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Male to Male Vocal Dominance Hierarchy in Xenopus Laevis
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/4582bba3-9ab9-4959-9d68-5c562ae15680/thumb/128.jpgDominance hierarchy is a vital component of the study of animal behavior and can shape our understanding of a species. Some evidence has previously been published suggesting that vocal dominance hierarchy, a form of dominance hierarchy that does not involve physical competition in its formation, exists in a few taxa. I investigate the most widely studied example of this phenomenon, the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis. While more research has been published on vocal dominance in this species than any other, it is extremely understudied nonetheless. Two male X. laevis were recorded for 24 hours in isolation and 72 hours in cohabitation. During cohabitation, all individuals were physically separated and a female was also present in the enclosure. Half of the groups had the female removed after the first 24 hours of cohabitation, and playback of female mating calls began playing after her removal. After another 24 hours had elapsed, the female was returned for the remaining 24 hours of recording. Males were found to stop calling after the first 24 hours of cohabitation if no playback was given, and males given playback continued calling longer into the cohabitation period. No evidence of vocal dominance was recorded, and patterns recorded suggest X. laevis may exhibit chorus-like behavior. These findings warrant reevaluation and/or replication of existing studies on this system
An Ethnography of the Shanghai Marriage Corner: Value, Semi-colonialism, and Racial Categories
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/1fd13bd1-5b36-428c-8104-f88ee3c9d2ab/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis presents an ethnographic study of the Shanghai Marriage Corner, situated within People's Park, Shanghai, where parents or matchseekers convene to negotiate matches for their unmarried children or themselves. With three months of fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2023, this research explores the interplay of value, capitalism, racial categorization, and the lingering effects of Shanghai's semi-colonial heritage within contemporary matchmaking practices, drawing on extensive participant observation and linguistic transcripts. The study argues the Shanghai Marriage as a site of value creation by revealing how it operates not merely for matchmaking but as a complex social space where values and identities are formed and shaped. By examining the practice of matchmaking, the research forces on the construction of racial categories and its impact in the interpersonal relationship. This thesis contributes to the fields of urban ethnography and linguistic and cultural anthropology by offering a nuanced understanding of how matchmaking practices are shaped by historical, sociopolitical factors
Cultural Diversity and Social Essentialism
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/c6b59e76-3851-4a00-bc92-7a62f3f8eed4/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis investigates the relationship between cultural diversity and the degree of essentialism of the social categories of race and gender. A sample of 156 participants aged 18-40 from the United States completed an online survey measuring cultural diversity and essentialist beliefs about race and gender. The Gender Essentialism Measure and Racial Essentialism Measure were employed alongside a Cultural Diversity Measure, which assessed the entropy of religious and racial distributions across U.S. states. Unexpectedly, results from correlational analyses highlight significant positive relationships between participants' essentialist beliefs and the measured entropy of their home states. Additionally, the study found a significant positive correlation between racial diversity (measured as entropy) and racial essentialism, as well as a positive correlation between gender and social essentialism. These findings imply that merely increasing cultural diversity does not inherently diminish racial essentialism, highlighting the necessity for educational programs and policies that foster deeper integration and interaction among diverse groups to effectively counteract essentialist beliefs
The Animal at Unease with Itself
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/c24073aa-0eef-4b58-b361-b311ab653361/thumb/128.jp
Yams Extending Infinitely Across Time: A Blues Philology of Ellison's Invisible Man
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/47791626-8d25-4564-90f1-8f8936579b7c/thumb/128.jpgEllison's Invisible Man is an intervention into American pragmatist thought that uses the formal qualities of the blues to structure a new way of constructing the individual not as an atomized unit, but as continuous with a community and tradition. For Ellison, Ralph Waldo Emerson is the main specter of American pragmatism past. Emerson's belief in the value of American ideals carries through to Ellison, but the understanding Emerson has of those ideals is antithetical to Ellison's worldview. To construct a faith in American ideals that he can endorse, Ellison uses the blues to understand America not as an empty frontier like Emerson does, but as a place with a richly textured mythology. Whereas, for Emerson, the emptiness of the frontier allowed for a truly self-reliant and original subject, for Ellison it is an existing culture that forms the materials by which one defines their originality and individuality. To come to such an understanding of America and how one becomes an individual, Ellison turns to the blues as a tradition of autobiographical narrative storytelling that focuses on the individual while finding meaning within a supra-individual, communally held tradition of art making. For Ellison, the blues is an art form which lays bare crises of individual self-representation, finds meaning in contradictions, and allows one to transcend their specific material conditions to define themselves as something greater than a materially or economically determined actor. The blues allows for representation of the metaphysical, and is an art form that constantly points towards the production of new modes of interpretation and representation. This makes blues particularly suited to being the basis for Ellison's critique of traditional pragmatist thought as he works to push pragmatism toward a schema which allows for a more wholistic pluralism and the recognition of a greater array of subjectivities
Who gets ‘Developed’ in Development Finance? Historical Political Economy of the World Bank and Chinese Lending in Zambia
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/32d4b09f-a034-4d65-9b71-acc4640dd77c/thumb/128.jpgDevelopment finance (DF) has a double significance for both the borrowers and creditors. This work puts the two in conversation, with a particular emphasis on the latter - how do development finance projects complement creditor state’s strategies of accumulation? By conducting four case studies of loans extended to Zambia by two different DF entities--the World Bank (representing the United States, its largest shareholder) and the Chinese government--I analyze the difference in the characters of DF loans between the two institutions, and across different time periods. This study demonstrates that the types of loans extended by the World Bank and the Chinese government deeply reflect their respective Strategies of Accumulation (SA), which themselves change over time. The shift in the focus from physical assets in Case 1 to capital mobility in Case 3 reflects the United States’ progression from a globalized industrial accumulation to a globalized financial accumulation. On the other hand, the differences between Case 2 and Case 4 reflect China’s shifting needs from export expansion propelled by foreign exchange shortages (early stage of industrial accumulation) to an export expansion motivated by overcapacity (latter stage of industrial accumulation). World Bank lending had a more export-inducing character onto Zambia, where the maintenance of Zambia’s role as a copper producer was a motivating agenda, even at the expense of the loss of Zambia’s policy autonomy. Chinese lending featured a more commercial, import-inducing character for Zambia, where Zambia’s purchase of Chinese goods was the key feature across time. I find that while both institution introduce different kinds of risks to Zambia, Chinese lenders are more suitable for Zambia’s long-term development goals, as China’s own overcapacity problem arising from their current growth model compels them to find markets for their vast manufactured goods and industrial inputs, which Zambia will need in it pursuit for diversifying and industrializing its economy
Classical Simulation for Quantum Random Circuit Sampling in the Regime of Anti-concentration
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/8086a18d-aad9-41a7-b3ee-28413d0460cc/thumb/128.jpgIn this thesis, we explore what the RCS experiment actually entails and review the current literature on whether it can underpin a scalable experimental violation demonstrating quantum supremacy
A Construct-First Based Approach to a Selective Unification of Theories of Consciousness
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/1ba3f312-d02d-496a-9151-e9895fe0b048/thumb/128.jpgThe study of consciousness provides a constant source of intrigue and fascination in those who venture into it, resulting in a huge quantity of theories regarding its true nature. With these theories often claiming to be incompatible with each other, one approach that has been taken to make sense of this phenomenon, known as adversarial collaboration, aims to directly test the specific predictions of these theories against each other within the same experimental design. While this approach is informative and aids in evaluating these specific predictions, it places too much emphasis on the differences between theories, rather than their potential similarities. An alternate approach referred to as the Construct-First Based Approach, proposed by Fazekas et al. (2023), instead suggests that theories should be compared and contrasted by their most central constructs and the lower level constructs that serve them, representing the core argument at the center of each theory. Through this, researchers can examine the overlap between the central constructs of each theory and focus on these spaces in shaping further empricial research. The current study uses a PRISMA literature review in order to conduct an initial attempt at unification of four major theories of consciousness: Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Attention Schema Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and Unlimited Associative Learning. The main topics on which theories are evaluated are the evolution of consciousness, why some systems are conscious while others or not, and how other processes relate to consciousness. The result of this is a unification that brings together the central constructs of these theories under one theoretical framework that stresses the importance of the biological drive to survive and flexible action and decision making on the shaping and evolution of consciousness and of phenomenological experience of current conscious systems
The Makings of a Good Birth
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/b2fe73b9-d067-41cc-9952-363d0e228df8/thumb/128.jpgIn this thesis, I will examine aspects of what makes a good birth using the three methods of birth care model developed by Robbie Davis-Floyd, a leading researcher in reproductive anthropology. In one of her most recent books, Ways of Knowing About Birth (2018), Davis-Floyd states that there are three paradigms of birth care, the technocratic model, the holistic model and the humanist model. These three models of care differ in their definitions of the human body, the relationship between the body and the mind and how to approach health care. In this thesis, I will be reviewing these methods of care and how they relate to the nine people I interviewed about their birth experience. I will also be looking at the question of what makes a good birth and how the women I interviewed answer this question. Through my research I found three aspects of what makes a good birth: expectations, support, and autonomy. I will be discussing each of these aspects, how they are used in the different methods of care, and using the interviews to support my analysis
A SPECC1L Protein: Biochemical Investigation of the Drosophila Homolog Split Discs
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/efe4acca-bbe2-48f8-8c6a-97e5d09c7c38/thumb/128.jpg"Cell migration and adhesion processes are facilitated by the cytoskeleton, a network of proteins surrounding the cell and capable of generating traction forces in the extra-cellular environment and within the cell. Control of the cytoskeleton by regulatory proteins is required for many processes dependent upon migration and adhesion: morphogenesis, wound healing, and the transport of cellular cargo. One such regulator is the Sperm Antigen with Coiled-Coil and Calponin Homology Domains 1-Like (SPECC1L) protein. SPECC1L is instrumental in maintaining/disassociating focal adhesions and driving cell movements in the migration of neural crest cells from the neural tube to the neural crest. Mutations in this protein have been linked to several morphogenic disorders, including Teebi hypertelorism and Opitz GGG/B syndrome. To contribute to the literature surrounding the function of SPECC1L, the Applewhite and Ahuja labs have turned their focus to a Drosophila homolog of SPECC1L, Split Discs (Spdi). Previous work has identified Spdi as a putative regulator of non-muscle myosin II (NMII), a significant cytoskeletal element. This thesis aims to use biochemistry and cell biology techniques to investigate the structure and function of Spdi. During this process, an optimized procedure for large-scale Drosophila S2R+ cell growth and endogenous Spdi expression was established, a set of buffer conditions that homogenously stabilized Spdi-GFP was optimized and determined, and a purification trial was attempted. Through a myriad of Spdi stability screening trials and the attempted purification, rampant aggregation or oligomerization of the protein was observed. It is hypothesized that this aggregation stems from the unstructured nature of the protein, with the entropy of the solvent driving long hydrophobic random loops to fold in on themselves. The next steps in the process of uncovering the structure and function of Spdi will turn toward the redesign of the Spdi plasmid and the coexpression of Spdi with prospective binding partners or chaperone proteins to aid in the maintenance of structural integrity.