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Hair Texture and Its Influence
Get PDFOur hair texture plays an important role in our self-identity and esteem. The whiteness of beauty standards has controlled how women see their hair, whether or not it’s beautiful in its natural state. It is important to ask how hair texture influences self-identity and esteem. Answering this question, I analyze Nappily Ever After, focusing on the role that mother figures play in developing girls’ self-identity concerning their hair. I further situate this film by contextualizing it with children’s books on hair and self-esteem. Ultimately, I argue that mothers are the ones who shape their children’s relationship with their hair texture
Classifying Patient Handling Techniques to Reduce Risk of Musculoskeletal Injury in Nursing Students
Get PDFNurses suffer musculoskeletal injuries at a higher proportion than the general population due to physical strain and poor posture during patient-handling tasks; studies show that back injuries occur at a rate of 28.9 cases per 10,000 registered nurses. The purpose of this study is to apply multivariate time series classifiers (MTSCs) to classify six patient-handling tasks and the quality of subject posture (good, poor, or neutral) during these tasks. Manikins weighing 44 lbs, 66 lbs, and 110 lbs simulated patients. In this proof-of-concept study the XCM, ResNet, and MiniRocket MTSCs were trained with data collected from four non-nursing students using features from the data that were identified as most critical by the explainable classifier XCM. MiniRocket proved to be the most accurate classifier (96.2% model score). The next stage of this study will involve nursing students with varying degrees of experience in a simulated clinical environment
Variation of Lumbar Rotation During Asymmetric Patient Handling Tasks
Get PDFMusculoskeletal injury to the lower lumbar vertebrae is among high prevalence in nursing personnel. Currently, lumbar rotation during patient-handling tasks (PHT) is not widely studied. This work specifically investigated lumbar rotation in asymmetric PHT tasks—tasks where the arms or shoulders are used to reach to different parts of a patient, causing the trunk to rotate. In addition, task performance was also analyzed with respect to patient weight. A pilot study was completed with 5 able-bodied volunteers without PHT experience. Three tasks were analyzed: sliding a patient towards the head of the bed using a sling (2-slide), lifting a patient’s leg up to vertical (leg-lift), and sitting a patient up in bed (situp). For consistency within and across participants, manikins were used as patients. To analyze how lumbar rotation changes during specific PHT, each task was completed at three different table heights (knee, mid-thigh, and hip height) and with three manikin weights (44lb, 66lb, 110lb). For the 2-slide and leg-lift trials, as the table height decreased, lumbar rotation angles increased, which was expected because as the table lowers, the subject must reach further down. In these movements, no trend was detected between manikin weight and joint angles. For the situp trials, no trends were observed between joint angle and table height. When looking at the relationship between manikin weight and joint angles for the situp trials, lumbar rotation angles increased as the manikin weight increased, but this was the only trend seen between manikin weight and joint angles for this task. Although no major trends were observed in this small sample size, these results show that trunk rotation is present within asymmetrical patient handling tasks and may need to be further explored in future work
Effects of Delayed HCA Exposure on a Rat Model of Bipolar Disorder
Get PDFBipolar disorder (BD) is a neuropsychological disorder featuring cyclical periods of depressive and manic behaviors. The Chase lab aims to develop a reliable animal model for BD in order to characterize its critical neurological triggers. Previous work has shown that daily injection of rat pups from postnatal day 3 through 19 (P3-P19) with homocysteic acid (HCA) produces a mixed manic and depressive state after puberty. These behaviors can be reversed by lithium treatment and involve changes in gene expression in the prefrontal cortex that are also improperly regulated in BD. Despite this model\u27s reproducibility, we observed critical changes in the behavior of HCA-treated rats analyzed during the summer of 2021, such that animals exhibited more manic behaviors than depressive behaviors. Upon further analysis, we discovered that pups in the 2021 cohort weighed 1.3-2.0 g more than previous cohorts on the first day of injection, suggesting that the 2021 pups were about two days older than the vendor indicated. Our current study focuses on measuring behavior in rats given daily HCA injections beginning postnatal day 5, rather than postnatal day 3, in order to determine the effects of a delayed treatment period. We hypothesize that this adjusted exposure window matches that of the 2021 cohort and will thus produce similar resulting behaviors. Ultimately, this work will allow us to understand how timing of HCA exposure impacts associated behavioral changes and may provide a better understanding of behavior variations associated with bipolar disorder
Sexual Submission, Fantasy, & Docility: What if Sexual Liberation is a Patriarchal Trap?
Get PDFThe current feminist discourse surrounding female sexuality leaves a lot out of the equation. The reality is that the debate of female sexual choice often results in a dead end, and is far removed from actual women\u27s lives. Drawing on feminist theories of fantasy, submission, sexual scripts, and pornography, I explore the ways in which indulgence in submission impacts women\u27s docility in the real world. Through analysis of feminist literature, research, and various Internet forums, I identify three different theories of submission, and the plausibility of their isolation from oppressive consequences in the public sphere
Live from New York, It\u27s Sexism Female Politicians Often Face
Get PDFSaturday Night Live holds exceptional cultural significance as a media outlet. Analyzing sketches of presidential debates in 2008, 2016, and 2020, this article dives into its portrayals of female candidates, and how sexist representation of these politicians can shape voters\u27 views on these candidates. I look at the sketches featuring Kamala Harris, Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton. By highlighting the sexism within our media, we can better understand the barrier it plays for female candidates
British Colonization of New Zealand in the Nineteenth Century
Get PDFAbstract not available. On poster:
Thesis: The main goal of the British government in New Zealand was to assimilate the ingenuous Maori population through institutions such as the legal and educational systems. While the Maori by and large did adopt western clothing, housing, language, and property laws; they also retained a large amount of their culture.
Conclusions: British colonization was largely effective, but the Maori retained a large amount of their culture
β-decay Strength function of 99,100 Y
Get PDFThe rapid neutron capture process (r process) is responsible for the formation of numerous nuclei in the universe. To obtain better models for heavier nuclei that are part of the r process, the decay paths of 99,100Y were analyzed. This work was done using the Summing NaI(Tl) detector at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The Iβ(E) and the Beta Gamow-Teller function (BGT) were extracted from the measured Total Absorption Spectroscopy (TAS), Sum of Segments (SEG), and Multiplicity spectrum. The Iβ(E) and the Beta Gamow-Teller function (BGT) were extracted from the measured spectra and then compared to the Quasi Random Phase Approximation theory
Turbulence and Zonal-Flow Impact in the Madison Symmetric Torus in Quasi-Single Helicity
Get PDFReversed-Field Pinches (RFPs) operating in the Quasi-Single-Helicity (QSH) magnetic geometry exhibit significant improvements in confinement time as compared to standard discharges due to the efficient saturation of large-scale tearing modes. This modification to the magnetic geometry and profiles introduces new instabilities which drive transport. This work focuses on diagnosing the microinstabilities and microturbulence in a non-reversed Madison Symmetric Torus QSH experiment. Local gyrokinetic simulations are conducted with the GENE code to identify the dominant instabilities as ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) and density-gradient-driven trapped-electron-mode (TEM) at core and edge radial locations, respectively. It has been previously observed in the RFP (Williams PoP 2017) that residual tearing fluctuations in RFPs degrade zonal flows; the degree to which this affected turbulence and transport in that work depended on the driving instability. While initial investigations reveal strong zonal flow activity, an ad-hoc magnetic perturbation is employed to model magnetic fluctuations present in the RFP. These fluctuations degrade the zonal flow structure, resulting in a more substantial increase in electrostatic fluxes for the TEM-dominated position than for its ITG counterpart
Environment and Sexual Expression: Hormone-induced Sex Change in Sexually Plastic Trees
Get PDFIn a small number of species, plant sex expression is an environmentally determined characteristic and can change throughout the organism’s lifetime. This plastic response to environmental changes has important and intrinsically interesting ecological and evolutionary implications, but is as yet an understudied phenomenon. In particular, little is known about the proximate hormonal cues that mediate plastic sex determination. This study examines the impact of selective hormonal treatment on sex expression in a sexually plastic tree species, Acer Pensylvaticum, with the aim of further elucidating this idiosyncratic process. Live A. pensylvanicum twig samples were taken from five trees in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, and these samples were introduced to either a hormone-containing or controlled water source; changes in sex were observed through floral expression. A. pensylvanicum is of interest as it changes sex yearly based on environmental experience via unknown hormonal pathways. If branch samples are treated with growth hormone, then the sex ratio in those branches will be altered compared to the control, because that growth hormone plays a determining role in A. pensylvanicum\u27s sex expression. Among plants, hormone production and response are quite species specific. Understanding how hormones impact sex ratio in A. pensylvanicum, or any species, can provide valuable insight into the physiology and persistence of the species