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Fostering a Sense of Place Through Literary Work
No full textEver wonder what happens to a book before it lands on an editor’s desk? Trisha spent her summer immersed in the New York City publishing scene through her work at InkWell Management, a literary agency with a client base ranging from Anthony Bourdain to Markus Zusak. This presentation will outline the role of literary agencies in the publishing landscape along with Trisha’s specific responsibilities at InkWell, explaining how her newfound knowledge of the industry and the respect that InkWell’s agents showed towards genre fiction worked in tandem to give her the confidence to plan for a future in writing romance and women’s fiction. Although her internship assured her that she would find fulfillment working as an agent or editor, it ultimately solidified that she has the passion and determination to make it as an author, and even more importantly, that she owes it to herself to try.This panel will explore the multiple layers of the literary world, highlighting the importance of creating place through social engagement and individual reflection.Two panelists interacted directly with the community by promoting accessibility to previously-published works as well as fostering a love of literature. The other panelists worked within the pre-publication process, from drafting to assisting agents in preparing client manuscripts for publication. Molly found her place in nonprofit development work and gained experience in fundraising and grant research in New York City. Katie promoted dialogue across communities in her hometown through a reading campaign which encouraged residents to read the same book in tandem. Trisha gained a sense of confidence regarding her future plans as she learned about the publication process from start to finish. Carlin found the value in writing on location, as well as using research and interviews to communicate her work’s setting
Fostering a Sense of Place Through Literary Work
No full textSometimes life doesn’t lead to an internship. Carlin spent her summer working on the first draft and a revision of a novel in verse. Using habits and skills learned from poetry courses and a course on children’s literature at Mount Holyoke, Carlin wrote narrative poetry, telling the story of two fifteen-year-old girls from Iowa searching for their places in the sea. The settings, mainly small-town Iowa and San Francisco, became characters unto themselves, so in writing about the landscape, it was important for Carlin to be surrounded by it while she wrote. This was possible for Iowa, but for San Francisco, she had to find residents willing to talk about their perspectives as well as do research into the city’s set up. This panel will focus on how setting influenced Carlin’s writing, and the tools she used to make what was unreachable to her feel tangible on the page. This panel will explore the multiple layers of the literary world, highlighting the importance of creating place through social engagement and individual reflection.Two panelists interacted directly with the community by promoting accessibility to previously-published works as well as fostering a love of literature. The other panelists worked within the pre-publication process, from drafting to assisting agents in preparing client manuscripts for publication. Molly found her place in nonprofit development work and gained experience in fundraising and grant research in New York City. Katie promoted dialogue across communities in her hometown through a reading campaign which encouraged residents to read the same book in tandem. Trisha gained a sense of confidence regarding her future plans as she learned about the publication process from start to finish. Carlin found the value in writing on location, as well as using research and interviews to communicate her work’s setting
Time Series Analysis and Forecasting of the US Housing Starts using Econometric and Machine Learning Models
No full textIn this thesis, I have performed time series analysis and forecasted the monthly value of housing starts for the year 2019 using several econometric and machine learning algorithms. In the rapidly emerging field of artificial intelligence, data scientists are heavily improvising and using machine learning models to predict any variable. I have applied a few popular techniques from machine learning to predict housing starts for the year 2019. Some of these methods are - artificial neural networks, ridge regression, K-Nearest Neighbors, and support vector regression, and created an ensemble model. The ensemble model stacks the predictions from various individual models, and gives a weighted average of all predictions. In my analysis, the ensemble model has performed the best among all the models as the prediction errors are the lowest. The econometric models have higher error rates than the machine learning models. In my analysis, I have elucidated each model mathematically and made plots to compare forecasts from each model. Lastly, I have stated the limitations of their usage and ways to enhance the current model.Economic
INVESTIGATING POLYDOPAMINE SOLUTION CHEMISTRY AND EVALUATING SPIN COATING AS A FABRICATION METHOD TO STUDY POLYDOPAMINE ADHESION
No full textPossessing a very similar structure to L-DOPA (a compound found in the mussel’s protein that helps this marine creature adhere to virtually all kinds of surfaces), dopamine was first brought to attention by Lee et al. as a fundamental building block for the surface modification of bulk materials. Under an alkaline environment, dopamine can undergo oxidation and self- polymerization to produce polydopamine (PDA): supramolecular aggregates that can adhere to and form a thin film on various substrates.
Since dopamine was introduced, scientists have conducted much research to study its adhesion mechanism and potential applications. However, the most popular procedure for the fabrication of PDA thin films has two major limitations. First, dopamine solution is prepared in an alkaline environment to promote the spontaneous reaction between dopamine and dissolved oxygen from air. Since oxygen is a weak oxidant, the oxidation process usually results in a low yield of the dopamine oxidative products, which leads to the film’s low thickness and poor stability. Second, each substrate is coated by being immersed in a dopamine solution for a certain amount of time. This practice, although simple, has many drawbacks. First, the volume of the solution must be high enough to accommodate the entire object, yet the film formed is only nanoscale in thickness, causing a significant waste of the materials. Moreover, during the immersion, both PDA formation in solution and surface adhesion take place simultaneously, making it difficult to precisely control the composition of the final coating.
In this project, we aimed to overcome these two major limitations by using a stronger oxidant and by utilizing a different thin film coating method. The oxidant chosen was sodium periodate (SP) and the coating method employed was spin coating.
To understand the impact of using a strong oxidant on the PDA formation, the solution chemistry was characterized and compared with the trials using oxygen as oxidant. Based on the solution color, the difference in these solutions’ compositions was observed. Fresh dopamine solution is colorless; however, it changes color as the oxidation takes place. In the oxygen trial, the solution started off as light pink, slowly changed to green-brown and then became more opaque as the reactions proceeded. In the SP trial, the solution color went from yellow (dopamine quinone) to red-orange (dopamine chrome) and then became completely black after just a few minutes. From UV-Vis spectra, it was confirmed that the oxidation of dopamine by oxygen happened very slowly and very little of dopamine oxidative products were achieved after the course of 24 h. On the other hand, the use of SP impressively accelerated the oxidation reactions and the yield of dopamine oxidative products, with a significant amount of the dopamine being oxidized as soon as the solution was made.
To develop the procedure for spin coating PDA films, three different parameters—oxidant, solution aging time, and solution pH—were varied to achieve the optimal solution chemistry before it came in contact with the substrate. Three different substrates—silicon (Si), polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and amine-functionalized PDMS (AMS)—were utilized to investigate the versatility of this procedure. Using a 4 mg/mL dopamine solution with dopamine/SP molar ratio of 1:2 aged for less than 5 mins, we were able to obtain 10 nm thick PDA films on all three substrates. Moreover, these films were achieved within ~ 10 mins of experiment using at most 500 μL of stock solution, while the conventional dip coating method using oxygen from air could take up to 24 h and 8 mL of stock solution to grow films of comparable thickness. Lastly, the stability of these films was tested in 0.1 M HCl solution and in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Due to the higher extent of oxidation using SP, the PDA films showed much better resilience toward the extreme environments than those obtained via the conventional method.
From these results, we concluded that using SP as an alternative for oxygen promotes the oxidation extent of dopamine and enhances not only the rate of PDA film growth but also the stability of the films. Moreover, spin coating was confirmed to be a promising coating method for fabricating PDA thin films. Not only does spin coating save time and materials, it also provides the ability to take “snapshots” of the solution being deposited, offering the ability to precisely control PDA reaction kinetics and surface chemistry of the PDA- coated substrates.Chemistr
Beyond Britten's Boys: Singing Britten with Adult Treble Choirs
No full textCan music intended for children have a place in a feminist choral classroom? What social considerations must we take in teaching music intended for children to adults? Does singing songs intended for children, songs which may have themes of innocence and purity, with adults enforce gendered stereotypes? How can conductors use ideas of play in music intended for children to create empowering choral spaces for women and gender minorities?
These questions lie at the core of my thesis, “Beyond Britten’s Boys: Performing Britten with Adult Treble Choirs.” Benjamin Britten’s treble music, most of which is intended for boy treble singers, is some of the most beloved music in treble choir repertoire. As such, choirs of adult treble singers (soprano and altos of all gender identities) perform Britten’s treble choir music frequently. Because of the ties in Britten’s music to ideas of innocence and play, I am examining how adult treble choirs can continue to sing this music, with consideration to social implications of their composition (for boy trebles) and thematic material (reinforcing ideas of innocence and purity). Furthermore, I am examining the role this music can have in the adult treble choir classroom, creating conductor’s guides focusing on play and feminist pedagogy. Overall, my thesis examines Benjamin Britten’s body of music for treble voices from historical, theoretical, pedagogical, and social perspectives. Chapter One examines Britten’s ties to childhood, and how his lasting relationship to childhood contributed to his composition for children and preferred treble sound. Chapter Two analyzes six works featuring child treble voices, arguing that childhood is a musical topos for Britten, and that understanding his musical language for childhood can help conductors in determining how to approach performing his work with adult treble choirs. Chapter Three discusses feminist pedagogy and social issues specific to adult treble choirs, culminating in a conductor’s analysis for performing two of Britten’s treble choral works with adult treble choirs. This thesis aims to contribute new ideas to the body of Britten scholarship, particularly in using topic theory and analyzing his works in context of adult treble choirs. In addition, it aims to contribute to existing conversations on repertoire for treble choirs open doors for similar study of other bodies of work for treble choirs.Musi
Coherent Structure Detection using Topological Tools and a Graph Theoretic Approach
No full textFor general aperiodic fluid flows, coherent structures help organize the dynamics. The prevalence of such flows in nature and industry has motivated many successful techniques for defining and detecting coherent structures. However, these approaches often require very fine trajectory data to reconstruct velocity fields. Instead, we use topological techniques to detect coherent trajectory sets in relatively sparse two-dimensional fluid advection problems. More specifically, we use a homotopy-based algorithm, the ensemble-based topological entropy calculation (E-tec), which evolves fluid material curves forward in time as minimal length bands stretched about the moving data points. These bands are represented as the weighted edges of a triangulation, which allows us to analyze flows using graph theory. In this way, highly connected components of appropriately constructed graphs can be used to partition the fluid particles into coherent trajectory sets.Physic
International Affairs and Development
No full textThis summer, I interned for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a Washington, DC-based international, non-profit organization that provides assistance and support for elections in new and emerging democracies. I worked specifically in the Gender and Elections department, and my work was related to increasing the political participation of women all over the world. I provided project management support for global gender programs. This was mostly in the form of conducting research related to gender and elections and women's political participation. I provided logistical and administrative support to the Gender and Elections team and managed the IFES Gender twitter account. I also attended and reported on events related to gender issues in the DC area at various organizations such as the US Institute of Peace, the National Democratic Institute and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. My internship experience helped further my interest in the international development sector.In an increasingly globalized world, international affairs affect all of us in one way or another and shape the environment in which we live. This past summer, each of us worked for international NGOs and nonprofit organizations, working on a myriad of projects concerning different parts of the world. Our experiences include researching the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, working with the United Nations, researching Iran’s foreign policies, and working in the international development sector by providing support for elections in new and emerging democracies. Our panel will capture the range of experiences we went through as we tried to better the world from New York City and Washington D.C. Collectively, we gained valuable research experience as well as insights into the inner workings of international organizations and the realities of the world in which we live
Beyond Survival: Jewish Day-To-Day Resistance in the Nazi-Occupied East, 1939-1944
No full text“Beyond Survival: Jewish Day-To-Day Resistance in the Nazi-Occupied East, 1939-1944” examines everyday resistance to Nazi persecution by persons classified as Jews under Nazi law. Forced into ghettos after the Nazi occupation of western Poland in September 1939, ordinary Jewish inhabitants, members of Jewish self-administrative bodies, and couriers of the Jewish underground movement produced diaries, letters, periodicals, interviews, reports, and speeches that documented everyday experience and the development of resistance strategies. I broaden the usual definition of Jewish resistance to include unarmed, day-to-day acts, in a challenge to a once prevalent argument that restricts the meaning of resistance to armed opposition and considers it scarce and insignificant during the Holocaust. Rooted in Nazi anti-Jewish policy and victim testimonies, each of three chapters demonstrates the asymmetry of power between Nazis and Jews, which makes the broader definition of resistance necessary. Between 1939 and late 1941, when the Nazis had no concrete plan to murder all Jews in Europe, the Jewish Council of the Warsaw ghetto sustained the lives of thousands of people, especially children, through social welfare. Inadequacies of the welfare system contributed to the rise of smuggling, an activity that many ghetto residents relied on to survive. The Jewish Councils, archival organizations, and individual ghetto inhabitants engaged in spiritual resistance such as organizing cultural activities, promoting education and religious faith, and recording history. These acts created a narrative of Jewish experience during the Second World War written not by the Nazis but by Jews themselves. After determining in 1942 that the Nazi regime was carrying out genocide, underground Jewish leaders in Poland made great efforts to inform the Jewish community, Polish society, and the Allied governments. Incentives to organize armed revolt intensified in late 1942, after letters and appeals to anti-fascist groups had met with little response.Histor
Bridging the Gap from Journalism to the Arts
No full textAs an intern at a talent management company, Esther was able to get an inside look at how film and television is cast, pitched, and produced. She worked for Silver Lining Entertainment, a relatively new company formed by several seasoned managers and a few new faces in the business. Over the course of her internship, Esther got to practice skills from many different sides of the film industry. She learned how to write coverage of scripts, edit clients’ audition tapes, and compile casting workbooks from databases. Esther told the managers that her ultimate goal was to find a career in screenwriting, and they were happy to find her extra tasks which related to that. Over the course of her time at the company, Esther was able to read many different scripts and witness firsthand how a film goes from a screenplay to a fully cast and produced film.In this panel we will explore the various stages of media production ranging from representational media to the logistics of performance. We participated in internships which focused on the production of media from its inception to its final product. As panelists we will share our individual experiences including, but not limited to, evaluating depictions of emerging technologies in media, utilizing media journalism as a tool for social change, casting and covering media from the perspective of Hollywood talent management, and focusing on theatre as both an art form and a business
Dynamic directionality of cell states in Boolean gene regulatory networks; a model of structural constraints in cell development.
No full textThis project studies the dynamics of three Boolean gene regulatory
networks for B and T cell differentiation and proposes an original gene regulatory
network for larval fat body remodeling in Drosophila. The difference between the
limited number of attractors in the gene regulatory networks and the many transient
states that lead to the attractors can be seen as analogous to the finite number of
phenotypic traits and their underlying genetic variation. The entropy, self
transitioning probability, attractability and steady-state probability of the Markov
Chain simulation of transitions between the attractors was compared with the
experimentally observed phenotypic transformation of cells undergoing
differentiation in vitro and in vivo. The model was able to rank attractors bearing
markers of differentiation in a logical order. The reconstruction of the potential
transition graph revealed cyclic patterns of recurring attractor states. This supports
the hypothesis of an attractor of attractors: the Boolean version of canalization. The
construction of a gene regulatory network for larval fat body remodeling shed light
on components and combinations of components that instruct the system to
maintain its inherit canalization.Biological Science