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From West to East: Investigating Ethiopia’s Strategic Alignment Shift from the United States to China and Its Broader Implications in Regional and Global Power Dynamics
No full textThis paper will investigate Ethiopia\u27s strategic geopolitical realignment from the United States toward a closer partnership with China and the BRICS bloc by examining the underlying causes and discussing broader regional and global implications. Though Ethiopia has historically been an anchor for the U.S. in the Horn of Africa, its recent shift away from Western institutions and norms results from economic pragmatism, domestic governance priorities, and shifting regional and international power dynamics with the emergence of the BRICS bloc. Western financial aid and political engagement after the fall of the Derg regime in 1991 can be described as conditional and bureaucratically complex, frustrating Ethiopian policymakers and the EPRDF. Conversely, China offered unconditional financial support and significant industrial infrastructure investment and maintained a non-interference policy in Ethiopian domestic affairs that was extremely attractive to EPRDF leaders. This enhanced domestic stability and offered a viable alternative to Western funding that allowed for rapid, state-led economic development. The analysis integrates the U.S. and China\u27s economic, political, and foreign policy perspectives by utilizing official government data, peer-reviewed academic literature, reputable news sources, and case studies of American and Chinese institution-funded development projects. Ethiopia\u27s realignment indicates a broader African trend as emerging global powers challenge traditional Western hegemony in international relations and call for a multipolar world that reduces Western paternalism in developing countries. The findings reveal Ethiopia\u27s dissatisfaction with Western-imposed reform requirements, a strong desire for rapid, state-led infrastructure development to stimulate their domestic economy, and the U.S. being perceived as an unreliable partner. At the same time, the efficiency of Chinese financing mechanisms and its legitimization of the EPRDF model made China, and the BRICS bloc, a better ideological fit
Beyond a Promise: An exploration of Identity and Cultural Resistance
No full textAn printmaking exploration on how identify and culture define you as a person
Manifestations of the Uncanny in The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass
No full textA critical analysis paper that explores how the manifestation of grief and guilt as responses to trauma appear as the uncanny in Mike Flanagan\u27s The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and Midnight Mass (2021) to demonstrate how horror has evolved to no longer portray evil as an outside Other , but as a terror that comes from within ourselves
Stuck in My Head - The Process
No full textFor my senior thesis, I chose to write a one-act play based on my experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is a walkthrough on the process of the creation of my play
Parental Monitoring, Latine Emerging Adult Marijuana and Alcohol Initiation, and the Relationship it has with Marianismo and Machismo
Get PDFThe study aimed to expand the research on Latine adolescent alcohol and marijuana initiation in regard to their parent’s monitoring habits. The study investigated if parental monitoring affects the initiation of alcohol and marijuana for their adolescents. It also investigated if traditional gender roles in Latine households such as marianismo and machismo moderated the relationship. This study examined parental monitoring through asking participants about their parents monitoring habits and parents control habits during their adolescence. It also investigated Latine young adults’ substance use initiation. This study was conducted through a Qualtrics survey administered through Prolific with multiple subsections that pertain to each measure. Participants were also offered a financial incentive for participation in the study. The first hypothesis was that participants\u27 parental monitoring would positively and significantly predict age of initiation of alcohol use and age of initiation of marijuana use. The second hypothesis was that marianismo would positively and significantly predict parental monitoring. The third hypothesis was that machismo would negatively and significantly predict parental monitoring. The fourth hypothesis was that machismo and marianismo would moderate the relationship between parental monitoring and age of initiation of alcohol as well as age of initiation of marijuana. There was a total of 150 participants. The sample was composed of 44% men, and 47.2% women. The average age of initiation for both alcohol and marijuana was 17 years old. Partial support was provided for the fourth hypothesis, and the rest of the hypothesis was not supported by results. There is scant literature pertaining to how marianismo and machismo and parental monitoring affect Latine youth outcomes, especially pertaining to alcohol and marijuana initiation. Hopefully as the study information is disseminated, it will be useful for parents reflecting on their parenting practices and encourage them to think about their adolescents\u27 outcomes from their parenting habits. As well as reflecting on Latine cultural legacies that stem from colonial eras
BIOMECHANICS OF THE ATHEROSCLEROTIC LIPIDOME: (UN)EXPECTED STATIN INTERACTIONS AND MEMBRANE REMODELLING
Get PDFStatins interact with lipid membranes in ways that shape their pharmacokinetics, off-target effects, and pleiotropic actions, yet these interactions\u27 mechanical and biophysical consequences remain poorly understood. This thesis employs a combination of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), and rheological modelling to characterize how representative statins intercalate within biomimetic supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) of healthy and diseased composition. SPR reveals that lipophilic statins exhibit higher apparent affinities and slower dissociation kinetics, especially in cholesterol- and anionic lipid-rich membranes. QCM-D analyses demonstrate that statins alter membrane mass, dissipation, and interfacial stiffness in a statin- and membrane-dependent manner. Frequency sweeps of the storage modulus (G′) reveal nonlinear elastic remodelling after statin loading, with Zener model fits yielding nanosecond-scale relaxation times that shorten in both membrane types, indicative of membrane fluidization. Notably, healthy SLBs exhibit mechanical hysteresis and dissipative remodelling that fails to reverse after Pravastatin washout, while diseased SLBs undergo reversible elastic softening. Mapping frequency–dissipation trajectories further reveals asymmetric mechanical pathways between membrane types. Together, these results demonstrate that statin–membrane interactions are both composition-dependent and mechanically consequential, explaining tissue-specific statin effects mechanistically. This work supports a biomechanical theory of statin selectivity, wherein membrane composition governs drug partitioning and the mechanical remodelling that determines statin retention, efficacy, and cytotoxic potential in healthy versus diseased cellular environments
In Harmony: The Environmental Lives of Marianne North, Beatrix Farrand, and Mary Hunter Austin
Get PDFThis thesis explores the lives and careers of botanical painter Marianne North, landscape architect Beatrix Farrand, and literary nature writer Mary Hunter Austin to examine the interplay of femininity and the representation of nature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. All three figures had an approach to environmental representation which was based in field work, knowing a place truly, and a sense of harmony between subject and context of the produced work. This method did not occur because they were women or because it was an inherent feature of their assigned sex. Rather, their socialization in the Anglo-American world influenced their approaches as they navigated the gendered strictures placed upon their careers. They were necessarily unconventional women, tenacious in their imagination of a professional life beyond the oppressive ideal of femininity suggested to them in their youths. These three women offer an understanding of the challenges facing (white) women within the Anglo-American world during this time period who were interested in working outdoors, studying the natural world, and pursuing a career in art, design, or writing. These three women illustrate a surprisingly unified reaction to nineteenth-century femininity and to environmental exploitation in favor of harmony between subject and object, between product and context, and between human culture and its environment
Valuating the Impact of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) in Savannakhet, Laos through Ecosystem Services Assessments
Get PDFUnexploded ordnance (UXO) impact on countries is not well-documented, since post-war surveys or data collection are often hindered by a lack of appropriate funding and reparation. In Laos, UXO has hardly been cleared since 1964 and thus leaves room for spatially and temporally analyzing the severity of environmental and economic degradation in the area. This study uses the framework of ecosystem services, particularly carbon stock, as a way to provide quantitative metrics of impact to local governments and stakeholders. Through remote sensing data in Savannakhet Province, evidence-based land-use change data was spatially analyzed with geocoded UXO bomb mission locations and demonstrated significant correlation between uncleared unexploded ordnance and underutilized productive land. Significantly (
The Influence of Local & Global Context and Language Experience on Prediction: An Eye Tracking Analysis
No full textThe present paper investigated the influence of local and global context on lexical prediction effects during online sentence processing for monolingual and bilingual participants. In the present experiment, nine participants for whom English is a non-dominant second language read English sentences while their eye movements were tracked. Monolingual participant data from an eye-tracking study by Zirnstein was also explored. Both experiments utilized total mean reading times of critical words as a measure of processing difficulty. In the monolingual data, local context (sentence condition) had a significant effect on the total reading times in the predictive and neutral global contexts; this effect was not significant in the unpredictive global context. The bilingual experiment showed similar patterns, with notable processing benefits from predictive sentences and slight processing costs from unpredictive sentences in the predictive and neutral global contexts, suggesting that bilinguals are able to form and validate predictions when reading in a second language, like monolinguals reading in their native language. Also similarly to the monolingual participants, bilingual participants read all sentence conditions at similar speeds in the unpredictive global context, suggesting they too strategically modulated prediction processes. In this context, monolingual participants still seemed to experience prediction benefits and costs, though not to a statistically significant extent, while the bilingual participants’ reading times showed little to no processing costs. Bilinguals therefore seem to be more sensitive to global context than monolinguals, in order to conserve cognitive resources during a complex task such as reading in a second language. Future research is necessary to explore whether such differences in prediction processes are specific to reading in a second language, or if this effect might be explained by a more overarching difference in bilingual language or domain-general cognitive processes
Characterizing the role of tumor-derived B cells in immune checkpoint blockade immunotherapy response
No full textRecent studies have demonstrated that the presence of B cells, in compartments called tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) within the tumor microenvironment (TME), are more pronounced in responders of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) immunotherapy compared to non responders. Although our understanding of how B cells modulate ICB treatment outcomes is incomplete, we hypothesize that tumor-derived B cells in patient responders produce antibodies that recognize tumor specific antigens and can elicit an antitumor response. In this study, we characterized the binding properties of 99 out of 578 antibodies derived from melanoma patients treated with ICB immunotherapy. Patient-derived melanoma antibodies were analyzed with flow cytometry against three different cell lines, HEK293 as a “non melanoma cell line” and A375 and SK-MEL-5 as two examples of malignant melanoma cell lines. We found that of the 99 antibodies analyzed, 61 bind nonspecific targets and 17 bind specifically melanoma associated targets. Our analysis establishes that a significant amount of melanoma tissue derived antibodies generated within the tumor microenvironment or associated lymph nodes can identify tumor associated antigens. Further analysis is underway to evaluate the anti-tumor potential of these antibodies, which can pave the way for more effective cancer therapies