Sewanee: The University of the South
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Fracking and the Housing Market: A Texas Case Study
Get PDFThe Permian Basin is one of the most significant oil and natural gas production basins in the world. With a surge in production in the last decade, the economic impact of oil and gas development in the basin has prompted an examination into local economies. For the purpose of this paper, we acknowledge the broader economic impact of oil and gas development in this region, but focus on the effect on the local housing markets. This paper provides evidence of the distributional effects of hydraulic fracking, a oil and gas production method, by analyzing variables of the United States fracking revolution on the housing markets of West Texas, specifically in and near Midland and Odessa. We utilize a difference-in-difference framework to analyze the true impact of fracking on local home values, using housing data from Abilene and Amarillo as our control groups for the study. Both of these cities are similar in size and geographic location, and they do not have any significant oil production, making them ideal candidates for our model. We find that, on average, compared to prior to the fracking boom, home values in the Midland and Odessa increased by $37,423.72. Fracking has had a notable effect on the appreciation of home values in the Permian Basin, which we attribute to increases in income and housing demand brought about by the energy boom in West Texas
Institutional Injustice: An Under-explored Form of Trauma
Get PDFObjective: This study aims to explore institutional, systemic, and interpersonal injustices found in semi-structured interviews conducted in rural Appalachia.
Method: Interviews from a previous study were reviewed for institutional and interpersonal injustices in the lives of community members living in rural Appalachia. Interviewees that were 21 and older were eligible. This project included a review of 90 interviews. A grounded theory approach was used to identify themes.
Results: Reports of traumatic events were grouped broadly into interpersonal and institutional traumas. The interpersonal group consisted of incidents of abuse and family issues. Institutional injustices were grouped into 3 categories. Systemic included injustices related to a system, for example foster care or health care. Professional injustices included malfeasance of health care providers, employers, or other professionals. Corporate were related to bad behaviors of businesses.
Discussion: The qualitative data suggest that these areas of injustice are common and neglected forms of trauma. The results collected in this study would be important to consider for future research
Techniques in Vocal Pedagogy
No full textIn voice lessons, teachers often utilize different images and abstractions to help the student with any given concept. For many students, this is incredibly effective. However, there is a complex technical explanation for the success of these tools. My independent study was designed to be a comprehensive study of vocal technique.
To do so, I have employed various methods to fulfill this goal. Primarily, I have been working one on one with my own voice teacher. In these sessions, I have studied laryngeal and respiratory anatomy through a review of related voice literature. Using this, I have looked at the most effective ways to apply it to different types of students. To understand the nuances of this information, I have created sample warm-ups for students of different ages, voice parts, genders, and styles. Once these were created, I spent time at the piano learning how to accompany them.
After gaining a deep understanding of anatomy and its importance in warm-ups, I tested some of these warm-ups on my voice teacher. Playing them at the piano, I learned to tweak these warm-ups in the context of a lesson. As a type of fieldwork, I have observed numerous lessons from different students and voice teachers. Making detailed notes of student progressions/difficulties/responses, and lesson styles/structures, I was able to use this research to further my own vocal pedagogy. Drawing from new knowledge, I finished my research with a study on selecting repertoire for different voices. Through an overview of classical and musical theater repertoire, I have learned to assign appropriate pieces to any given student.
As a culmination of this research, I will be teaching a demonstration masterclass. Choosing a student ahead of time, I will assign them a piece of music to record. To ensure the findings are unbiased, I will not give any prior specific instruction. I will then analyze this video to create a lesson plan. I will give specific technical instructions to the student and explain my reasoning. I will demonstrate my instructions and give the student a guide for how to practice moving forward.Dr. Kerry Ginge
Sexual Identification and the Effects on Ally Identity
Get PDFIn this study, I have examined whether the way someone is asked about their sexual orientation affects their subsequent answers regarding feelings about people in different minority groups. In an online study administered via Qualtrics, the participants were randomly assigned to complete either the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) or a multiple choice option (heterosexual, homosexual or other). The KSOG is much more expansive and asks questions organized into 7 different categories as well as asking about past, present, and future identities in order to get a more complete understanding of the individual’s sexuality. The sexual orientation questions served as a prime, after which participants were asked to complete the Ally Identity Measure and the Symbolic Racism Scale. The participants were taken from both the Sewanee population (N=237) and from outside of Sewanee (N=57) with 187 females and 92 males in total. While overall there was no effect on the Ally Identity scores as a function of which priming question was received, when examining gender differences, it appears that there was a higher level of support for the LGBTQ+ community shown in males who had completed the Klein scale that can be explored with further research. It was also found for both men and women that if an individual supports racial equality, then they were significantly more likely to support the LGBTQ+ community and vice versa. Women were shown to support LGBTQ+ rights and racial equality more than men. Using the Klein Scale revealed variety and fluidity in the sexuality of the participants and is recommended for future research
Particulate Air Pollutants Exacerbate Polyglutamine Aggregation in C. elegans
Get PDFThe proteostasis network refers to the biochemical pathways that together regulate protein synthesis, transport, folding, and degradation. Functional decline in the proteostasis network activity results in protein misfolding, aggregation, and, often, toxicity. Diseases of protein conformation, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD), and Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) seem to have proteostasis collapse at their core. Interestingly, recent studies showed that particulate air pollution may be a significant environmental risk factor for AD. Some studies have suggested that poor air quality, specifically nanoparticulate matter (nPM), provokes the aggregation and toxicity of neurodegenerative disease-associated proteins resulting in cognitive decline in mouse models of AD. We propose that nPM may act through the proteostasis network to indirectly disrupt the folding of disease-associated proteins. We are currently testing the hypothesis that the proteostasis machinery and the folding of neurodegenerative disease-associated proteins, such as huntingtin (htt), and polyQ expansions, expressed in C. elegans can be affected by controlled extrinsic factors. To induce proteostasis disruption, we treated wild type animals with sodium azide (Na-Azide), azetidine (AZC), paraquat (PQ), and heat shock, which are all known to disturb protein folding, and determined sub-lethal concentrations for each chemical. In preliminary studies of the effect of these proteostasis-disrupting agents on htt protein folding, we exposed C. elegans that have been engineered to express a fragment of the human htt protein in body wall muscle cells. Exposure of animals expressing human htt in body wall muscle cells to 5mM AZC or 5mM Na-Azide resulted in a statistically significant increase in protein aggregation. To investigate the effect of nPM on protein aggregation in C. elegans, we exposed polyQ-expressing animals to nPM and measured aggregation. Animals exposed to nPM displayed a statistically significant increase in polyQ aggregation in comparison to unexposed animals. Overall, our study suggests that nano-sized particulate air pollution exacerbates the misfolding of neurodegenerative disease-associated proteins in C. elegans. Thus, we propose that proteostasis disruption in response to nPM may be a significant determinant in the onset of neurodegenerative disease.Appalachian College Association Faculty Fellowship to Professor Kikis
Faculty Development Grant, The University of the South, to Professor Kiki
Overqueering the Gospel: Toward a Homiletical Theology of Boundary Dissolution
No full textThis thesis examines the work of queer theologian Patrick Cheng and renowned homiletician Fred Craddock in order to establish a queer homiletic. Both Cheng and Craddock enjoin their readers to the work of boundary dissolution. Cheng interprets queer theology through the lens of God's radical love, defining it based on its boundary- dissolving characteristics, which are rooted in both queer theory and Christian theology. Likewise, Craddock's revolutionary homiletic identifies boundaries that inhibit an effective hearing of the gospel message. Considered together, these two important scholars provide a foundation for a queer homiletic based on God's radical, boundary- dissolving love. Such a homiletic is revealed to dissolve boundaries that inhibit an effective hearing of the gospel message, including boundaries between subject matter and style, listener and message, speaker and message, and an individual's distance from, and participation with, the biblical text. This homiletic is particularly applicable because it illustrates a queer premise of God, which transcends commonly accepted false dichotomies of gender and sexual identity and affirms the personhood of queer preachers.Professor David Star
Effect of neurotransmitter antagonists on the sea urchin righting response and tube foot motility
Get PDFThe purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, has been extensively studied for its developmental and reproductive characteristics, but knowledge regarding the neurobiology of the adult sea urchin is lacking. Specifically, the understanding of the different neurotransmitters involved in the systems controlling sea urchin behavior are widely under-researched. To further investigate the neurotransmitter systems and their implications in sea urchin behavior and locomotion, we have conducted behavioral and motility assays. The behavioral assay employs a righting response, in which a sea urchin is inverted and the amount of time for the urchin to right itself with the use of its spines and tube feet is recorded. Righting assays were performed following drug exposure via immersion in varying concentrations of propranolol, isoprenaline, or bicuculline. In vivo administration of propranolol, a beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist slowed the righting response of the sea urchins in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 = 39.8 μM). When the beta-adrenergic receptor agonist isoprenaline, and propranolol were administered together, isoprenaline was not able to reverse the effects of propranolol, and in fact isoprenaline actually slowed the righting response at high concentrations (IC50 = 400 μM). Bicuculline, a GABAA antagonist, had no significant effect on the righting response up to 100 μM, but did visibly increase tube feet motility. The effect of bicuculline on tube feet motility led to the development of a motility assay. The motility assay utilizes a small tank in which sea urchins are isolated following drug immersion, and Behavioral Observation Research Interactive Software (BORIS) will be used to analyze the video footage of tube feet movement. The motility assay will quantitatively measure tube feet motility in response to drug exposure.Christopher Shelle
Singing a common song: Hymnal revision in a liturgical, contemporary, and ecumenical context
No full textThis thesis addresses the topic of hymnal revision in the context of liturgical churches by proposing a methodology that takes into account both historical developments in the field of hymnology and recent concerns regarding the Liturgical Movement and theological considerations that have arisen in the last few decades. The text is structured in two parts: Part 1 summarizes some key points of the History of hymns in the Church and helps identify some patterns of Tradition and movements of reform throughout the centuries. Part 2 proposes, in practical terms, a methodology and a structure for developing and/or revising hymnals in the context of ecumenically minded, contemporary, liturgical churches.Professor Kenneth Mille
Explicit Krein Resolvent Identities for Singular Sturm-Liouville Operators with Applications to Bessel Operators
Get PDFWe derive explicit Krein resolvent identities for generally singular Sturm-Liouville operators in terms of boundary condition bases and the Lagrange bracket. As an application of the resolvent identities obtained, we compute the trace of the resolvent difference of a pair of self-adjoint realizations of the Bessel expression −d2/dx2+(ν2−(1/4))x−2 on (0,∞) for values of the parameter ν∈[0,1) and use the resulting trace formula to explicitly determine the spectral shift function for the pair.NSF Grant DMS-1852288, The University of Tennessee at Chattanoog
Computational Array of Ferromagnetic Effect “Ising Model”
Get PDFUsing Ising model to compute complex magnetic interaction