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Neustonic Plastic Along the Eastern Seaboard: Evaluating Potential Ecologic Impacts using Zooplankton to Plastic Ratios, and Identification of Regional Source Areas Using OpenDrift Modelling
No full textData tables are included as separate CSV and Excel file.Plastic debris has become an issue of ecologic concern, as studies have found that plastic,
which has been accumulating in the marine environment since it became commercialized after
World War II, has negative environmental effects and a wide range of biologic impacts when
ingested. Determining how plastic debris enters the food web is the first step in evaluating the
potential for plastic to magnify throughout the food web, eventually effecting humans. This
study addresses this issue by using methodology established by Moore et al. (2001; 2002) and
Collignon et al. (2012) to determine the ratios (by count and by weight) of neustonic plastic to
zooplankton along the Eastern Seaboard of the US, in the Atlantic Ocean. Samples analyzed in
this study were collected by SEA Education Association class C-297 Marine biodiversity and
Conservation along a cruise track from St. Petersburg, FL to Woods Hole, MA, with varying
distances from shore, between April 16 and May 20, 2021. Neuston tows were performed using a
333 micrometer neuston tow net, and were processed by hand.
To determine the origin of plastic recovered at sea, this study utilizes a novel approach to
the identification of plastic debris source regions by using a Python-coded program (OpenDrift)
to hindcast the neuston tow samples analyzed in this study to identify likely geographic
locations, using oceanographic and atmospheric conditions, and Lagrangian particle trajectory
modelling. This work sets the stage for future conservation work in marine plastics, to mitigate
the exposure of marine organisms and the food web to the negative effects of plastics and their
additives.Geolog
Design of a Sustainable Social Housing Model in Istanbul, Turkey
No full textIn countries where the housing supply has become inadequate due to fast population growth, migration, urbanization, and income inequalities, governments have started to develop policies to provide loans and housing for low-income groups to meet the dramatic rise in demand. Turkey, a country facing such housing challenges, has met the housing needs of low-income groups through illegal squatter settlements. Today, the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKI), the top government-backed housing agency, aims to produce solutions to the housing and urbanization problems in Turkey by targeting mainly the low-and-middle-income groups who cannot enter the housing market under the existing market conditions with their economic statuses. For these households, housing affordability is a problem that prevents them from being able to maintain a minimum standard of life.
The Turkish government has always prioritized increasing the housing stock in terms of numbers and viewed the housing problem as a quantitative deficiency. It is seen purely as an investment good and a guarantee for high-income groups. In actuality, housing is an increasing problem and a cost burden for low-income groups. The dominant thought in increasing the housing stock is not the needs of lower-income groups, but rather the demand of the upper-income groups. In constructing affordable housing, TOKI fails to apply the same care and diligence it applies to upper-income groups. The number of luxury houses is increasing more rapidly than the needed social housing. Efforts to minimize costs have led TOKI to compromise on quality, thus preventing residents from being able to maintain a minimum standard of life.
In this context, the goal of this thesis is to design a housing complex in a low-to-middle-income community in Istanbul, Turkey that will meet the basic needs of the occupants while fulfilling sustainability goals. How can we make a housing complex in an urban area environmentally friendly? How can we solve the environmental problems that exist in current buildings? How can we create a high-performance building as well as a healthy and inhabitable interior? An important factor in the evaluation of affordability is to improve the quality of life of low-to-middle-income families. While there are many approaches to this design, the focus in this thesis is on affordability, accessibility, the attractiveness of the property, user satisfaction, comfort, location, climate, and energy efficiency while also adhering to current building codes and regulations.Architectural Studie
Examining readers’ mental representations of texts in reading comprehension: The influence of text availability on reading comprehension performance and visual memory
No full textThis study aimed to examine the role of mental model formation by examining the effect of text availability on reading comprehension (RC) performance and visual memory in 7th and 8th grade students. Participants were given an RC test in which they answered multiple-choice questions and were subsequently given the text structure and asked to identify information relevant to answering the questions. Participants’ eye movements were monitored throughout. One purpose of this study was to examine text availability’s impact on RC performance (including accuracy and reading time). A second purpose of this study was to examine the effect of text availability on visual memory (i.e., the ability to identify supporting information in the text). Finally, this study investigated if reading achievement and working memory (WM) are related to the relationship between text availability and RC performance, and between text availability and visual memory, respectively. I found that without-text readers had longer initial reading times than with-text. Additionally, without-text participants were more accurate and precise in their identification of relevant textual information. Next, participants with higher reading achievement levels had faster reading times. Finally, participants with higher WM were more accurate in their visual memory. Unexpectedly, higher-WM participants also had slower times for locating information in the visual memory task. These findings indicate that students should focus on reading strategies that foster strong mental model formation, such as slowing down during the initial read of text. The results also clarify the roles of reading achievement and WM in mental model formation.Neuroscience and BehaviorPsychology & Educatio
Revolution or Reform? A Theoretical Analysis of the Prison Abolition Movement and State Engagement
No full textThe Prison Abolition Movement has an ambivalent relationship with the state and with what is commonly known as ‘electoral politics.’ They often see state institutions as inherently violent, leading the movement to promote a complete transformation of society. However, the state has a monopoly over all institutional processes and establishments, including those that allow for
social change, making this goal particularly challenging. In addition, the state often has complete control over the lives of people abolitionists’ center in their organizing efforts, such as incarcerated individuals. Therefore, prison abolitionists must engage with the state, an act that can be seen as reinforcing the legitimacy of structures they mostly disapprove of. This thesis
explores such tensions, developing a conceptual toolkit for the abolitionist perspective on the relationship between the state and society. This toolkit provides language for the ways in which abolitionists organize, mostly through state engagement, while minimizing the amount of legitimacy they provide it.
In this thesis, I argue that prison abolitionists are able to reconceptualize how state engagement is defined by grounding their organizing in their values of community care; I call this value-based organizing. This conceptualization seeks to highlight the ways in which prison abolitionists’ ground their work in their shared values, and how such a foundation allows them to engage with the state while pushing back on its authority. I demonstrate how the identities of abolitionist organizers are often shaped by their values, providing them a guiding framework; such perspective allows activists to engage with the state while deprioritizing it, maintaining their agency and autonomy. By doing so, they shift existing power structures: even though they actively engage with the state, such activity does not center state power, but the people.
This theoretical analysis was created from the lived experiences of seventeen abolitionist organizers from across the United States which I had the privilege of interviewing, combined with supplementary theoretical sources. By doing so, this research uses a version of grounded theory, a method of data analysis which seeks to build a theory from emerging data, asking interviewees open-ended questions, and grouping the responses into common themes. I present the data using composite narratives, which are stories woven together- created from quotes of multiple participants- allowing enhanced reader resonance and making my data accessible to a non-academic audience.Politic
The Effects of Ketogenic Supplements on Protein Expression and Autophagy in The Drosophila melanogaster Feeding Third Instar Larval Fat Body
No full textThe ketogenic diet is a low carbohydrate, high fat diet that is thought to be beneficial to health. Due to the low intake of carbohydrates in the ketogenic diet, the main energy fuel, glucose is depleted, and insulin levels drastically decrease. The body enters a catabolic state in which gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis occur. When the glucose level cannot be compensated by gluconeogenesis, ketogenesis provides the body with an alternative fuel -- ketone bodies, the most abundant ketone body is β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood and urine is referred to as ketosis. Autophagy is a natural degradative process that cleans out damaged and dysfunctional organelles in order to recycle and generate healthy cells. This process maintains proper homeostasis under normal physiological conditions, and is associated with anti-aging effects. Autophagy is activated under stress conditions, such as energy deprivation, glucose depletion, fasting, starvation, intense exercise (Ravanan et al, 2017). The autophagosome is a key structure in autophagy, and Atg8 proteins are involved in autophagosome formation. The presence of Atg8 proteins such as Atg8a is widely used for detecting autophagic activity. A high ratio of lipidated atg8a (atg8a-II) and non-lipided atg8a (atg8a-I) indicates an intense level of autophagy. The ketogenic diet mimics the effects of fasting, and numerous studies have shown that fasting and endogenously induced ketosis induces autophagy by meeting the prerequisites of calorie restriction, glucose deficiency and glycogen depletion (Alirezaei et al, 2010; Hansen et al, 2008; Chung et al, 2019). Exogenous ketogenic supplement, like ketogenic diet, elevated blood ketone bodies, resulting in a similar but not at all identical ketosis (Poff et al, 2020).
Various adverse effects are observed in people who eat on a ketogenic diet, for example hypoglycemia, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, constipation, and irregular menstrual cycles. The use of nutritional supplements is suggested to safely enter into nutritional ketosis and easier to administrate (Bostock et al, 2020). Little is known about the underlying mechanisms by which ketogenic supplements induce ketosis and ketogenesis without carbohydrate restriction. There is not enough evidence on whether ketogenic supplement induces autophagy.
Therefore, in this study, I am testing the hypothesis that ketogenic supplements, beta-hydroxybutyrate, like the ketogenic diet or fasting, will increase autophagic activity in the fat cells of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. I hypothesize that beta-hydroxybutyrate induces the expression of autophagy-inducing proteins (Atg8a), and the beta-hydroxybutyrate diet group will exhibit a higher ratio of atg8a-II to atg8a-I than the control group. My findings indicate that BHB increases the ratio of Atg8a-II to Atg8a-I in the fat body, indicating an increased autophagy activity and thus supporting my hypothesis.Biochemistr
From Celluloid to Satellite: The Evolution of the Cinematographic Apparatus in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
No full textIn the near-future corporate dystopia of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, mass media isn’t just “bad for you”; it’s apocalyptic, a material threat to subjectivity, signification, communication, and community-building. This unimaginable threat comes in an ironically mundane package, an unlabeled cartridge known as the Entertainment, which is rumored to be so compelling that it kills anyone who watches it. The mismatch between the object and the threat it represents draws readers’ attention away from the content of the Entertainment–which is only partially revealed 846 pages into the novel–and towards the strange cinematographic apparatus that produced it.
This project examines ekphrastic descriptions of film-watching in Infinite Jest in order to track the evolution of media technology from the apparatus described by Jean-Louis Baudry in his 1968 essay “The Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus” to the Entertainment. Baudry argues that the cinematographic apparatus has two main ideological effects: 1) to give the impression that the film accurately represents reality without transforming it by repressing the work of signification and 2) to position the spectator as “the transcendental self [which] unites the discontinuous fragments of phenomena, of lived experiences, into unifying meaning”. It does this by “reconstruct[ing] the situation necessary to the release of the ‘mirror stage’”, the moment in a young child’s life at the emergence of language and the Oedipal triad (6-18 months) when it begins to identify with its own image in the mirror leading to a split ego forever longing to be whole.
While the affective response described by Baudry is tantalizingly close to the descriptions of the Subjects of the Entertainment in Infinite Jest, the cinematographic apparatus that produced the latter is notably different: it was filmed using a wobbly unclear lens, has an unknown distributor, is displayed on a private teleputer rather than projected in a public theater, and somehow incorporates holography. In this presentation, I will argue that David Foster Wallace uses the strange cinematographic apparatus of the Entertainment to critique Baudry’s theory and the Lacanian model of desire and subjectivity that inspired it.Englis
Disability Aesthetics and Agency in Portraiture
No full textI create portraits of queer disabled people in my community. In this series, I explore how to navigate the representation of disabled people in portraiture by questioning different historical and modern forms of disability aesthetics in art and media. By prioritizing the sitter’s role in the creation of their portraits as one of the core elements of my practice, I attempt to mitigate the dilemma of determining how to best depict and represent disabled people authentically while avoiding harmful and ableist tropes. I am inspired both by portraitists such as Riva Lehrer, Alice Neel, and Clarity Haynes, along with other disability justice activists, scholars, and disabled artists, such as Bob Flanagan, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Alice Wong, who have influenced stylistic and conceptual aspects of this series, and by extension, its accompanying zine. Ultimately, my thesis culminates with an exhibition show, purposefully centering themes of accessibility and viewer engagement in its design.Art Studi
Should Solidarity Replace Charity?: Critiquing Effective Altruism and Considering Mutual Aid as an Alternative
No full textAuthor uses they/them pronounsThe COVID-19 pandemic has introduced mutual aid to mainstream society; whether
giving to GoFundMe campaigns or helping neighbors get groceries and PPE, it became a more
common practice to many who previously had little experience with mutual aid. However,
mutual aid is by no means a new practice and has been a crucial tool for survival among
marginalized groups when the state or aid programs fail to meet their needs.
Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, wrote a paper in 1972 called “Famine, Affluence,
and Morality” that had a lasting impact on the way that we think about giving to charities and
NGO aid projects. His writings helped to create a branch of practical ethics called effective
altruism. The goal of effective altruists is to save the most lives per dollar amount possible.
Using a maximum efficiency model, effective altruists select causes based on how successfully
they can yield results. However, this means that some causes are ignored because they are too
expensive or hard to show a return on investment. Singer also encourages people to get
higher-income jobs so that they can be paid more and donate more money to ‘effective’
organizations. Singer cites Bill and Melinda Gates as some of the best effective altruists in the
world.
However, these organizations cause systemic harm within their own structures, in the
communities they engage with, and in their general approach to the problem of material need. I
argue that the actual and potential harm these organizations and the effective altruist mindset
pose are more harmful than can be reliably outweighed by their benefits. I show how we should
be cautious to endorse these kinds of organizations and be open to considering alternative
methods of meeting immediate needs.
I discuss mutual aid as an alternative to effective altruist organizations because it, by
nature, does not pose the same potential harms that effective altruism does. Beyond that, it
creates more support networks for the future and builds solidarity among communities,
organizing and mobilizing individuals to change or disengage with the structures that often create
the material need that mutual aid addresses and amplify the challenges that marginalized groups
face. The non-hierarchical structure at the heart of mutual aid emphasizes every individual’s
importance in decision making and their potential to contribute to their community. I argue that,
morally, we ought to devote more resources to mutual aid.Philosoph
Metallicity Gradients of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
No full textLow Surface Brightness (LSB) spirals reveal a gap in the current understanding of galaxy evolution and the environments that drive star formation because, despite being gas-rich, they have not converted much of their gas into stars. Previous studies on the metallicity gradients of LSB spirals have produced conflicting results: some point to a slightly positive gradient, and other results indicate negative gradients similar to those of High Surface Brightness (HSB) spirals. In HSB spirals, the radially decreasing metallicity signifies an inside-out star formation history. By comparing LSB and HSB metallicity gradients, insight can be gained into the evolution of this paradoxical galaxy class. Using spatially resolved optical data, this thesis presents maps of metallicity and metallicity vs galactocentric distance plots in a sample of 6 LSB spirals. Ultimately, no gradients were found in the sample.Astronom
How has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Married Female Labor Force Participation?
No full textSARs-CoV-2 and the coronavirus pandemic have left a lasting impact on the United States and the US economy. Many people were laid off or lost their jobs completely because of the nationwide shutdowns. Yet not every demographic was affected equally. Using the monthly Current Population Survey data published by the US Census Bureau from March 2019 through February 2021, I estimate a probit model of the effect of the pandemic on labor force participation of demographic groups divided by gender, marital status, and having children under 18. This is done by comparing monthly data from during the pandemic to the same month exactly one year prior to the pandemic. The model indicates that every demographic, apart from single males with children, was negatively affected by the pandemic during April and May of 2020. This paper further finds that married and single females with children experience significantly lower probabilities of labor force participation in the Fall of 2020 and Winter of 2021, likely due to females taking on greater carework as children stayed home taking remote classes during the beginning of the new school year. Married males with children did not experience this second round of depressed labor force participation, highlighting the potentially gendered effect. Ultimately, this paper finds that although every demographic group was affected by the pandemic, females with children experienced worse negative effects on their probabilities of labor force participation due to their disproportionate burden of childcare.Economic