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A Moment of Failure: The Debate Surrounding the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks
Get PDFFollowing the Cuban Missile Crisis, many in the United States and the Soviet Union believed their leaders had narrowly avoided nuclear annihilation. In response to this crisis, however, American and Soviet citizens asked more questions about nuclear weapons and their spread than ever before, well into the 1970s, and toward the decade of détente, or “de-escalation” between the superpowers. The term détente first appeared in writings from 1912, as France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to ease the tension before World War I.1 However, it is more famous in its use in Cold War foreign policy. The term détente was popularized by the Nixon administration, and specifically by National Security Advisor (and later Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger, in 1969.
During the 1970s, the two superpowers sought to limit their nuclear arsenals through the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks of 1972 and 1979 (SALT I and II). Following the success that SALT I had in de-escalating nuclear tensions, Soviet and American government officials continued to meet for the rest of the decade to work on a second round of talks. Ultimately, it took seven years, but U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II treaty in the summer of 1979, intending to start a third round of negotiations within two to three years. This treaty proved to be a turning point in the relations between the two Cold War superpowers, and a thorn in the side for both the American and Soviet governments. Regardless of what the Soviets were doing as far as nuclear technology, SALT II had a fundamental weakness due to the internal debate in the United States government between the “hawks” and the “doves” on the issue.
Divisions existed within the U.S. government over whether the SALT II treaty would deter the Soviets. This divide even extended to within the Carter administration, as his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, frequently clashed on how best to handle the issue. Carter’s inexperience in politics on the national stage arguably exacerbated tensions between himself, his cabinet members, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This thesis has several key parts. First, it provides a historical background by discussing a history of arms control, including the early Cold War and SALT I, which was widely considered a successful model of negotiation. Then, it reviews the material content of SALT II. Finally, this paper examines the conflict between the two sides of the issue in the United States.
On one side, the usually conservative “hawks” sought a counterforce agenda, which advocated for stronger restrictions on the Soviets, out of fear of looking weak. On the other side, several prominent progressives, known as the “doves”, sought complete disarmament by both sides, more of a bilateral agreement, and open communication between the two rival superpowers
The Experiences of Postsecondary Students with Disabilities Utilizing One Stop Student Services: A Grounded Theory Approach
Get PDFThe number of students with disabilities attending postsecondary institutions of higher education continues to rise. With it, it is necessary to understand better how they experience their institution beyond curricular spaces. Presently, there exists a gap in the knowledge of how these students experience co-curricular support, including assistance with enrollment services through one stops. This study sought to understand the multiple ways in which this population of students experiences the one stop at one of three four-year public research universities in California. This qualitative research study utilized the constructivist grounded theory methodology and methods to aid in the emergence of the various dimensions in which students with disabilities experience their institution’s one stop. Through focused semi-structured interviews, these shared perspectives demonstrated that although one stops provide some support to postsecondary students with disabilities, they are not being utilized consistently with their purpose. This study identified that the origin of this inconsistency may be due to one of multiple issues, including a misunderstanding of communication between the one stop and this population of students. These incongruencies seemingly push postsecondary students with disabilities to seek support elsewhere
The Beginning of the End: The Cultivation of Transchronological Perceptuality in \u3cem\u3eArcadia\u3c/em\u3e and “Story of Your Life”
No full textThis thesis explores the spatio-temporal landscapes of Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Both authors engage with intersections between past, present, and future, challenging readers to reframe the conventions of linear chronology in favor of a fluid, palimpsestic approach to time and space that reflects the past and future’s ongoing influence in constructing our impression of the “now.” To illustrate this temporal blending, Chiang and Stoppard implement alternative language modes predicated upon visual and sensory rhetorics, centralizing the politics of human perception as dually illuminating and obfuscating reality. This project employs an interdisciplinary approach, adopting elements of literary, thermodynamic, and astrophysical theory as avenues for interpreting the structure and content of both texts. This mixed-discipline approach also aids in navigating both authors’ philosophical positionalities with respect to the relationship between human will and determinism. While both Chiang and Stoppard affirm some degree of inevitability in the future’s unfolding, there remains a degree of entropy embedded in both texts that allows for a more optimistic reading of both texts’ respective conclusions, one wherein human agency exists in an ongoing dialectic with the force of an essential or universal destiny
The Perception of Children as Reliable Eyewitnesses
Get PDFEyewitness accounts have been integral to the criminal justice system. However, given that not every criminal case has forensic evidence that is available or admissible, the reliance on eyewitness accounts conjures questions about believability. This is an important area of research because the over-belief of witnesses may lead to wrongful convictions, yet under-belief may leave the victim without justice. The current study investigated how child-witness age, race, role as a witness (bystander versus victim), and the gender of the juror influenced the perception of child eyewitnesses through the lens of the Witness Credibility Model. Participants were presented with the testimony of a child bystander or victim, who varied in age and race, and were asked to rate how believable they found the child to be. This study hypothesized that participants would find the younger children, the Black children, and the child bystanders as less believable than the older children, the White children, and the child victims. Additionally, female participants were predicted to believe the child eyewitness more than the male participants. Only the hypothesis about juror gender was supported. These results provide some evidence for the idea that the believability of a child eyewitness may partially depend on the person perceiving them, which calls forth the need to eliminate bias in the criminal justice system by enforcing diverse juries
Formalization of ∞-Category Theory
No full textThe field of category theory has served as an excellent tool to unify and translate between constructions and theorems across different subfields in mathematics, but also computer science and physics.
Informally, a category is a structure that models composition (e.g. of functions, transformations, processes, or algorithms). In many settings (e.g. algebraic geometry, quantum field theory, and homotopy theory) composition is not given by a well-defined function but rather up to higher-dimensional topological data. This gives rise to the notion of ∞-category, an infinite-dimensional structure.
I will introduce the main elements of a formal language to reason about ∞-categories in a synthetic way. The language is an extension of homotopy type theory à la Voevodsky and Awodey–Warren. This constitutes an alternative, arguably more slick foundational system than set theory. Moreover, the new proof assistant Rzk implements this formal language. If time permits, I\u27ll outline the ideas and computer formalization of the Yoneda Lemma, the fundamental theorem of category theory. This result turns out to be easier to prove for ∞-categories in the synthetic setting than for 1-categories in classical set theory. The material is based on joint work with Buchholtz, Gratzer, Kudasov, and Riehl
“Everybody Loves a Conjurer:” The Fake Artworks of Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976) and their Consequences on the Art World
Get PDFArt institutions such as museums, galleries, and auction houses have for many years been characterized as reliable and trustworthy. The act of art forgery threatens this integrity and causes these institutions to rethink how they acquire artworks. My research focuses on a specific art forger, Elmyr de Hory, who became notorious for being able to reproduce works in the style of notable artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani. By successfully selling his forgeries to multiple museums and galleries, only to be discovered later, de Hory forced institutions to reconstruct their approaches in authenticating and acquiring works of art. As part of my research, I reached out to Mark Forgy, a close friend of de Hory who has published a biography of de Hory as well as curated exhibitions about art forgery. Thanks to the undergraduate scholarly/creative grant, I was able to travel to Minneapolis where I met with Forgy, conducted multiple interviews, and toured his extensive collection of de Hory’s works. My research intends to lay out the causes and consequences of acquiring fake artworks. Some questions addressed in my research include the following: Why do so many museums fail to recognize fake artworks? What does this failure say about the value we attribute to art and to artists – that is, if we can\u27t tell the difference between real and fake works, why does art matter? How does the acquisition of fraudulent artworks impact the museums and galleries that bought them, and the scholars who study them? Overall, I address the question of whether and how the work of Elmyr de Hory changed the way art galleries and museums acquire and analyze art today
Sufferance for Snuff Puffs: The Acceptability and Behavior of Smoking Marijuana and Tobacco Inside the House
Get PDFSecondhand smoke (SHS) released from indoor smoking contributes to household air pollution, releasing large quantities of fine particulate matter which can pose negative health outcomes, especially for developing children who spend most of their time at home. The increased legalization of marijuana increases its recreational and medicinal use along with its acceptability. With tobacco use remaining prevalent, the use of marijuana and/or tobacco remains common and may occur inside the home. Project Fresh Air conducted in San Diego County studies the air quality in households (n = 298) with at least one adult smoking tobacco and/or marijuana living with at least one child aged 14 and under (M = 4.06, SD = 3.58). As part of the project, an interview was conducted to understand the participants’ perception and habits of smoking, along with other activities that release fine particulate matter. The interview was conducted twice; first as a baseline measure, and the second after cessation efforts. This study aims to understand the acceptability of smoking marijuana and tobacco indoors, coded for by whether or not people are allowed to do so inside the participants’ home. This analysis will be done using a chi-square test, along with odds ratio to compare the perception of indoor smoking with the reality of the frequency of smoking inside the home, as well as other possible covariates. The results of this study can reveal the perception of harm of smoking marijuana or tobacco inside the home, and be further used to decrease household air pollution and the negative health outcomes associated with it
Cross-cousin Marriage Among Tsimane Forager–Horticulturalists During Demographic Transition and Market Integration
Get PDFAlthough still prevalent in many human societies, the practice of cousin marriage has precipitously declined in populations undergoing rapid demographic and socioeconomic change. However, it is still unclear whether changes in the structure of the marriage pool or changes in the fitness-relevant consequences of cousin marriage more strongly influence the frequency of cousin marriage. Here, we use genealogical data collected by the Tsimane Health and Life History Project to show that there is a small but measurable decline in the frequency of first cross-cousin marriage since the mid-twentieth century. Such changes are linked to concomitant changes in the pool of potential spouses in recent decades. We find only very modest differences in fitness-relevant demographic measures between first cousin and non-cousin marriages. These differences have been diminishing as the Tsimane have become more market integrated. The factors that influence preferences for cousin marriage appear to be less prevalent now than in the past, but cultural inertia might slow the pace of change in marriage norms. Overall, our findings suggest that cultural changes in marriage practices reflect underlying societal changes that shape the pool of potential spouses