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What Causes Youth Unemployment in China?
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/2d37c801-4818-44fa-8510-ac785ddccacc/thumb/128.jpgThis paper aims to examine the factors that influenced the youth unemployment rate in China using national-level data from the NBS and ILOestimated data. For econometric models, the paper used Newey-West models on levels and first differences. For each model, I used either the youth unemployment rate or the difference between youth unemployment and total unemployment rate as the dependent variable to explore what makes the two dependent variables fluctuate with the period from 2000 to 2019 on the same baseline model. Across all the models, the ratio of SOE to Private Sector employment becomes the most significant indicator, suggesting that more people employed in the SOE sector compared to the private sector is associated with a lower youth unemployment rate and a lower difference between youth unemployment and total unemployment rate in China. Moreover, the ratio of Uni Grads to 4 years of Previous High School Grads is significant when estimating the Youth Minus Total Unemployment Rate; the Manufacturing Share of Employment is significant when estimating the Youth Unemployment. It suggests that more people graduating from universities and being employed in the manufacturing share is associated with a lower youth unemployment rate in China
Arktoi
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/2031a915-28b0-42a7-a654-9c4a083c8e4e/thumb/128.jpgArktoi is a character driven science fiction graphic novel exploring the industrialization of good intentions within the American government and the sciences. Set in the near future, defined by speculative technologies, and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, the story is told through found family, and coming of age, and seeks to explore how American capitalism and super- power status corrupts the institutions it is built upon. The sciences in the United States are often funded and incentivized by war. With vested interests in perpetuating conflict to continue its lineage of colonial projects, advancements in the sciences are often prioritized when they may aid in war. And yet the sciences are also rich with individuals attempting to make the world they inhabit a better place. This conflict drives this project. Well intentioned people are often only given the opportunity to do good by their communities by propping up these corrupt systems, and so the overarching conflict of these characters is coming to terms with their own complicity within these systems. Apocalyptic narratives are important to tell as our own futures and presents edge ever nearer disaster. Dystopic, apocalyptic landscapes are here, and present in our real world. It is our responsibility to address them, and to be spurred to action before we allow them to progress. It is vital to me that the story focuses on the human heart at the core of these conflicts. Presenting a dystopia or apocalypse on its own is not enough, there needs to be demonstrable change, and the hope that change is possible, even if it is incredibly taxing. Nothing is easy for anyone in this story, but that is because if we keep expecting change to be easy, real change will never be accomplished. And despite how bleak things may look, there is hope, undeniably, that there is still good to come of this. The purpose of the narrative is to drive action, and the purpose of the medium is to make that action visible, and accessible
Transmission of an Electron through a Saddle Potential
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/f3c5626f-58cb-473f-8718-93082def5458/thumb/128.jpgIn this thesis we examine the transition between localized and delocalized 2D electron states in a disordered electrostatic potential, under the influence of a strong out-of-plane magnetic field. In particular, we investigate the transmission and reflection of electrons through a saddle point of the potential. We show that, through a sequence of coordinate transformations, the quantum mechanical Hamiltonian for this system can be decomposed into a sum of commuting Hamiltonians for harmonic oscillator and inverted harmonic oscillator potentials in the new coordinates. Next, we examine the inverted harmonic oscilattor states by approximating the inverted harmonic oscillator potential with a Pöschl-Teller potential and use the Born series in one dimension to construct an integral approximation to the scattering solutions. Finally, we consider the scattering within the framework of the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics, and we compute the Wigner transform of the approximate scattering states, in an attempt to probe the classical-quantum correspondence
A Migrating Protocol! Myotube migration in Drosophila Testes
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/32397bc4-c988-4cd5-99f5-64a24e7e5e23/thumb/128.jpgCell-cell fusion and migration is critical to the conception, development and physiology of all multicellular organisms. The Drosophila testis has recently been used as a model of looking at myogenesis, or the fusion of myoblast cells into myotubes through a process called Contact Inhibition based filopodial migration. This thesis was created as a way to onboard future collaborators on this new model system at Reed college in the Applewhite lab! This method outlines a systematic and narrative approach for dissecting and imaging Drosophila testes to study development and migration. Part of the ‘onboarding’ includes understanding actin dynamics within these tissues. Actin's role in cell migration, adhesion, and structural integrity is crucial in developmental biology. Using live-cell imaging and fluorescent markers specific to actin filaments, we visualized and analyzed actin's spatiotemporal dynamics during testes development and migration. This allowed us to observe important actin-based protrusions like Lamellipodia and filopodia, which are vital for cellular movement and tissue formation
Investigating Uniform Point Distributions on the Sphere with Constrained Dynamics
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/fec50724-fb98-4838-b6b9-da8db505bbdd/thumb/128.jpgThe generation of uniform distributions of points on the sphere is a ubiquitous problem encountered throughout many branches of science and mathematics, unfortunately lacking a general solution due to limits imposed by the geometry of surface. Unlike conventional approaches, we present a method for generating novel, approximately uniform distributions on the sphere which reframes the problem as one of minimizing the energies of N equal charges. Specifically, beginning from a random initial configuration, we dynamically model the charges’ motion along the surface of the sphere as they rearrange themselves by their mutual electric interactions. Then, by introducing a linear damping force, we gradually sap energy from the system, slowing the charges until they eventually come to rest in a minimal energy configuration. Although we found this technique to be generally successful in producing valid minimal energy and approximately uniform solutions, significant drawbacks, such as its O(N^2) timing or inability to explore multiple local energy minima, limit its practicality to applications which require only a small number of points N
Believers Only In This Thread: Making (Religious) Meaning from Video Game Secret-Seeking
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/bfd67838-d87e-4a13-943f-f116917b699c/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis explores the 2022 “Nier church incident,” wherein a user on the subreddit for the video game Nier: Automata began posting credible videos claiming he had discovered a previously-unknown secret area within the game, and the burst of passionate fan responses that followed. Pulling from examples such as rabbinic Midrash, biblical canon creation, and the famous Shadow of the Colossus secret-seeking forum thread, I argue that the Nier church incident provides a window into a possible religious studies framework for understanding video game secret-seeking as an act that lends itself to quasi-religious communal orientation, interpretation, and meaning-making. These video game community behaviors parallel religious traditions in a way that suggests that these forms of meaning-making are not limited to what we might consider traditionally religious practices
A Postulation on the Role of Drosophila Protein Split Discs in Focal Adhesion Assembly
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/a7713729-aac9-4904-8dd7-05866dc1272c/thumb/128.jpgThe cell's ability to adhere to the extracellular matrix (ECM) is foundational to many cellular processes including cell migration and organogenesis. Integrins are transmembrane ECM receptors that once bound to ECM ligands trigger the formation of plaque-like structures called focal adhesions. Focal adhesions are made up of over 120 different proteins that facilitate interaction between integrins and the actin cytoskeleton. As a result, colocalization with focal adhesions is a strong indicator that a protein is important for cell function and movement, and mutations in these proteins are often associated with disease (Wu, 2007). Mutations in human cytoskeletal protein Sperm Antigen with Coiled Coil and Calponin Homology Domains 1-Like (SPECC1L) have a significant impact on neural crest cells, and as a result have been linked to a wide range of congenital craniofacial disorders including oblique facial clefts (Tessier clefts), Opitz G/BBB syndrome, and Teebi hypertelorism syndrome (Zhang, et al., 2020). Once neural crest cells are migratory, they must be able to traverse complex and difficult environments consisting of the ECM, its associated proteins and other cells (Leonard and Taneyhill, 2019). This makes focal adhesion dynamics especially important to the migration of cranial neural crest cells. Recently, the Applewhite lab has engineered several point mutations in a Drosophila homolog of SPECC1L known as Split Discs, which mirror the human alleles associated with these craniofacial disorders. Imaging with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy revealed high degrees of colocalization between wild type Split Discs and focal adhesion protein Vinculin. Mutant G915S was also found to colocalize, while mutant Q266P showed a lack of colocalization. Given that Q266P is located on the second coiled coil domain, these findings allow for the postulation that the second coiled coil domain is necessary for Split Disc activity in focal adhesions
Scaling Explainable Artificial Intelligence Filtering and Approximations for Influence Functions for Large Language Models
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/62766494-0306-494d-b079-2a10c3d53f7f/thumb/128.jpgLarge language models are a recent ground-breaking development in machine learning, but their behavior is poorly understood. The field of explainability aims to produce methods for better understanding machine learning models. One such method the use of influence functions, which estimate the impact of a training datapoint. Due to the large size of the models involved, several strategies are required to apply influence functions in the large language model setting. One such strategy is filtering the training data for potentially relevant documents; a new filtering heuristic is proposed
My Grandma Thinks I'm Digging in the Swamp: Nostalgic Practice as Survivance
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/49701a94-832e-42b6-a8b5-d6412c078846/thumb/128.jpg"This project asks the question: How does shrimping shape the way Creole-Cajuns construct their identity and their experiences of space-time? This study is shaped by Audre Lorde’s (1984) erotic framework. Recognizing the confines within which the research has manifested as a Reed College thesis, this project incorporates a balance of academic writing as well as personal prose and multimodal ethnography. The first chapter outlines the colonial migration histories that led to the formation of the Creole-Cajun identity. It incorporates historical accounts from scholars and researchers, as well as the personal and oral histories of the researcher and their family. Further, this chapter constructs a narrative surrounding the foundation of the shrimping industry in Southern Louisiana, as well as the current factors contributing to its decline. The second chapter is a film-based ethnography, with an accompanying transcription, which delves deeper into the circumstances contributing to the decline of the shrimping industry and the importance of shrimping to Creole-Cajun identity and heritage formations. The third chapter is a discussion on shrimping as nostalgic practice and a tactic of survivance, in conversation with the pristine myth, contrasting local understandings of space-time and thus their means of self-actualization. This study finds that shrimping can be categorized as a nostalgic practice enacted as a tactic of survivance by Creole-Cajuns, as influenced by the colonial migration histories that produced their identity. Creole-Cajuns understand themselves in relation to their surrounding landscape, which amid the global climate crisis, poses threat to their identity through the destruction of land that they are ancestrally tied to.
Aristotle's Teleology and Craft-Nature Distinction
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/e07d0ba0-919b-449a-8fca-3cda9681465e/thumb/128.jpgIf we are to assess the merits of teleology, we would do well to first get clear about what the concept means. One of the best places to look for a thorough example of teleology is in the ancient philosopher Aristotle, where teleology is employed in a systematic way, encompassing nearly all domains of the world, from plants to humans to crafts to God. Our first aim is to determine which phenomena Aristotle considers to be teleological. I argue that he understands 1) processes of generation and production, 2) intermediate steps in processes, and 3) divine imitation to all be teleological. A second aim is to understand how Aristotle leverages the craft-nature analogy in order to illustrate how nature is teleological, and then to ultimately assert the teleological priority of nature over craft. The pursuit of these two aims will often be intertwined since Aristotle makes such frequent use of the craft-nature analogy in his teleological explanation. I also argue that the teleology of divine imitation is the center and foundation of Aristotle's teleology. All living things reproduce in order to be eternal like God, and this goal in turn explains their generation true to form. Crafts all have their specific products which in turn facilitate the human good of contemplating and being like God. Imitating God is the ultimate end of all living beings, of humans, and even (albeit indirectly) of craft. A brief look at the secondary literature on Aristotle's teleology reveals a neglect of this central role of God in Aristotle's teleological picture. Finally, in conclusion, I will use these insights to draw some comparisons with Descartes—an important figure in the rejection of teleology and in the deployment craft-nature analogy—to begin to see how we might have arrived at the present situation in which teleology is a relatively unfamiliar and underappreciated concept