IDA Mount Holyoke College Institutional Digital Archive
Not a member yet
1794 research outputs found
Sort by
Disability Rights: Activism and Agency in the United States
No full textDisability rights has a complex history of social movements and legal change. This thesis spans from the American Civil War to the present day; I examine the effects of legislation that outlawed public displays of disability or ugliness to the success of the disability rights movement. It analyzes the development of disability rights law in three time periods in United States history: the post-Civil War era, the passing of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. It begins with statutes called the Ugly Laws that targeted low-income disabled people, typically veterans, who were begging on the street, as well as people at the intersections of disability, race, class, gender, and other marginalized social categories. The ideology and opinion that disability was unacceptable in the public eye excluded people with disabilities from everyday life including education, religious services, public transportation, commercial establishments, and participation in political processes with autonomy and dignity.
I transition from the Ugly Laws to a period of identity formation and movement cohesion around the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, discussing the movement's motivations and goals, and my parameters for its success. The next time period I analyze leads to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the ways that despite anti-discrimination and civil rights legislation, the ideology of the Ugly Laws continues to permeate American society and limit accessibility. I use a disability justice framework to analyze how an inaccessible built environment, including transportation systems, educational facilities, and government buildings, influenced the disability rights movement that fought for the passage of Section 504 and the ADA. A disability justice framework advocates for the existence and inclusion of people with disabilities in all parts of society without advocating for a cure. These connections between the built environment, the disability rights movement, and disability rights law provide new context and nuance to the systemic overlooking of disability access needs by using a procedural analysis on an extended historical era to evaluate how politics and social movements continue to influence disability rights in the United States.Politic
The Prosody of Ambiguous Coordinate Structures in Hindi-English Bilinguals
No full textThis thesis was written as part of a Special Major in Linguistics and Philosophy.Across languages, speakers use different prosodic cues to signal information structure. Speakers of English, an intonation language, freely manipulate pitch accents and boundary tones to convey semantic and pragmatic content. Hindi, being a phrase language, is less variable – sentence melody arises primarily from phrasal tones, and is less sensitive to information structure. The differences between these two languages present a valuable opportunity to study people who speak them both. This study aims to investigate the differences in prosody between English and Hindi as spoken by bilinguals. Specifically, in a comparable speech production experiment, we looked at the differences in speakers’ prosodic realizations of sentences containing ambiguous coordination structures. These structures were distributed across four sets of names and six syntactic conditions. We focused our attention on the differences between pitch contours and duration values at syntactic boundaries both within and between English and Hindi. Since participants are bilingual, we also considered the role of language dominance and transfer, and their relationship to the reflection of the syntax-prosody mapping in these productions.Other or Special Majo
Spiral Arteriole Remodeling In Rat Deep Placenta Bed: The Progression Changes Of The Early, Trophoblast-Independent Vessel Remodeling.
No full textIn early pregnancy, maternal uterine vessels carrying blood to the placenta are modified to support the development of the placenta. Vessels expand as their walls become disorganized. Trophoblast replaces the original vessel wall. To better understand vessel remodeling, we analyze the changes of the cell type in the vessel wall and categorize those changes. The rats’ uterine vessel remodeling stages of histology sections are defined as follows. (1) Unremodeled vessels have organized endothelium and thick media (>10 um). (2) In early remodeling, the media thinned (5-10 um) and endothelium swollen and protruded into the vessel lumen. (3) The endothelium was monolayer, the media layer was 1-5um or discontinuous, and fibrinoid appeared around the vessel’s periphery. (4) Trophoblasts were replacing the smooth muscle. The average vessel diameter increased throughout the stages with large variability. The immunohistochemistry section has one more stage with trophoblast fully around the vessel and media starts to break down at stage 2. In conclusion, arterioles' smooth muscle and endothelium start to remodel at the same time, well before embryonic tissue (trophoblast) is present. This study helps us understand the sequence of changes during remodeling. Future studies will investigate the maternal factors acting in this remodeling.Biological Science
The Road to Crime: Analyzing the Impact of Rural Road Connectivity on Crime in India
No full textIn 2001, 28% of India's population lacked access to paved roads (World Bank, 2021). At the same time, the country has been ranked the most dangerous place for women, in terms of public safety (Thomson Reuters Foundation, June 25, 2018). To improve connectivity in India, the government of India launched a $40 billion rural road construction program named the PMGSY, with an aim to connect 115,000 Indian villages. I use administrative data from the Population Census, the PMGSY and official crime records to answer the research question: Does constructing rural roads impact crime in India, especially crime against women? Using a Difference-in-Differences identification strategy, I calculate the effect of PMGSY roads on crime in areas that were newly connected under the program. I observe no consistent relationship. I further implement a Multiple Linear Regression to include the effect of non-PMGSY roads on crime. I find that a shift in a district's connectivity from the 25th to the 75th percentile, is associated with an increase of 13.68% in crime rate.Economic
Distinguishing between structural models for the Escherichia Coli RNA binding protein ProQ
No full textEvolving research on small RNAs (sRNAs) in bacteria implicates sRNAs as a key
effector of gene regulation, influencing expression for genes involved in processes from basic
bacterial biology to serious public health issues such as virulence and antibiotic resistance. While
some sRNAs are able to act independently, many are dependent on an RNA-binding protein,
such as the well-established Hfq in Escherichia coli. Another family of RNA-binding proteins is
the FinO family, including ProQ and FinO in E. coli, NMB1681 in Neisseria meningitidis, and
Lpp1663 in Legionella pneumophila. Previous work on ProQ has not supplied a satisfying
answer on how ProQ binds to RNA, despite an available NMR structure. In July of 2021, the
AlphaFold database was released, which included an alternate structure for ProQ. In order to
critically evaluate both of these structures, I compared the structures of FinO domain proteins,
examined highly conserved residues Y70 and R80 through the use of a forward genetic screen
with our laboratory’s bacterial three-hybrid assay, and used the same assay to probe predicted
interactions from the structural models with the use of site-directed mutagenesis. The available
structures of FinO domains were found to vary from the NMR structure of ProQ in both quality
and chemical properties. Two key residues on ProQ, Y70 and R80, were extremely sensitive to
mutation. It is possible that these residues are directly involved in RNA binding by ProQ, a
hypothesis supported by the structures and research on other FinO domain proteins. This work
suggests that the NMR structure of ProQ should be examined more critically, and it is possible
that the AlphaFold structure provides an alternate model for this protein. Through this, I hope to
generate insights into the most relevant structural conformations for in vivo RNA binding by
FinO proteins and the ways in which the structure of E. coli ProQ is both similar and distinct
from orthologous FinO domain proteins.Biochemistr
Regulation of Drosophila Fat Body Remodeling by Brain-secreted Drosophila Insulin-Like Peptides During Metamorphosis
No full textUnderstanding the role of the brain in regulating peripheral metabolic activities may help unveil mechanisms underlying metabolic disorders. Drosophila melanogaster is a widely-used animal model for biological research, given its relatively inexpensive maintenance and short life cycle. Notably, during the critical developmental stage of metamorphosis in Drosophila, the peripheral adipose tissue, the larval fat body (FB), receives signals from three brain-secreted Drosophila Insulin-like Peptides (DILPs). This interaction is one form of brain-body communication, and I aimed to study the effects of DILPs on the progression of larval FB remodeling during metamorphosis.
To examine the same, I generated two groups of transgenic flies with enhanced and suppressed insulin secretion by insulin-producing neurons at 30˚C. Transgenic and wild-type pupae were collected at the beginning of metamorphosis, incubated at 30˚C to induce enhanced or suppressed DILP-secretion, and aged to different times after puparium formation (APF). Animals were then dissected to examine the degree of FB dissociation.
A new quantitative method was developed to quantify the percentage of FB dissociation. Through linear regression analysis, the rate of FB dissociation APF was compared across three genotypes. Our data suggested that transient change in DILP-secretion from the beginning of metamorphosis did not significantly affect FB remodeling.Biochemistr
Increased Equity Investment to Address Wealth Inequality
No full textHistorically, the wealth portfolios of upper income households have differed significantly from the portfolios of middle-/low-class households. Their wealth has been held in different types of assets, creating a clear distinction between the amount of wealth held by each group in equities vs mortgages. Particularly, wealthy households hold most of their wealth in equities while middle-/low-class households hold most of their wealth in mortgages. To lessen the wealth gap, increasing equity holdings of middle-/low-income households’ portfolios may be a solution. Indeed, since the pandemic, more of middle-/low-class households’ wealth have been in equities. In this paper, I examine the wealth portfolios of households, its recent portfolio change, and what benefits there may be in adopting a policy approach (such as “baby bonds”) to wealth diversification for middle- and lower-income households. Data shows that the rate of return on equities owned by middle- and lower-income groups moved in similar trends to that of the wealthy. Some policy implications to increase wealth returns for the middle and lower class could be enhancing financial literacy, increasing mutual fund participation, increasing returns on savings accounts, and Baby Bonds.Economic
Metacognitive Skills and the Role of Text-Marking in Reading Comprehension
No full textText-marking is a popular reading strategy among students, but there has been much debate
in empirical literature on its effectiveness. The current study examined the relationship between
readers’ metacognitive skills and the quality of their text-marking, as well as the impact of text-marking
on reading time, question answering time and comprehension accuracy. Specifically, we
asked if the effect of text-marking relied on the physical act of marking or seeing the marks in text.
90 undergraduate students were separated into three groups and completed a reading task with six
passages. One group was provided with a highlighter and could access their highlighted text when
answering questions, one group could highlight but answered questions with a clean text, and the
other group did not use highlighting. Readers who were provided with a highlighter spent
significantly more time reading the text, regardless of how many words they actually highlighted,
but this increase in reading time did not translate into any benefits when answering questions.
Additionally, contrary to our hypothesis, readers with higher metacognitive skills highlighted more
words and less central words. We recommended that students should use text-marking with caution
and instructors should inform students of the cognitive processes involved in text-marking.Psychology & Educatio
An Analysis of Radial Cold Spray Nozzles
No full textCold spraying, also known as gas dynamic cold spraying or supersonic particle deposition, is an additive manufacturing technique wherein powder particles are accelerated by a carrier or driving gas passing through a supersonic nozzle and impinged on a substrate. Powders used in cold spray range from a metal, alloy, polymer, or composite powder material. In the past this technique has primarily been used to form protective coatings for surfaces, but the process is also used for the repair and restoration of damaged or worn parts, or to machine a part that would be difficult or impossible to otherwise create. Although cold spray has many benefits over similar fabrication and restorative processes due to less heat stress on the substrate, a key concern arises when considering small, internal surfaces. Cold spray relies on the high velocity of the particles—rather than on their temperature—to bond with the substrate. When repairing an internal surface that is too narrow for the full nozzle to fit into, it must be bent to accommodate the smaller diameter. This bend of the nozzle provides an additional surface for the particles to hit, causing either clogging or erosion of the nozzle interior, depending on the impacting particle’s velocity. In this project, previous radial cold spray nozzle designs were assessed and compared with revised versions to determine a more optimal design for a radial cold spray nozzle.Physic
Bringing the Party Home: The Progressive Insurgency in the House of Representatives and its Impact on the Democratic Party
No full textBernie Sanders lost the Democratic presidential nomination—twice. And yet, since his first loss in 2016, the Democratic Party has moved toward his policy stances on a range of issues. Ideas that pundits derided as politically impossible when he first ran are now at the center of the policy debate within the party. Sanders lost his insurgent bids, but the “political revolution” he sought to ignite continues through a movement of progressive insurgents in the House of Representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nina Turner. Like Sanders, most of these insurgents lose. Despite this, they are a serious force pushing Democrats left. This is puzzling: how do insurgents change political parties and national politics so rapidly when nearly all fail to win election outright? Drawing on original interviews with over 40 insurgent candidates and raw data on campaigns and congressional legislation, this thesis develops a theory of insurgency and insurgent-driven party change, provides a portrait of the Progressive Insurgency, determines what factors predict its candidates’ electoral success, and examines its impact on Democratic Party policy. It finds that the Progressive Insurgency is a semi-coordinated movement that aims to capture the Democratic Party to reorient its policy priorities and through that, turn the United States into a multiracial social democracy. The predictors of insurgents’ vote share vary by type of district—based on the Democratic Party’s institutional and electoral strength—that they run in, but largely concern the quality of the insurgent, like their electoral experience, endorsements, and fundraising. The insurgency has had a substantial influence on Democrats’ policy conversation and proposed policy but only a limited impact in its passed policy. This thesis argues that the efficacy of insurgency comes from its simultaneous institutional and ideological challenge to its host party and that, measured by its rate of electoral victory and policy impact on the Democratic Party, the Progressive Insurgency has been moderately successful. It makes empirical contributions to the study of the Progressive Insurgency, which has yet to receive deep scholarly attention, and theoretical contributions to the study of insurgency and insurgent-driven party change, which remain under- theorized relative to their frequency in American politics.Politic