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Thunderstorms, Linearity, and Climate Change: An Analysis of the Relationships Between Temperature, Precipitation, and Lightning in the Americas From 2018-2024
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/5636da60-12e6-425c-9e8c-44623a4f7647/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis compared monthly lightning, temperature, and precipitation data in North and South America by looking at the Amazon basin, the La Plata basin, and the Mississippi basin. Correlations between temperature, precipitation, and lightning were explored. In the Mississippi and La Plata basins positive linear correlation between precipitation and lightning was identified, in agreement with the literature. This work demonstrated that an exponential curve provided a better fit for the lightning and temperature correlation, particularly within the Mississippi basin, yielding an of 0.81. The Amazon basin data, and much of the literature, appeared more linear. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that the seasonal range of the temperatures in the Amazon is so small compared to the Mississippi, or due to the fact that the Amazon exists in a tropical region. The Amazon basin showed a scattered relationship to precipitation, likely due to the high amount of rain it experiences. Finally, a high linear correlation within the Mississippi and La Plata basins was found between lightning and a climate indicator found by multiplying temperature and precipitation together. This indicates that temperature precipitation could potentially be a useful metric in non-tropical regions when predicting lightning in climate models of global warming, or when testing the plausibility of the lightning predictions. These data sets consist of averages over large regions of space and time, and maps of lightning activity demonstrate that it is more localized. Further research could focus on correlations in particular times and places, or other factors like geographic features. It may also be interesting to contrast those results with regions outside of the river basins, as well as to include Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) data
A Krewe of White and Gold: Class and Gender in Mardi Gras Exclusive Membership Organizations
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/70843ea8-72fc-45da-824f-cc187b324068/thumb/128.jpgMardi Gras organizations in New Orleans are a mainstay of the cultural landscape and upbringing of white high society. These titans of the Carnival season have huge impact in the political sphere dating back to just after the American Civil War. Ties of white membership organized disparate bodies into a more unified social force which in turn created an outlet for reconstruction grievances and eventually direct political action. As society slowly but surely became more racially integrated these older organizations became guarantors of a specific type of purity or status. The goal of this thesis to provide legibility to reading into these organizations in both a political and linguistic sense. I argue that Mardi Gras organizations are rooted in a glorious past that is replicated in the present and that their trappings of status are legible in that they signal to aspects of organizational identity both public and private that are informed by a certain kind of demeanor and deference. This demeanor and deference set limitations on kinds of speech acts and their positioning towards the public and in so doing give a script on derived meaning. Thereby this thesis is positioned at a cross section between pollical and linguistic anthropology. It serves to position an obfuscated world front and center in the limelight
Corynoxine's Complicated Components: Towards Identification of a Synthetically Accessible Yet Pharmacologically Similar Analogue Through Molecular Docking
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/c41cb2b2-4109-4b9a-b145-45d3a7cc4bdc/thumb/128.jpgThe kratom plant is consumed for both stimulatory and opioid-like effects. The psychoactive compounds causing these effects are called alkaloids, of which there are over 50 unique kinds in Kratom. The compound corynoxine is a minor alkaloid in the plant possessing unique pharmacological properties, such as opioid-like antinociception without some of the adverse side effects associated with traditional opioids, such as respiratory depression. Unfortunately, the compound is difficult to synthesize, and the procedure requires the use of toxic reagents. In this thesis, we used molecular docking to predict the binding of brainstormed analogues to the Mu-opioid receptor in the search for a compound that is more synthetically accessible yet predicted to maintain desired pharmacological properties. Ultimately, we identified three compounds that satisfied these criteria based on our analysis of the generated binding predictions and began synthesis on the most structurally simple of the three. Future work should aim to test a wider array of compounds, perform more docking trials per compound, and attempt completion of the unfinished synthesis
My Life in U+2588
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/d17e70df-6516-477d-aaad-d774ca49c64c/thumb/128.jpgMy Life in U+2588 is a project that explores the long-lasting psychological and emotional impacts of cultural stereotypes and racism. Drawing from personal experiences as a Chinese American in a predominantly white town, this project explores how seemingly small and fleeting moments can have lasting effects on self-perception and mental health. Through an interactive website built using ASCII and Unicode, this project allows users to navigate through a world shaped by racial bias and invisibility. Users are invited to engage with these memories and reflections that illustrate the emotional impact of growing up under the weight of cultural stereotypes. This work aims to create space for empathy and introspection, both for those who have experienced similar struggles and for those who have not
Same As It Ever Was: The Function of Drugs and Nudity as Traditions in Liberal Arts Society
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/88a41de4-15f4-4159-a4ef-104c61d09a86/thumb/128.jpgI will be exploring the autonomy of students at Reed College through the topics of drug use and nudity during my last year here as a native anthropology student. My autoethnographic accounts are used to compare experiences with those of my alumni interlocutors which develops an understanding of the supposed personality of a “Reedie”: part of this personality is the love for spectacle being an important factor which contributes to the practices of drug use and nudity. I analyze previous and current practices of drugs, pressures to partake and the varying lack of discretion when it comes to use all which are dependent upon how school policies are enforced. Additionally, I unpack the integration of new students to the events of casual nudity and the instances of people with nudist tendencies, as well as what that all means in terms of student feelings, of both acceptance and security on campus. Within my two focal points, I want to emphasize student autonomy and its ever-changing relationship to the college as a whole and answer the question: What makes Reed College so different from other liberal arts communities and why does it have the reputation that it does
Closing the Loop: Introducing Transverse Patterning to a Transitive Inference Task
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/14932f3f-b4ce-457f-a58e-04ace82b9726/thumb/128.jpgForms of serial learning, the way in which items are conceptualized as being part of a list or having order, and in particular transitive inference (TI), have been found across a wide array of species, indicating that it is a widespread and deeply rooted process. Current models used to understand and predict behavior regarding serial learning are able to model TI, but not the related problem of transverse patterning (TP), which deals with a circularly ordered list such that there are no inherent terminal items. In this study, some participants transitioned from a typical TI task, where they were presented with a seven-item list and were trained to respond to adjacent pairs of items, to a TP task. Participants either received the information that the last item either ranked over the first item or received ambiguous feedback about the relationship between the terminal items. Both the introduction of TP to the task and the use of ambiguous feedback appear to have been disruptive to patterns found in TI tasks, such as the terminal item and symbolic distance effects. Participants who were introduced to TP continued to favor TI as a method of responding to ambiguous pairs, rather than switching entirely to a model of TP
Microglial dynamics and functions in the optic tectum of zebrafish larvae
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/04d2f882-4712-46fe-b7cd-038c36df1c98/thumb/128.jpgMicroglia are phagocytic cells that infiltrate the vertebrate nervous system where they contribute to synapse remodeling and removal of damaged or dying cells. In addition, microglia respond to and/or mediate neuroinflammation. To perform these various functions, microglia adopt a variety of physical and physiological states. It is unclear, however, how microglia rapidly change their states, shape, location, how frequently they divide, and whether their survival is related to their activity. For this study, we examined microglia dynamics within the developing or injured visual system of larval zebrafish. Specifically, we used confocal and lightsheet microscopy to document the dynamic changes in cell shape and motility of fluorescently labeled microglia in optic tecta of three different conditions: wild-type intact larvae, lakritz mutant larvae with no optic nerve, and larvae that had one eye removed to triggeroptic nerve degeneration. We found increased levels of microglial phagocytic activity in one-eyed fish compared to wild-type. For instance, the microglia appeared to rush into the degenerating optic nerve neuropil, round up, and consume degenerating cell debris. In lakritz mutants, microglia appeared more numerous than in wild-type, but did not appear to be overly phagocytic, adopting typical wild-type star-like shapes. Determining how microglia behave during development and injury contexts will paint a clearer picture of how their functions change during development and disease
Influences of Gender Dynamics and Sexual Orientation on Alcohol Offer Acceptance in Emerging Adults
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/366a9f02-d9b9-404e-9db3-b3f4a6d34885/thumb/128.jpgPrevious literature has shown that drinking behavior varies by both gender and sexual orientation. Additionally, research suggests that the gender composition of drinking group can influence an individual’s drinking behavior. The present study examined the possible association between perceived gender of an actor offering alcohol and a participants’ behavioral willingness (BW) to accept alcohol. Specifically, the study looked at whether the participant's gender match vs mismatch to the person offering alcohol was associated with participants BW scores. Furthermore, this study examined the possible association between the sexual orientation match/mismatch of the offeror and the participant, in terms of their potential as a romantic partner, and BW. Two hundred seventy-three emerging adults were recruited online and completed measures of their alcohol use/behavior before completing the C-SIDE, an auditory drinking simulation. While completing the C-SIDE participants BW were assessed for different alcohol offers. We found that cismen had higher BW to a gender mismatch then ciswomen. In terms of sexual orientation match/mismatch, there was a similar pattern where cismen had higher BW when there was a sexual orientation match compared to ciswomen. For GD people, results were generally inconclusive although they indicated that nonbinary people had higher BW to accept offers from those they perceived to be a gender mismatch. These findings suggest that gender plays a role in drinking behavior. Prevention strategies should be developed that target different gender groups, specifically cismen and transgender populations as they had the highest BW scores across groups
Fata Morgana
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/ecf13e9e-095d-4fa9-943e-91f64a6fa2d0/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis examines photography as a medium defined by an inherent tension between documentation and abstraction. Beginning with the invention of flash photography by L. Ibbetson in 1839, I trace how the flash serves as both literal technology and conceptual metaphor for photography's fundamental nature. Building on Ulrich Baer's theory that the photograph captures an "absent original," I explore how photography creates a form of deferred presence—a moment that enters conscious experience only after it has passed. Through analyses of Étienne-Jules Marey's chronophotography, I consider Walter Benjamin's concept of the "optical unconscious," where photography makes visible aspects of reality imperceptible to the human eye, demonstrating that photography does not merely reproduce perception but transforms it. This transformation manifests in what I term photography's "blinding flash," a paradoxical condition wherein increased documentation leads toward abstraction rather than realism. The chapter concludes by showing how František Kupka's pioneering abstract painting Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colors (1912) metabolizes chronophotography's insights, suggesting that an object's presence emerges through its spatiotemporal traces—much like Derrida's notion of différance, where meaning emerges through deferral and difference. The second chapter shifts focus to documentary photography and its complex relationship to aesthetic discourse. Drawing on Rosalind Krauss's analysis of photography as simulacrum, I investigate how the photograph functions in Gilles Deleuze's sense: not as a degraded copy but as a positive power that undermines the hierarchical distinction between original and reproduction. This simulacral quality becomes evident in Agnes Varda's "Une minute pour une image" experiment, which exposes the photograph's awkward oscillation between objective documentation and subjective interpretation. I then analyze photojournalistic images that function as political gestures in Georges Didi-Huberman's sense—where suspension and aim create dialectical tension between static posture and directional force. The chapter concludes with an extended analysis of Richard Drew's Falling Man photograph from September 11, 2001. Tracing its complex reception—from initial public rejection through eventual acceptance as an essential document—I explore photography's perpetual negotiation between document, abstraction, and beauty. In the third chapter, I turn to Werner Herzog's experimental film Fata Morgana (1971) as a meditation on the limits of representation. The film inhabits the space between documentary and fiction; this dual articulation exemplifies what Herzog later formalized as "ecstatic truth"—a concept that acknowledges the impossibility of achieving truth through purely factual representation. I analyze how Fata Morgana's formal strategies systematically unsettle representational authority. The desert mirage—the optical illusion that gives the film its name—serves as the perfect metaphor for photography's ontological condition. Neither pure fantasy nor straightforward reality, the mirage exists as a physical phenomenon of light that can be mechanically recorded yet deviates from perceptual reality
Examining the Validity and Prevalence of Mastery Avoidance in Higher Education Settings
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/5a5c84d2-76e1-4a14-8d76-d784006a22ef/thumb/128.jpgPrevious literature has pointed to Mastery Avoidance (MAV) goal items not being valid or reliable measures in achievement goal research. However, the goal of this research was to determine if mastery avoidance could instead be better represented within populations by breaking it up into its two main components: MAV-Task, and MAV-Intrapersonal. Reed College was specifically used as a population of interest due to the college’s high emphasis on academic mastery, and strong orientation towards learning for learning’s sake. Participants completed a modified achievement goal questionnaire from Madjar et al. (2011) that included both elements of mastery avoidance, in addition to performance approach, performance avoidance, and mastery approach goals. The data showed that Reed students generally had higher acceptance of MAV goal items compared to the Madjar et al. (2011) 's participants. However, surprisingly, there was no correlation between any of the achievement goals, including the two mastery avoidance goals, and the negative outcomes measured in the study (burnout, psychosomatic stress, affect). These findings provide potential insight into how much achievement goals impact individuals, and to what extent that impact can be felt