual levels, in its endeavor to address these important critiques and regain African support.
Using atmospheric O2 and CO2 measurements to determine the stoichiometry of photosynthesis and respiration in a temperate forest
Date: 2018-01-01
Creator: Margaret Marie Conley
Access: Open access
- The O2:CO2 exchange ratio of the terrestrial biosphere (αb) is an important parameter in carbon sink calculations, but its value is not well constrained. We investigate the stoichiometry of O2 and CO2 at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts over a span of six years, considering the covariation of O2 and CO2 in forest air during 6-hour periods to determine an average value for the O2:CO2 exchange ratio. This approach provides a way to determine the value of αb averaged across seasonal cycles and species assemblages. Our analysis produces an overall average exchange ratio of -1.06 ± 0.01. Comparing measurements within and above the canopy and during nighttime and daytime periods, we observe that atmospheric dynamics and canopy effects produce lower exchange ratios indicative of an enhanced forest signal at the low intake and for daytime periods. We also see an increase in the exchange ratio in the winter compared to the summer that may reflect changes in plant physiological processes or contamination by a fossil fuel signal. To determine whether our observed ratio is truly representative of αb, we use a simple model to estimate the range of variability in CO2 and O2 mixing ratios expected from local influence alone and use this as a criterion to isolate periods dominated by local exchange, yielding an average summer forest exchange ratio of -1.00 ± 0.02. Our analysis provides insight into the average value and variability of αb for temperate forests for use in calculation of the land carbon sink.
The Epistemology of Observation: Performance, Power, and The Regulation of Female Sexuality in The Duchess of Malfi and The Changeling
Date: 2018-05-01
Creator: Sarah Claudia Bonanno
Access: Open access
Modulation of the crustacean cardiac neuromuscular system by the SLY neuropeptide family
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Grant Griesman
Access: Open access
- Central pattern generators (CPGs) are neuronal networks that produce rhythmic motor output in the absence of sensory stimuli. Invertebrate CPGs are valuable models of neural circuit dynamics and neuromodulation because they continue to generate fictive activity in vitro. For example, the cardiac ganglion (CG) of the Jonah crab (Cancer borealis) and American lobster (Homarus americanus) contains nine electrochemically coupled neurons that fire bursts of action potentials to trigger a heartbeat. The CG is modulated by neuropeptides, amines, small molecule transmitters, gases, and mechanosensory feedback pathways that enable flexibility and constrain output. One such modulator, the SLY neuropeptide family, was previously shown to be expressed in hormonal release sites and within the CG itself and has unusual processing features. However, its physiological effect was unknown. Here, I performed dose-response experiments in the crab and lobster whole heart and isolated CG to determine the threshold concentration of SLY neuropeptides to which these systems respond. The crab isoform had strong, excitatory effects in the crab whole heart and weakly modulated the crab CG. The lobster isoform weakly modulated the lobster whole heart and CG. Surprisingly, the crab isoform exerted large, variable effects on the lobster system, which suggests that SLY neuropeptides, their receptors, and their signaling pathways may be evolutionarily conserved across these two species. This research contributes to our understanding of how neural circuits can generate flexible output in response to modulation. It may also offer insight into processes influenced by peptidergic neurotransmission in the nervous systems of other animals, including mammals.
Group-theory constraints on color-ordered four-point amplitudes in SO(N) gauge-theories Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Athis Osathapan
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Mathematical Notions of Resilience: The Effects of DisturbanceI in One-Dimensional Nonlinear Systems
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Stephen Ligtenberg
Access: Open access
Basins of Attraction and Metaoptimization for Particle Swarm Optimization Methods
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: David Ma
Access: Open access
- Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic optimization method that finds near- optima by spawning particles which explore within a given search space while exploiting the best candidate solutions of the swarm. PSO algorithms emulate the behavior of, say, a flock of birds or a school of fish, and encapsulate the randomness that is present in natural processes. In this paper, we discuss different initialization schemes and meta-optimizations for PSO, its performances on various multi-minima functions, and the unique intricacies and obstacles that the method faces when attempting to produce images for basins of attraction, which are the sets of initial points that are mapped to the same minima by the method. This project compares the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Particle Swarm with other optimization methods, namely gradient-descent, in the context of basin mapping and other metrics. It was found that with proper parameterization, PSO can amply explore the search space regardless of initialization. For all functions, the swarm was capable of finding, within some tolerance, the global minimum or minima in fewer than 60 iterations by having sufficiently well chosen parameters and parameterization schemes. The shortcomings of the Particle Swarm method, however, are that its parameters often require fine-tuning for different search spaces to most efficiently optimize and that the swarm cannot produce the analytical minimum. Overall, the PSO is a highly adaptive and computationally efficient method with few initial restraints that can be readily used as the first step of any optimization task.
Exploring Random Walks on Graphs for Protein Function Prediction
Date: 2018-05-01
Creator: Angela M Dahl
Access: Open access
Real-Time Object Recognition using a Multi-Framed Temporal Approach
Date: 2018-05-01
Creator: Corinne Alini
Access: Open access
- Computer Vision involves the extraction of data from images that are analyzed in order to provide information crucial to many modern technologies. Object recognition has proven to be a difficult task and programming reliable object recognition remains elusive. Image processing is computationally intensive and this issue is amplified on mobile platforms with processor restrictions. The real-time constraints demanded by robotic soccer in RoboCup competition serve as an ideal format to test programming that seeks to overcome these challenges. This paper presents a method for ball recognition by analyzing the movement of the ball. Major findings include enhanced ball discrimination by replacing the analysis of static images with absolute change in brightness in conjunction with the classification of apparent motion change.
Have No Fear: Stories Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Jiahn Son
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Between Orientalism, Tradition, and Nationalism:
Building Jewish Identity in Twentieth-century Libya
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Jonathan Gordon Lerdau
Access: Open access
- Libyan Jewry and Jews of the Italian peninsula have engaged in near-constant interaction at least as far back as the time of the Roman empire. This project seeks to add to the history of those interactions by discussing Italian Jewish colonial impacts on the Libyan Jewish population. Using ideas of Orientalism and the imagined nation, this project demonstrates how Libyan Jewish identity was shaped by interaction with Italy and how Italian Jews worked colonially to subjugate, define, and change Libyan Jewry. Through analyzing–among other things–newspapers, scholarship, and general Italian Jewish discussion of and interaction with Libyan Jews, I show how Italian Jews (and elite Libyan Jews) worked to Italianize and later ‘Hebraicize’ the Libyan Jewish community..
Modern Kernel Methods
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Alexander Richardson
Access: Open access
- The primary goal of this thesis is to bridge two powerful learning paradigms—kernel methods and deep learning—to design novel neural architectures. Kernel methods offer a strong theoretical foundation, in contrast to deep learning, which often operates as a black-box despite its widespread success in real-world applications. In an era where such opaque models increasingly shape the economy and daily life, it is crucial to develop architectures that combine the theoretical clarity of kernel methods with the empirical effectiveness of deep learning. At present, computer scientists largely lead the charge in advancing state-of-the-art models, while many mathematicians work retrospectively to understand why these methods are so successful. A key motivation for this thesis—admittedly a personal one—is the hope that mathematical theory can not only explain existing architectures, but also inspire the development of better ones from the outset.
Investigating Candida albicans sensitivity to environmental stress in SR-like RNA binding
protein 1 C-terminal mutants lacking expression of Pin3 protein. Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Matthew Joseph Morales
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Early life adversity-induced affective dysfunction and ketamine treatment: Exploring the role of parvalbumin and DNA methylation Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Yanevith A. Peña
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The Temperature Dependency of Myosuppressin’s Modulatory Activity on the Homarus Americanus Cardiac Neuromuscular system
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Yasemin Altug
Access: Open access
- In order to maintain circuit stability through environmental perturbations, such as increases in temperature, neural circuits are able to adjust their output via modulatory and ion channel regulation. For instance, peptide modulators enable the lobster cardiac neuromuscular system to sustain physiological function at temperatures that surpass the crash temperature of the organ in the absence of modulation. Crash temperature is defined as the temperature at which neural activity ceases. For a crash, this temperature induced loss of activity is recovered when temperature is returned within the permissible range. Thus, it is hypothesized that there are underlying physiological mechanisms employed by the nervous system that compensates for changes in temperature and provides stability within acute temperature fluctuations. Neuromodulatory mechanisms have been proposed as one hypothesis that provide this temperature compensation. In accordance with previously collected data (Lemus 2022), I hypothesized that myosuppressin, a crustacean neuropeptide, provides stability during acute temperature variations. Because myosuppressin acts on the cardiac neurons and muscles separately, we hypothesized that the myosuppressin-induced increase in heart contraction amplitude, and decrease in contraction period can offset each other to provide system stability as temperature is increased. To test whether or not myosuppressin stabilizes circuit output as temperature is increased, myosuppressin was applied to the lobster whole heart at 7ºC, 10ºC, 13ºC and 16ºC, for 20 minutes. Changes in cardiac output in response to temperature and modulation were assessed by measuring the contraction force, heart beat frequency, and minimum contraction force. Interestingly, and contrary to previous results, in this data set, the cardiac neuromuscular system was temperature compensated in saline alone (control), and was not temperature compensated when perfused with myosuppressin (10-6 M). These findings seemed to differ from Lemus’ data (2023), where the cardiac neuromuscular system was not temperature compensated in control conditions and became temperature compensated when perfused with myosuppressin. The seasons at which each data set was collected (June-August vs November-March) could underlie these observed discrepancies.
Age-dependent effects of capsaicin on the mammalian spinal CPG locomotor network Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Jasmine Jia
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Exogenous application of melatonin in drought-stressed tall fescue has no significant impact on photosynthetic capacity Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Elisabeth C. Chan
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Transcending the Clinical: Empathic Care Work, Moral Injury, and the Community Health Worker in Rural Maine
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Anneke Halliday
Access: Open access
- The Maine Mobile Health Program is a federally qualified health center and community health organization that provides healthcare to migrant and seasonal farmworkers in rural Maine. The MMHP employs community health workers to act as negotiators between unjust systems, physicians, and patients. This thesis investigates the ways in which community health workers provide patients with “empathic care” and details how this happens in practice based on field observations and interviews. It also addresses how empathic care benefits patients by creating empowerment, building trust, and giving patients agency in their healthcare decision making. Furthermore, this thesis discusses the cost of providing empathic care as “moral injury” and considers how community health workers are emotionally and psychologically impacted by the work that they do. Ultimately, this thesis illuminates the transformative capacity of empathic care and the burden it imposes on community health workers operating within inequitable systems.
Where the Dead Leave No Trace: The Darién Gap, Bare Life, and the Afterlives of Prevention Through Deterrence This record is embargoed.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Mariana Silvano Blay
Access: Permanent restriction
Crystal Engineering Pharmaceuticals: Combining Cocrystals and Additives to Tune Morphology Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Brendan J. Hill
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The Scientists of The Dawnland: Reframing the Boundaries of Knowledge Through Wabanaki Epistemologies
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Jonah Bussgang
Access: Open access
- This honors project explores how Wabanaki scientists navigate and reshape dominant paradigms of science, land use, and education by strategically integrating Western science with Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Through theoretical and historical analysis alongside three ethnographic interviews, I show how Indigenous knowledge is not simply surviving within colonial systems but actively transforming them from within. Framing the work through the concept of etuaptmumk (two-eyed seeing), I examine how my interviewees—Dr. Suzanne Greenlaw, Sam St. John, and Tyler Everett—use science as a relational, spiritual, and community-based practice to support cultural continuity and natural resource protection. Their work challenges the dominant binaries between science and religion, objectivity and identity, and knowledge and responsibility. They engage with Western institutions on their own terms to support their communities and uphold Wabanaki sovereignty. While the work of Indigenous scientists is increasingly studied across the U.S. and globally, Wabanaki communities remain underrepresented in this discourse. This project helps fill that gap and calls on Bowdoin College to invest more seriously in reciprocal relationships with Wabanaki communities, including institutional collaboration and the hiring of Indigenous faculty.
The Revolutionary Body & the Marxist Feminism of Wages for Housework, WITCH, and the Third World Women’s Alliance
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Talia Traskos-Hart
Access: Open access
- The Revolutionary Body traces three Marxist feminist groups which emerged in the late 1960s and organized through the 1970s: Wages for Housework, the Third World Women’s Alliance, and WITCH. These three groups have yet to be combined in secondary historical scholarship, and their grouping here evidences similarities in anti-capitalist organizing across demographic differences. This project delves into the groups’ conceptions of the home and the body as dual sites of oppression and sources of liberation. Through studying such issues as imprisonment, housework, and forced sterilization, this project uncovers the intensity of capitalist violence unto the body and the ensuing mysticism revolutionary women’s bodies were seen to hold.
Migrants at Risk:
How European Union Externalization Policies Challenge Accountability of Human Rights Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Clara Tunny
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Optimizing the Synthesis of 8-Quinolyl-Tetramethylcyclopentadiene for the Selective Dimerization of Linear Alpha Olefins Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Katie Lynn Rea
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Geochemical and Stratigraphic Analysis of the Linnévatnet Sediment Record: A Study of Late Holocene Cirque Glacier Activity in Spitsbergen, Svalbard
Date: 2014-05-01
Creator: Graham Harper Edwards
Access: Open access
- Morainal and lacustrine sediments in Linnédalen, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, record the fluctuations of a glacier in a currently unglaciated mountain cirque during the Little Ice Age (LIA). This study attempts to reconstruct Late Holocene glacial activity within this cirque from geochemical, physical, and visual stratigraphic variation of the Linnévatnet lacustrine sediment record. A 57 cm lacustrine sediment core (D10.5) from Linnévatnet was analyzed at a high-resolution for variations in X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF)-measured elemental composition, spectral reflectance, and magnetic susceptibility. The visual stratigraphy was observed at a microscopic scale. An age-depth model for D10.5 is developed by extrapolating sedimentation rates from dated horizons, measured by 239+240Pu radionuclide fallout dating and chemostratigraphic enrichment of atmospheric anthropogenic pollutants. Visual stratigraphy of the sediment record indicates two periods of cirque glacier sediment delivery to Linnévatnet during the LIA (1329-1363 CE, 1816 CE-Present) and a third period of sediment delivery during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; 984-1082 CE). During non-glacial periods, stratigraphic variation in XRF-measured Ti and K appear to be associated with fluctuations in North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)-regulated precipitation. Within the LIA glacial intervals, decadal-scale variations in sediment Ti and K geochemistry may result from advance and retreat of the cirque glacier ice-margin or fluctuations in precipitation. Stratigraphic variation in Fe content indicates complex erosional and hydrological processes associated with MCA precipitation and glacial meltwater. Stratigraphic and geochemical variations in the lacustrine record of Linnévatnet indicate that both cirque glacier activity and sediment transport in Linnédalen are more sensitive to climatological change than previously thought.
Teaching Computers to Teach Themselves: Synthesizing Training Data based on Human-Perceived Elements
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: James Little
Access: Open access
- Isolation-Based Scene Generation (IBSG) is a process for creating synthetic datasets made to train machine learning detectors and classifiers. In this project, we formalize the IBSG process and describe the scenarios—object detection and object classification given audio or image input—in which it can be useful. We then look at the Stanford Street View House Number (SVHN) dataset and build several different IBSG training datasets based on existing SVHN data. We try to improve the compositing algorithm used to build the IBSG dataset so that models trained with synthetic data perform as well as models trained with the original SVHN training dataset. We find that the SVHN datasets that perform best are composited from isolations extracted from existing training data, leading us to suggest that IBSG be used in situations where a researcher wants to train a model with only a small amount of real, unlabeled training data.
Economic Analysis of the Critical Habitat Designation Process for Endangered and Threatened Species Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Katherine Fosburgh
Access: Open access
- Habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss in the US. Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), habitat deemed essential to endangered and threatened species recovery is proposed as critical habitat (CH). CH areas are subject to regulations that could alter land development plans or increase costs. The potential economic opportunity cost created by CH regulations may lead to the exclusion of land proposed for CH designation, thereby reducing the conservation benefits of the CH rule. In this paper, I use a unique dataset collected from Federal Register (FR) documents to estimate the reduction in CH acreage from proposed to final ruling, both on the extensive and intensive margin. I find a negative relationship between the level of household income in an area proposed for CH and the probability that a CH gains acreage or maintains acreage during the establishment process. I also find some evidence that higher household income in a CH area is associated with a greater relative loss in acreage between proposal and finalization. I also find that private land proposed for CH designation is less likely to be in the final designation than federal land. Overall, my results suggest that economic considerations influence CH allocation decisions. Whether reducing the amount of private land subject to CH designations is socially efficient depends on the unknown economic benefit of private land exclusions versus the cost of biodiversity and ecosystem service loss that may result from not protecting all land deemed vital to species recovery.
ALGOrhythms: Leveraging Markov Chain-Based Generation of Functional Harmonies with User-Defined Musical Corpus as a Compositional Tool
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Coleman Brockmeier
Access: Open access
- Music forms the soundtrack to daily life and serves as an important cultural marker for people around the world. As the world becomes digitized and connected via the internet, the opportunity is increasingly accessible for anyone to share music with the world and to create chart-topping music that defines the cultural vernacular. Many prominent producers have little to no formal musical training, especially in Western music theory. As a result, loop-based music dominates the lists of most-played music on the radio and streaming services, often not deviating from basic functional harmony. With this project, I have created a compositional tool in the form of an iOS app which identifies the harmonic “fingerprint” behind a given set of songs. The app then leverages this understanding to create sequences of chords in the style of that fingerprint. To accomplish this, the app employs web scraping to create a corpus of musical information in the form of Markov chains — a transition table which underlies the data set. I introduce the idea of musical “chunks” defining a harmonic “fingerprint” and various methods of traversing the transition table to create chord progressions employing the fingerprint as a guide. The tool allows for specification of corpus, chunk size, traversal method, and the ability to listen to, share, and save generated results. The resulting app is a tool that allows the user to answer the question: “What would happen if Stevie Wonder and Billie Eilish wrote a song together?”