Honors Projects
Showing 401 - 450 of 662 Items
The Conspiracy of Balkis: Translating Monique Wittig's Feminist Novel "Les Guérillères" Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Alyssa Nicole Bommer
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Freezing temperatures drive functional trait clustering more than habitat structure in eelgrass communities in the Gulf of Maine This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2026-05-18
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Bridget Marjorie Patterson
Access: Embargoed
Shining a Light on ‘Like Dissolves Like’: Effects of Cocrystals and Excipients on the Dissolution Performance of Mefenamic Acid Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Runqin Chen
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Writing Into Openness: Coincidence, the Ethics of Narration, and Patience in the Work of W.G. Sebald
Date: 2025-01-01
Creator: Miles Berry
Access: Open access
Cell Adhesion in Arabidopsis thaliana Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Natasha Ann Belsky
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
“How the World Could Be in Spite of the Way That It Is”: Broadway as a Reflection of Contemporary American Sociopolitical Life
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Isabel Thomas
Access: Open access
- Drawing on the plays and musicals of the 2018-2019 Broadway season, this thesis examines how theatre responds to the sociocultural, economic, and political conditions of society. Sociologists have largely overlooked theatre’s cultural influence, but Broadway productions act as social reflection by reproducing the conversations and inequalities of their context. Access to Broadway is limited, in various manners, by socioeconomic class, race, gender, ability, and age. As conversations about equity expand and audiences increasingly demand diversified representation, Broadway begins to shed the restraints of its conventions. In many regards, the recent changes fail in meaningfully transforming the Broadway institution. Those who control the stories on Broadway stages—producers, directors, writers—are disproportionately white and men, and the stories themselves predominantly uphold white privilege and heteronormativity. Economic pressures keep Broadway producers focused on high profit and cultural capital, at the expense of artistic and political risk. Broadway has particular affective power, employing the uniquely provocative effect of live theatre for unparalleled numbers of people. This influence is accompanied by responsibility to contribute to society’s progress rather than its stagnation, a responsibility which Broadway falls behind in fulfilling.
Advanced Mammals Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Emma Bezilla
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The role of the ROG1 protein in pectin perception Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2014-05-01
Creator: Divya Hoon
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Determination of the Relationship Between Peptoid Catalyst Oligomeric Length and Catalytic Enantioselectivity of Trifluoromethylation of Aldehydes 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: Katharine Toll
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Role of SR-like RNA-binding protein 1 (Slr1) in hyphal tip localization of She3-transported mRNA in Candida albicans This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2025-05-13
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Emma Beane
Access: Embargoed
From Left to Right? White Evangelical Politicization, GOP Incorporation, and the Effect of Party Affiliation on Group Opinion Change
Date: 2013-05-01
Creator: Devon B Shapiro
Access: Open access
- While most white evangelicals in America have advocated moral, cultural, and social conservatism since the Founding, the group’s fiscal and social welfare preferences have been more volatile. Early 20th century evangelicals tended to be socially conservative, fiscally liberal, and, to the extent that they were politicized, mostly Democratic partisans. Since that time, not only have white evangelicals abandoned the Democratic Party, but also they have largely become fiscal and social welfare conservatives. I attempt to explain that transformation. I first examine the dynamics of white evangelical politicization and GOP incorporation, providing social and historical context to the political and partisan calculations of white evangelicals since the 1970s. Further, I propose a party affiliation effect that helps to explain white evangelical fiscal and social welfare conservatism. This effect asserts that partisanship penetrates individual conceptions of political issues. In the case of white evangelicals, I argue that the group affiliated with the GOP largely on the basis of socio-moral issues and concerns. Partly as a result of that affiliation, group opinion on fiscal policy began to drift to the right, toward the Republican Party status quo. Consistent with this claim, I provide longitudinal analyses of ANES and GSS data that shed light on the timing of opinion changes. As we would expect, white evangelical opinion on economic issues was closer to Democratic partisans during the 1960s and moved moved toward Republicans during the 1980s-1990s.
Systemic Risk in the Airline Industry: Investigating the Effects of Network Interconnectedness on MES Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Angela Goldshteyn
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Human Today, Posthuman Tomorrow in Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Benjamin Bousquet
Access: Open access
- Human Today, Posthuman Tomorrow explores the relationship between the human and the nonhuman in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy through the lens of posthuman theory. Atwood’s trilogy depicts a dystopian, anthropocentric world that hinges upon an apocalyptic, man-made epidemic known as the Waterless Flood. Through posthuman theory, this thesis looks at ways to reconcile the oppositional and hierarchical relationship between the human and the nonhuman. The thesis is split into three main chapters, each of which engages a different posthuman theory. The first chapter addresses the concept of hybridity as it is elaborated by Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman. Next, the thesis turns to Donna Haraway’s “The Companion Species Manifesto” to address the ways human-animal relations in the trilogy are imagined as mutual and non-hierarchical. The last chapter turns to the pigoon/human relationship through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of becoming to understand the ways in which humans and pigoons build a new, non-oppositional relationship. In all, this thesis works to understand the stakes of the trilogy through posthumanism to argue that only through a posthuman understanding of the world are we able to erode oppositional differences between humans and nonhumans and create a future inhabitable for all.
Narrative, Identity, and Holocaust Memorialization in the United States
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Alexander Noah Kogan
Access: Open access
- Narratives at Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States connect the Holocaust to present-day identities and weave the Holocaust into American history. Holocaust narratives––whether at the universal, national, or local level––draw moral lessons from the past. These narratives and their moral lessons redefine what constitutes the Holocaust and are determined by the needs and sentiments of the present. The sites of remembrance in this thesis at once show the significance of the Holocaust in American identities at both national and local levels, as well as encourage an active remembrance of the past that restructures these identities. The type of active remembrance and its purpose differs at each site, but each encourages a reconsideration of the past to find potentially applicable lessons for the present.
Governing the Internet: The Extraterritorial Effects of the General Data Protection Regulation
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Sasa Jovanovic
Access: Open access
- The advent of the commercial Internet has introduced novel challenges to global governance because of the transnational nature of shared data flows, creating interdependence that may result in inter-state cooperation or competition. Data protection laws that are designed to ensure citizens’ right to privacy are one of the primary tool used by states to extend control over data flows. The European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (2016) is widely regarded as the strongest data protection law in the world, and therefore may serve as a barrier to the openness of the Internet. The GDPR is both an instance of regulatory competition between the EU and US, but also heightens the need for cooperation to ensure the smooth functioning of online commerce. This paper shows that the EU is exporting the GDPR to jurisdictions such as the US via extraterritorial effects, even though the US has adopted an alternative legal approach to data protection. This paper seeks to explain the influence and limitations of the GDPR by considering factors such as the relative regulatory capabilities of the EU and the US as the result of their institutional and legal histories. It demonstrates that the EU has relied on complex interdependence to design a regulation like the GDPR, and it uses this regulatory competitive advantage alongside its soft power to promote its model of data protection, allowing the EU to obtain favorable outcomes in cooperation with the US.
Sex Sells: The Iconography of Sex Work in Contemporary Art Since 1973
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Mackenzie Philbrick
Access: Open access
- Sex Sells: The Iconography of Sex Work in Contemporary Art Since 1973, explores contemporary renderings of the sex worker as a response to the heavily constructed formalist ideology of the “pure gaze” which privileged the heterosexual male voyeur. The analysis covers a broad range of media, sectioned off into three chapters—painting and photography, body art, and systemic critiques—to explore the affordances of each in critiquing the position of the voyeur as well as the larger capitalistic system. The first chapter investigates the ways in which realistic pictorial renderings depicted the sex worker to impose the voyeuristic viewing position of pornography onto the art-viewer. The second focuses on the relationship between the viewer and the commodified female body, as performers replaced the art commodity with their sexualized bodies. The third chapter discusses larger institutional critiques which illuminate the processes of class structuring in capitalism by recreating the capitalist exploitation or institutional shortcomings of our current sociopolitical system. Taken together, these works respond to the modernist commodification of the art object and female sexuality, which formalist viewing dynamics both reflected and promoted. The artists emphasize the real ramifications of class construction and relational or performative identity to understand how larger social processes play out on certain marginalized bodies, thus highlighting the inherent problems embedded in these social, cultural, and economic systems.
Campaigning for the Court: The Effect of Presidential Campaign Rhetoric on the Supreme Court
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Mackey O'Keefe
Access: Open access
- This paper investigates how presidential candidates speak about the Supreme Court on the campaign trail, and how the ideological tenor of their rhetoric influences outcomes on the Court. Rhetoric is a powerful and well-researched tool of the presidency and has often been called “the power to persuade.” Much of judicial politics scholarship works to describe judicial decision making, investigating what constrains the actions and decisions of the Supreme Court. Though some scholarship has examined how presidential rhetoric affects the Supreme Court, little has been conducted in the area of presidential campaigns. This paper argues that presidential campaign rhetoric influences the Supreme Court by demonstrating that in the area of civil liberties the ideology of the winning presidential candidates' campaign rhetoric concerning the Supreme Court has a statistically significant effect on the percent of liberal rulings the Court issues one year after an election.
The United States’ and United Kingdom’s Responses to 2016 Russian Election Interference: Through the Lens of Bureaucratic Politics
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Katherine Davidson
Access: Open access
- Russia’s 2016 disinformation campaign during the U.S. elections represented the first large-scale campaign against the United States and was intended to cause American citizens to question the fundamental security and resilience of U.S. democracy. A similar campaign during the 2016 U.K. Brexit referendum supported the campaign to leave the European Union. This paper assesses the policy formation process in the United States and United Kingdom in response to 2016 Russian disinformation using a bureaucratic politics framework. Focusing on the role of sub-state organizations in policy formation, the paper identifies challenges to establishing an effective policy response to foreign disinformation, particularly in the emergence of leadership and bargaining, and the impact of centralization of power in the U.K. Discussion of the shift in foreign policy context since the end of the Cold War, which provided a greater level of foreign policy consensus, as well as specific challenges presented by the cyber deterrence context, supplements insights from bureaucratic politics. Despite different governmental structures, both countries struggled to achieve collaborative and systematic policy processes; analysis reveals the lack of leadership and coordination in the United States and both the lack of compromise and effective fulfillment of responsibilities in the United Kingdom. Particular challenges of democracies responding to exercises of sharp power by authoritarian governments point to the need for a wholistic response from public and private entities and better definition of intelligence agencies’ responsibility to election security in the U.K.
The Modulatory Role of the Hyperpolarization-Activated Inward Current and Adenosine A1 - Dopamine D1 Receptor Heteromers on Spinal Locomotor Activity Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Andrew Moore
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Ultrasonic vocalization playback as an affective assay at both neural and behavioral levels: Implications for understanding adversity-induced emotional dysfunction Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Sydney M Bonauto
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Pragmatics and Accessibility in Referential Communication This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2028-05-18
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Thomas Mazzuchi
Access: Embargoed
The Independent State Legislature Theory and Partisan Gerrymandering: How Moore v. Harper May Reshape Congressional Elections
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Luke Porter
Access: Open access
- In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering is not a justiciable question for federal courts. Four years later, the Court is reviewing a new case, Moore v. Harper. In Moore, the question presented is whether state courts can review partisan gerrymandering. The central question in Moore is the validity of the Independent State Legislature Theory. Proponents of the ISLT believe that state legislatures derive their authority to draw Congressional districts from the Federal Constitution and are therefore not subject to state-level checks and balances such as gubernatorial vetoes and state courts when redistricting. Critics argue that neither precedent nor the intent of the Framers grants state legislatures exclusive authority over redistricting. This paper analyzes the history of the Independent State Legislature Theory and outlines potential standards that the Court may adopt based off past-precedent. It then applies these standards to the redistricting process, arguing that nearly any form of the Independent State Legislature Theory would harm American democracy by making it easier for state legislatures to draw Congressional districts for partisan advantage. This paper concludes with strategies for mitigating the harm that would be caused if the Court legitimizes the Independent State Legislature Theory.
Relations between four-point amplitudes in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and N=8 supergravity at one, two, and three loops Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Theodore Wolcott Wecker
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Directed Information Flow During Episodic Memory Retrieval at Theta Frequency Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2027-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Patrick F. Bloniasz
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Characterization of Spaetzle Protein in the Mediterranean field cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus) and its role in central nervous system plasticity This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2025-05-19
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Anthea L. Bell
Access: Embargoed
Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Long-Term Memory Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: William Andrew Engel
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Regresando a Casa Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Edwin Sánchez Huizar
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
From American Dream to American Reality: The Effect of Educational Expenditures on Intergenerational Mobility and the Great Gatsby Curve
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Isabel Krogh
Access: Open access
- Income inequality and intergenerational mobility are two common measures of economic fairness in society. While they measure distinct ideas, they are significantly related in an inverse way across countries as well as across regions in the United States. This relationship is illustrated on the Great Gatsby Curve. Unequal access to education is one factor that has been found to drive the negative relationship between these two measures and therefore create the negatively sloping Great Gatsby Curve. Therefore, creating more equal access to education, such as through government spending, could lessen the connection between these two factors. The primary purpose of this research is to explore the effect of public educational expenditure on intergenerational mobility as well as on the slope of the Great Gatsby Curve. At the primary/secondary education level, this study finds that places with higher public spending on education tend to have higher levels of intergenerational mobility. However, no significant relationship is found between spending on tertiary education and intergenerational mobility. In addition, while higher primary/secondary educational spending is associated with a flatter Great Gatsby Curve at the school district level, these results were not consistent at the commuting zone level, so no strong conclusions can be made about the effect of public educational expenditures as a mediating factor of the Great Gatsby Curve.
This Is All for You: Stories Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Catherine Crouch
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Bodies, Memories, Ghosts, and Objects or Telling a Memory
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Natsumi Lynne Meyer
Access: Open access
- I think it started in December 2017, when my Mama sent me to Japan to take care of my grandparents, Baba and Jiji, alone. I had been to Japan almost every year since I was eleven years old, and several times before that too, but this was my first time without Mama. When Mama was there, Japan was filtered through her. I could poke bits of myself through her editing and approval. I could read street signs because of the way she read them, and I could understand my grandparents’ sighs from the timbre of her translation. That December, though, I had to see and hear alone. The tiny shakes in Baba’s legs and the indentation in Jiji’s forehead from when he fell down the stairs crystallized in my memory, and I had to write about it. This project includes a series of creative nonfiction and fiction pieces centered around telling my family stories. Writing from interviews, observations, and generational memories, I weave together these story fragments to discuss Asian American identity and immigration, WWII trauma, aging, and inheritance.
James Joyce’s Prose Pedagogy: Language in Freirean Dialogue
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Jack McDermott Wellschlager
Access: Open access
- My project concerns the pedagogical nature of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Across the various styles and forms of Ulysses’ chapters, or “episodes,” I theorize the pedagogy of James Joyce’s prose by tracking the ways that the text demands readers participate in a Freirean dialogue. I will also discuss how Ulysses understands language as a practice of resistance: the novel’s characters have personal linguistic practices that help them open up the worlds that occupy them. I will appreciate the control these characters take of their world as I argue, through Paulo Freire’s work, that no true change occurs without the presence of a cooperative worldbuilding effort.
Modeling and Testing Consumer Engagement in the U.S. Organic Food Market
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: John L Anderson
Access: Open access
- This study specifies the types of consumers that participate in the U.S. organic market and investigates their revealed preferences. I propose three theoretical consumer types – indifferent consumers, informed organic food lovers, and uninformed organic food lovers – and conduct cross-sectional and time-trend analyses utilizing organic fruit purchase data compiled by The Neilsen Company. The cross-sectional analysis is estimated with a two-stage Heckman selection model, while the time-trend analysis uses simple descriptive statistics and a differenced OLS regression technique. Households are most likely to participate in the organic fruit market if they have a well-educated white or Asian head, are located in a metropolitan area on the West coast, have higher income, have young children, are married, and are making decisions in the spring, summer, or fall. However, households are estimated to purchase more organic fruit, conditional on participating, if they live in a rural area in regions other than the West coast. Having a higher income, being married, having a child less than six years old, being college-educated, and living in a metropolitan area on the West coast are all associated with more dedication to the organic fruit market over time. Households who increased their organic expenditures from 2011 to 2012 likely lived in metropolitan areas on the West coast. Average per-household contribution to the nationwide increase in organic fruit expenditures from 2011 to 2012 on the extensive and intensive margins is estimated to have been about $7 and $14, respectively. I posit relationships between empirical results and the theoretical consumer types.
Working Hands and Shifting Identities among Lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine’s Waterscape Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Meghan Gonzalez
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Dietary diversity correlates with the neuromodulatory capacity of the stomatogastric nervous system in three species of majoid crabs
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Elise Martin
Access: Open access
- This project sought to answer the following question: what is the relationship between the extent of neuromodulation in a nervous system, and the behavioral demands on that system? A well-characterized CPG neuronal circuit in decapod crustaceans, the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS), was used as a model circuit to answer this question. The stomatogastric ganglion (STG) in the STNS is responsible for muscular contractions in the stomach that aid in digestion. It has been shown that the neural networks in the STG are subject to neuromodulation. One feature of neuromodulation is that it enables circuit flexibility, which confers upon a system the ability to produce variable outputs in response to specific physiological demands. It was hypothesized that opportunistic feeders require more extensively modulated digestive systems compared to exclusive feeders, because opportunistic feeders require a greater variety of digestive outputs to digest their varied diets. In this study, Chionoecetes opilio and Libinia emarginata, the opportunistic feeders, showed greater neuromodulatory capacity of the STNS than Pugettia producta, the exclusive feeder. The hypothesis that neuromodulatory capacity of the STNS correlates with dietary diversity was supported. The results detailed in this study lend credence to the idea that evolutionary basis for neuromodulatory capacity of a system is related to the behavioral demands on that system.
Effects of Picrotoxin Application on the Cardiac Ganglion of the American Lobster, Homarus americanus
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: John T Woolley
Access: Open access
- Picrotoxin (PTX) has been employed extensively as a tool within the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) for its efficacy in blocking K+ and Cl+ currents gated by both GABA and glutamate. Through blocking some currents in the STNS, PTX allows for examination of other components without their presence. However, effects of PTX are relatively unknown within the lobster’s cardiac ganglion (CG). As an incredibly small nervous system of only nine neurons, the lobster CG presents an excellent model system for studying neural circuits. Given that the chemical synapses in the CG are mediated by glutamate, the present study aimed to investigate the action of PTX in the lobster CG with the intent of better understanding its pharmacological impacts as a potential tool for studying the system. Therefore, this study aimed to establish the effects of PTX on CG responses to the application of exogenous GABA or glutamate. When data from both modulators were pooled, PTX applied at a concentration of 10-5M had significant effects on burst duration but not duty cycle or burst frequency of the CG. PTX did suppress GABA (5x10-5M) mediated inhibition of burst duration and duty cycle. PTX did not have any significant effects on burst duration, duty cycle, or frequency compared to exogenous glutamate application. These results indicate that glutamatergic inhibitory synapses are not present in the CG and PTX partially suppresses only GABAergic responses in this system.
Effects of myosuppressin, a peptide neuromodulator, on membrane currents in the crustacean cardiac ganglion
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Anthony Yanez
Access: Open access
- Central pattern generators are neural circuits that can independently produce rhythmic patterns of electrical activity without central or periphery inputs. They control rhythmic behaviors like breathing in humans and cardiac activity in crustaceans. Rhythmic behaviors must be flexible to respond appropriately to a changing environment; this flexibility is achieved through the action of neuromodulators. The cardiac ganglion of Homarus americanus, the American lobster, is a central pattern generator made up of four premotor neurons and five motor neurons. Membrane currents in each cell type, which can be targeted for modulation by various molecules, generate rhythmic bursts of action potentials. Myosuppressin, a FMRFamide-like peptide, is one such neuromodulator. The currents targeted for neuromodulation by myosuppressin are unknown. I investigated the molecular and physiological underpinnings of the modulatory effect of myosuppressin on motor neurons in the cardiac ganglion. First, using single cell RT-qPCR, I determined that across animals, motor neurons express myosuppressin receptor subtype II at equal levels relative to each other. Using sharp intracellular recordings, I showed that myosuppressin decreased burst frequency and the rate of depolarization during the inter-burst interval. I predicted that this effect resulted from the modulation of either A-type potassium current or calcium-dependent potassium current. Using two-electrode voltage clamp, I found that total outward current did not substantially change after treatment with myosuppressin. This result was surprising and provides grounds for explorations of subtle forms of neuromodulation in simple neural circuits.
Genetic Analysis of Adhesion Protein ELMO3 in Arabidopsis thaliana
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Garrison Asper
Access: Open access
- The Extracellular Matrix (ECM) between plant cells is vital for structure, development, and intercellular adhesion. A pectin rich layer in between cells, the middle lamella, is largely responsible for regulating the adhesive properties of adjacent plant cells. Homogalacturonan (HG) pectin, the most common, is synthesized in the Golgi and secreted into the ECM where it undergoes calcium crosslinking, increasing its adhesive properties. Mutations in proteins essential for HG synthesis can reveal a severe adhesion defective phenotype, where the hypocotyls of dark grown Arabidopsis exhibit cell sloughing, curling, and general disorganization. A family of five ELMO proteins are suspected to act as scaffolds for pectin biosynthesis enzymes. ELMO1 and ELMO4 mutants exhibit an adhesion deficient phenotype, and a double mutant provides evidence of redundancy in function between ELMO1 and ELMO2. ELMO1-GFP co-immunoprecipitated with enzymes required for HG synthesis indicating its role as a scaffold protein. Double mutants of the other ELMO homologues were created to determine if they exhibit functional redundancy, and ELMO1 and ELMO3 appear partially redundant. A gene deletion of ELMO3 was also created using the CRSPR/Cas9 system, resulting in two distinct elmo3 deletion alleles, which were phenotypically identical to the original elmo3-/- mutant. All adhesion defective phenotypes can be partially suppressed by altering the osmoticum and hence turgor that provides pressure on adhesive cells. Lastly, ELMO3-GFP was localized to the Golgi, the site of pectin biosynthesis, further supporting a common role of the ELMOs in pectin biosynthesis.
Reactions Responsible for Aging in Wood-Based Pyrolysis Oil: Synthesis and Characterization of a Coniferyl Alcohol Dimer
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Alejandro Garcia
Access: Open access
- The negative environmental impact and the diminishing supply of fossil fuels demand a renewable alternative. Pyrolysis oils produced from the decomposition of biomass, like wood, are a potential fuel substitute for energy production and a feedstock alternative for manufacturing value-added chemicals. The possibilities offered by pyrolysis oils are offset by oil instability. The oils contain reactive compounds, such as small aldehydes, conjugated aromatics, and acids that over time react and produce higher molecular mass products. This instability manifests as an increase in viscosity by a process referred to as aging. One chemical component, coniferyl alcohol, is proposed to react with formaldehyde under the acidic oil conditions to produce a dimer. In our lab, researchers have detected the coniferyl alcohol dimer in authentic oil samples and have simulated the reaction under conditions that removes the complexity of the pyrolysis oil matrix. This study focused on the synthesis, isolation, and characterization of the dimer structure by employing NMR analysis. GC/MS analysis of a successful synthesis of the dimer showed multiple dimers were produced, but there was one principal product. The NMR analysis of this dimer was used to elucidate the geometry, providing evidence that the product has E stereochemistry for the double bond and trans stereochemistry in the acetal ring. Confirmation of the principal structure provides support for the dimerization mechanism and will allow for future research to address instability of pyrolysis oils.
Modeling Coupled Disease-Behavior Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 Using Influence Networks
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Juliana C. Taube
Access: Open access
- SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has caused significant human morbidity and mortality since its emergence in late 2019. Not only have over three million people died, but humans have been forced to change their behavior in a variety of ways, including limiting their contacts, social distancing, and wearing masks. Early infectious disease models, like the classical SIR model by Kermack and McKendrick, do not account for differing contact structures and behavior. More recent work has demonstrated that contact structures and behavior can considerably impact disease dynamics. We construct a coupled disease-behavior dynamical model for SARS-CoV-2 by incorporating heterogeneous contact structures and decisions about masking. We use a contact network with household, work, and friend interactions to capture the variation in contact patterns. We allow decisions about masking to occur at a different time scale from disease spread which dramatically changes the masking dynamics. Drawing from the field of game theory, we construct an individual decision-making process that relies on perceived risk of infection, social influence, and individual resistance to masking. Through simulation, we find that social influence prevents masking, while perceived risk largely drives individuals to mask. Underlying contact structure also affects the number of people who mask. This model serves as a starting point for future work which could explore the relative importance of social influence and perceived risk in human decision-making.
The Congressional Database: Designing a Web Application Using an HCI Approach
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Liam R. Juskevice
Access: Open access
- The activities of the United States Senate are a topic of interest for researchers and concerned members of the public alike. Websites such as GovTrack and Congress.gov allow people to research specific bills among many other offerings. However, they have significant weaknesses regarding their ease of use and the way they organize and store data. The Congressional Database Project aims to provide an intuitive user experience navigating government data while storing the data in a consistent database. We approach this project from an HCI perspective in order to determine the best ways to improve the user experience. We have conducted a qualitative user study to test the effectiveness of our design and identify potential areas of improvement. This paper provides an in-depth overview of the design of the Congressional Database on the front end and back end. It then explains the methodology of our user study and discusses the implications of its findings.
"Italianos por todos lados (Italians Everywhere)": Italian Immigrants and Argentine Exceptionalism Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Julia Elisabeth Perillo
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The Roles of ROG1, REM1, and REM2 in a WAK Mediated Pectin Response Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Joshua A Benton
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Digital Market Concentration: An Institutional and Social Cost Analysis
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Jack Shane
Access: Open access
- In this thesis, I develop an analysis of the industry concentration seen in digital markets today. I begin with a description and argument for the use of institutional economics. This framework allows for the integration of an interdisciplinary approach to economics. My analysis details the socioeconomic and political impacts, as well as the underlying market dynamics that have pushed digital markets towards concentration. I offer novel explanations for the lack of firm behavior that should theoretically increase profit, the existence of barriers to competition, and consumer behavior that focus on the role of social institutions. I also detail many of the social costs of these concentrated markets, such as their impact on democracy, power to influence social institutions, and the impact they have on concentration in other markets. This is done to show that the fears surrounding monopolies do not end with prices. Even in digital markets, where many times prices are very low, if not zero, there are reasons that monopoly is economically inefficient and socially sub-optimal. However, due to the path-dependent nature of the extreme benefits associated with digital markets, policymakers cannot reasonably propose breaking up these companies. Instead, they must use the power of the government to counteract the conglomerations of social power seen in these private companies in search of an optimal outcome.
From “a Journey for Peace” to the “Butchers of Beijing”: How Presidents have Used Rhetoric about China to Win the Two-Level Game
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Juliet Halvorson-Taylor
Access: Open access
- This thesis is an exploration of how American presidents have used rhetoric for strategic ends in the US-China relationship. Whenever a president speaks, he is speaking to multiple audiences at the same time, yet he also must balance a number of important considerations. I used Robert Putnam’s “Two-Level Game Theory” as a framework for understanding the conditions surrounding a moment of significance in US-China relations in order to decipher a president’s rhetorical choices. The project is divided into five main parts. First, I used the UCSB American Presidency Project to identify broad trends in rhetoric towards China across presidencies. I found that every president has spoken more about China than his predecessor since the 1980s and that presidents are increasingly using negative rhetoric when talking about China. Then, I conducted three case studies, within the Putnam framework, on important points in three presidencies: Truman’s decision to withdraw aid from the KMT, Nixon’s visit to China, and Clinton’s reversal on the issue of MFN status for China. Lastly, I concluded that when “win-sets” on both sides (in these examples: on both the American and Chinese sides) are either large or small, a president should speak about China more frequently. I also looked at Trump’s presidency and the beginnings of Biden’s in order to see how these trends are playing out currently.
Maïssa Bey : comment dire le traumatisme et la violence des guerres en Algérie Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Anna Bosari
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Cultivating Community: Coastal Collaborations for Equitable Climate Survival and Adaptation in Rockland, Maine Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Lily Andra McVetty
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Hot Boy Summer? Analyzing Managerial Reactions to Season-long Fluctuating Player Performance In Major League Baseball
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: John Rodgers Hood
Access: Open access
- This paper suggests numerical weights that a Major League Baseball (MLB) manager may use when comparing player performance across multiple past performance periods to predict future performance. By the end of the MLB regular season, current season performance becomes more predictive than prior season performance for pitchers but not hitters. After estimating weights for different past time periods of performance, this paper compares the weights with how managers value performance in high-stakes situations across these same time periods. I find that MLB managers overreact to recent performance by both hitters and pitchers in postseason settings.
Enlightenment as Global History: The Reception of Confucianism in Eighteenth-Century France
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Rachel Yang
Access: Open access
- While the Enlightenment was once seen as a unique product of Western intellectual heritage, recent scholars have started to challenge this Eurocentric notion with the concept of a “global Enlightenment” by considering how it was shaped by cross-cultural encounters. To contribute to this body of scholarship, I trace the reception history of Confucianism in eighteenth-century France and examine how Chinese philosophy played a part in shaping and stimulating Enlightenment discourse. My research starts with the Jesuit missionaries who served as the intellectual intermediaries between China and Europe. Through a close reading of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, a Latin translation of Confucian classics, I demonstrate how the Jesuits produced a Christianized reading of Confucianism that they could leverage for their spiritual and political ambitions. Then, I examine how some of the most notable figures of the French Enlightenment, such as Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau appropriated Confucian ideals to criticize religious orthodoxy and debate about subjects such as universalism, religious tolerance, and civilization. While the French thinkers mostly weaponized Confucianism for their own ends, their appropriation allowed this imported philosophy to become relevant in a new context and tangibly shape Enlightenment conversations. This understanding helps us see the Enlightenment as a junction, or even product, of a cross-cultural fertilization of ideas rather than an isolated European phenomenon.
The Forest Before Us: Storying the North Maine Woods Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Lillyana Browder
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Role of Polycomb group proteins in regulation of eyes absent gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Joanne Du
Access: Embargoed