Showing 241 - 250 of 583 Items
"I Remember!": Irish Postcolonial Memory in the Early Short Stories of Seán O'Faoláin
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Rebecca Norden-Bright
Access: Open access
- Seán O’Faoláin (1900-1991) was an Irish writer, cultural critic, and editor of the literary magazine The Bell. He wrote prolifically throughout the twentieth century, and while his short stories are often anthologized, much of his work is now out of print. This project will examine O’Faoláin’s first two short story collections, Midsummer Night Madness (1932) and A Purse of Coppers (1937), within the context of the post-independence period in Ireland. The 1930s is a period often glossed over in both political and literary histories of Ireland, overshadowed by the Literary Revival and primarily characterized by deepening conservatism and political strife. However, the 1930s was also an era in which essential debates about Irish identity and the future of the Irish nation played out, in public discourse and in literature. Memory, in particular, served as an important site for these debates, as the newly independent Irish nation sought to define itself in relation to its turbulent past. O’Faoláin’s stories from this period reflect post-independence disillusionment and draw a desolate picture of a nation at a crossroads. At the same time, however, the stories draw upon revolutionary memories to construct a vision of a new Ireland, one no longer shaped by the legacies of colonialism. Situating O’Faoláin’s work within the context of postcolonial theory, my project argues for the postcolonial short story’s unique ability to represent identities in transition and shape the future of the Irish nation.
Selective Procedural Content Generation Using Multi-Discriminator Generative Adversarial Networks This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2025-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Darien Gillespie
Access: Embargoed
The EOL Enhancer Activates Eya Expression to Mediate Visual System Development in Drosophila melanogaster This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Benjamin Sewell-Grossman
Access: Embargoed
Giving on the Margin: The Power of Donor Recognition
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: Jordan W Richmond
Access: Open access
- This study develops a controlled laboratory experiment to examine the effects of personal recognition on charitable giving. I find evidence that both the possibility of acquiring prestige and the desire to avoid shame motivate individuals to give in recognition situations. Furthermore, I show that the possibility of being recognized is more important than the distinguishing value of that recognition, suggesting that an offer of recognition has greater power to increase charitable contributions when a larger proportion of donors will be recognized.
Statistically Principled Deep Learning for SAR Image Segmentation
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Cassandra Goldberg
Access: Open access
- This project explores novel approaches for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image segmentation that integrate established statistical properties of SAR into deep learning models. First, Perlin Noise and Generalized Gamma distribution sampling methods were utilized to generate a synthetic dataset that effectively captures the statistical attributes of SAR data. Subsequently, deep learning segmentation architectures were developed that utilize average pooling and 1x1 convolutions to perform statistical moment computations. Finally, supervised and unsupervised disparity-based losses were incorporated into model training. The experimental outcomes yielded promising results: the synthetic dataset effectively trained deep learning models for real SAR data segmentation, the statistically-informed architectures demonstrated comparable or superior performance to benchmark models, and the unsupervised disparity-based loss facilitated the delineation of regions within the SAR data. These findings indicate that employing statistically-informed deep learning methodologies could enhance SAR image analysis, with broader implications for various remote sensing applications and the general field of computer vision. The code developed for this project can be found here: https://github.com/cgoldber/Statistically-Principled-SAR-Segmentation.git.
Investigating the Impacts of Drought on Turfgrass (Festuca arundinacea) Chlorophyll-a Fluorescence Emission
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Ayanna S Hatton
Access: Open access
- When photons from sunlight are absorbed by plants, they can take paths of photosynthesis, fluorescence, or energy dissipation. Instruments to quantify fluorescence have expanded in scale to allow measurements from satellites and flux towers using Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF). Studies have found a positive correlation between SIF and gross primary productivity (GPP; representative of photosynthesis), suggesting SIF is a proxy for GPP. This conclusion encourages the use of SIF to inform decisions about carbon budgets and responding to climate change. Studies of fluorescence on the single-leaf scale have revealed that SIF measurements do not account for all variables nor is there an understanding of the impact of environmental factors, such as drought, on these measurements. In this project, tall fescue turfgrass was placed in one of four differing drought severities for 19 days. Leaf-level measurements of photosynthesis and pulse-amplitude modulated fluorescence were made, demonstrating stomatal closure and inhibition of photosynthesis. This physiological change caused greater photon allocation to energy dissipation. Changes in greenness and the utilization of photoprotective mechanisms such as senescence and anthocyanin accumulation were observed. This study has provided an understanding of the temporal, physiological, and visible impacts of drought on turfgrass to inform interpretations of SIF in future experiments. Caution is crucial in utilizing SIF as a proxy for GPP before further research into the impact of drought on SIF is completed.
Echoing Memories and Synchronicities of an Adoptive Family: A Memoir
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Gemma Jyothika Kelton
Access: Open access
- Published narratives about adoptions have typically been told from the perspective of the adopter. In recent years, Asian American writers who are part of the transracial, transcultural, and even transcultural adoptions, have published their narratives and expanded the discourse on adoptions to include the voices of orphans and adoptees. While there are still not many published works by adoptees, more and more writers are coming forward with their own stories separate from their adoptive parents. This honors project is a memoir and a work of nonfiction that examines the author’s experiences as an adoptee from India. It explores the issues of skin color bias (or colorism) in Indian adoption, as well as Indian government policies on inter-country and in-country adoptions. This memoir also delves into the complexities of an adoptive mother-daughter relationship, particularly in the transracial context. The work of non-fiction tells the story of a single white American mother adopting a 10 year old Indian girl to the United States. Written from the adoptee’s perspective, the memoir follows the different points of transitions in both the mother’s and the daughter’s lives and the ensuing challenges, chaos, vulnerabilities, and moments of tenderness, mutual support, care, and love that blooms in their adoptive mother-daughter relationship. This work draws upon narratives of Asian American women writers including Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H-Mart, Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know, and Nishta J. Mehra’s Brown White Black to acknowledge their own voices and give credibility to the adoptee narrative.
"A Doula Can Only Do So Much": Birth Doulas and Stratification in United States Maternity Care
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Kaylee S Wolfe
Access: Open access
Stuck in Limbo: Temporary Protected Status, Climate Migrants and the Expanding Definition of Refugees in the United States
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Noelia Calcaño
Access: Open access
- There will be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050 as ecological disasters precipitate mass migrations around the world. The U.S. does not legally recognize climate migrants as refugees, instead adhering to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention that limits the definition of a refugee to individuals facing political persecution. Despite failing to expand the definition of a refugee, the U.S. has accommodated migrants displaced by natural disasters through a series of ad hoc fixes, most notably “Temporary Protected Status.” In Central American countries that were granted TPS, we encounter the paradox of the U.S. employing environmental disasters to justify continued extensions of this temporary protection, while addressing chronic conditions in the region. The central question of this thesis is, has employing the environment as a catch-all tool for Temporary Protected Status protection expanded the de facto definition of a “refugee,” for Central American migrants impacted by climate catastrophes and if so, how? Though TPS fills a gap in US law by providing de facto protections to migrants fleeing environmental disasters, the environment is being used as a catch-all tool for more systemic economic and political vulnerabilities in Central America. The environment is a catch-all tool for continued protection only insofar as it is not recognized as political, yet it is getting harder to employ the environment as an apolitical driver of migration. The precarious foundation of TPS threatens the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans that depend on this program to live and work legally in the United States.
Who We Are: Incarcerated Students and the New Prison Literature, 1995-2010
Date: 2013-05-01
Creator: Reilly Hannah N Lorastein
Access: Open access
- This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring poetry, essays, fiction, and visual art created by incarcerated students enrolled in the College Program at San Quentin State Prison. By engaging the first person perspective of the incarcerated subject, this project will reveal how incarcerated individuals describe themselves, how they maintain and create intimate relationships from behind bars, and their critiques of the criminal justice system. From these readings, the project outlines conventions of “the incarcerated experience” as a subject position, with an eye toward further research analyzing the intersection of one's “incarcerated status” with one’s race, class, gender, and sexuality.