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The Art of Idleness in Modern Literature
No full textThis dissertation argues that literature, from the late nineteenth century forward, takes on an important but often unnoticed cultural role: as a counter-voice against the pressures of work. In this period, we can observe, in a wide range of authors, a sharpening interest in idleness as a zone of experience that invites aesthetic pleasure and that can serve as a holdout against the disfiguring pressures of the capitalist economy. The writers featured in this dissertation ascribe a new importance to states of passivity, repose, daydream, and other forms of nonproductive absorption, suggesting that it is here, outside the bounds of work, where imagination and contemplation can survive in the modern world. In many of the literary works I consider—from Émile Zola’s novels of naturalism to the modernism of Bloomsbury and the Harlem Renaissance to the homoerotic aestheticism of Alan Hollinghurst—a decadent embrace of idleness and beauty supports a political critique of the centrality of work. These texts imagine how leisure can be more democratically distributed across the population.
The case studies I have assembled illustrate a range of hopes, or fantasies, about the possibilities of leisure. Idleness is imagined as a luxurious escape from the miseries of labor (Zola and other naturalist writers), as a pacifistic immersion in the pleasures of conversation and art, allowing for aesthetic, erotic, and economic experimentalism (the Bloomsbury Group), as a prerequisite for the freedom of movement and political participation long denied to black Americans (Vincent O. Carter, William Gardner Smith, and other black flaneur narratives), and as an arena of total aesthetic and erotic surrender (Hollinghurst). In each case, idleness and aesthetic experience are represented as mutually augmenting. And in each case, idleness is revealed to have reformist tendencies, expressing a yearning for an enlarged field of experience, and linked explicitly, in several of the works I examine, to projects of political change.
This dissertation traces an alliance between literature and idleness, arguing that the intensification and remaking of leisure is a key part of literature’s cultural work
The integration of antibody engineering with biomolecular interaction visualization tools for the reduction of sequence liabilities in the generation of therapeutic antibodies
No full textMonoclonal antibodies are a biological treatment option for hematological cancers that utilize both innovative modalities in conjunction with the function of the immune system. However, limitations with monoclonal antibodies from sequence liabilities in the binding domains can influence stability and manufacturing capabilities. The use of biomolecular interaction visualization tools may offer a theoretical method to modify known sequence liabilities from the binding domains of monoclonal antibodies with little effect on the overall structure and function of the antibody. To investigate this process, two antibodies of interest were selected, and the corresponding antibody sequences were analyzed using a biomolecular interaction visualization tool, altering the observed sequence liabilities. These modifications were assessed using antibody production and binding studies as a single monoclonal antibody, then as a bispecific antibody. A final set of bispecific antibodies were characterized by cell-based binding studies, confirming binding to corresponding cell lines at similar levels as the parental antibody sequences
Long-Term Impacts of Biochar and Mulch in a Compound Disturbed Lodgepole Pine Forest
No full textFires are a natural and important element of lodgepole pine forests, however severe fires can adversely impact soil productivity, or a soils’ ability to sufficiently support nutrient availability and plant growth, for decades after a wildfire. Compound disturbances, for example, when fire occurrences follow severe mountain bark beetle outbreaks, may reduce ecosystem resiliency by influencing soil biogeochemical processes and destroying seed sources. Organic soil amendments are often applied to manage post-fire erosion, but they also have short-term impacts on soil moisture and nutrient retention that may enhance recovery of native vegetation. Little is known about how woody residue treatments such as mulch and biochar impact long-term soil productivity in compound disturbed coniferous forests.
This research compared decade scale post-fire change in soil nutrients and understory plant cover and composition on six replicate burned hillslopes treated with 1) biochar, 2) wood mulch, 2) biochar + mulch and 4) an untreated control in a severely burned, beetle-killed lodgepole pine ecosystem in Colorado, USA. The site was in the gray-phase at the time of the 2010 Church’s Park fire and experienced significant overstory mortality. Both mulch and biochar were still evident a decade after treatment when they were resampled in 2023. Six replicate 5 x 5 m experimental plots that were moderately to severely burned and had similar pre-fire forest compositions were established in 2012, two years following the Church’s Park fire. Treatments of 37 t ha−1 of wood mulch, 20 t ha−1 of biochar, their combination, and an untreated burned control were randomly assigned within each treatment block. Soil moisture, nutrient pools, and plant cover were sampled in each plot in 2016 and 2023.
As observed in the first years after treatment, mulch increased soil moisture compared to unamended controls ten years later, though it had few residual impacts on soil N or cations. Conversely, biochar amendments increased total soil carbon, dissolved organic C in soil leachate and C:N ratios in both soil and leachate. Though biochar also elevated various dissolved and extractable soil N forms, it reduced net nitrification rates. Total understory plant cover has remained at ~40% since 2016 and the amendments had no significant effects on overall graminoid and forb cover. However, biochar doubled the cover of the dominant shrub Vaccinium scoparium in areas where it occurred. Conversely, mulch reduced the cover of most common forb, Oreochrysum parryi, by more than 50%.
These post-fire rehabilitation treatments had lasting impacts on water, N and C soils, and significant impacts on the abundance and cover of key understory species, but the long-term recovery of this ecosystem remains uncertain. As seen elsewhere in the Southern Rocky Mountain region where fire has burned bark beetle-killed forests, tree regeneration is extremely sparse within the burn scar and completely absent from the plots. Managers addressing changing climatic conditions and more frequent, severe disturbances would benefit from further research that evaluates whether these rehabilitation treatments enhance tree, shrub, and herbaceous plant establishment during active revegetation projects
Size and Charge Effects on Crossover of Flow Battery Reactants Evaluated by Quinone Permeabilities Through Nafion
No full textOrganic reactants are promising candidates for long-lifetime redox flow batteries, and synthetic chemistry unlocks a wide design space for new molecules. Minimizing crossover of these molecules through ion exchange membranes is one important design consideration, but the ways in which the crossover rate depends on the structure of the crossing species remain unclear. Here, we contribute a systematic evaluation of size- and charge-based effects on dilute-solution small molecule permeability through the Nafion NR212 cation exchange membrane. We found that increasing the magnitude of charge number z with the same sign as membrane fixed charges, achieved here by successive sulfonation of quinone redox cores, results in more than an order of magnitude permeability reduction per sulfonate. Size-based effects, understood by comparing the Stokes radii of the quinones studied, also reduces permeability with increasing effective molecule size, but doubling the effective size of the redox reactants resulted in a permeability decrease of less than a factor of three.Version of Recor
Search for massive particles producing all hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at the LHC with the ATLAS detector
No full textA search for massive particles giving rise to all hadronic decays to many jets is presented. The analysis selects events that pass a trigger based on the total and leading jet transverse momentum. A data sample of TeV proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS detector between 2015 and 2018, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of fb, is used for this search. The analysis deploys two techniques -- a traditional method that searches for an excess number of jets above a transverse momentum threshold and a new first of it's kind machine learning based mass resonance search. The standard model background is estimated for the jet counting method using data with scale factors derived from simulations, while that of the mass resonance method is entirely derived from data. A simplified R-parity-violating supersymmetric model is considered with a baryon number violating coupling . The observed yields are compatible with those expected from background processes. Results are presented as limits at \% confidence level on the model-independent cross section and interpreted as exclusion limits on scenarios with pair-production of prompt gluinos that decay via to six (direct) or ten (cascade) quarks in total. Gluinos with masses up to and TeV are excluded for the direct and cascade decay models, respectively
Bioelectronics for Cellular Electrophysiology during Tissue Development
No full textGaining insights from high spatiotemporal resolution electrophysiology studies of developmental biosystems, such as developing brains or organoids, is pivotal. These studies play a fundamental role in understanding the progression of biosystem development into functional entities and in uncovering the mechanisms underlying diseases that may arise during these processes. However, the technological aspect presents a substantial challenge. Achieving high spatiotemporal resolution in electrical signal acquisition often requires integrating bioelectronics with the biosystem. As developmental biosystems frequently undergo rapid volumetric expansion and significant changes in tissue morphology, conventional microelectronics encounter limitations when attempting to investigate such dynamically changing environments accurately, compatibly, and durably.
The thesis commences with an exploration of the use of hydrogel as a neural interface (Chapter 1). Given its water-rich and tissue-like nature, hydrogel was investigated for its potential to accommodate tissue morphology changes. Our initial prototypes validated its effectiveness as a neural interface, although temporal resolution was lacking. Consequently, our attention shifted towards the emerging field of "tissue-like" mesh electronics, fueled by advancements in materials science, electronics, and bioengineering. We conceived the notion of integrating mesh electronics with biosystems during their developmental progression, not only to uniformly distribute bioelectronics across the system but also to record electrophysiological dynamics throughout the developmental phases. This concept was first put to the test in cardiac organoids (Chapter 2). We describe the creation of cyborg organoids: three-dimensional assemblies of flexible, stretchable mesh nanoelectronics orchestrated by the cell-cell attraction forces inherent in the 2D-to-3D tissue reconfiguration during organogenesis. The exploration of this idea extended to embryo systems (Chapter 3). We introduce a micrometer-thick, tissue-level soft mesh microelectrode array that seamlessly integrates into the neural plate of embryos (including frog, axolotl, and mouse) through the inherent 2D-to-3D tissue reconfiguration during organogenesis. Guided by the expansion and folding processes intrinsic to organogenesis, the stretchable mesh electrode array undergoes deformation, stretching, and dispersion throughout the entirety of the brain, achieving full integration within the complex 3D tissue structure. The resulting cyborg organoids and embryos, with their capacity for micrometer-scale, microsecond-resolution recording throughout the entirety of the developmental timeline, hold the potential to unveil novel opportunities within the realm of developmental biology
Yes, Literally, In My Backyard: The Effect of “Gently” Upzoning Single-Family Neighborhoods
No full textSingle-family zoning protects preferences of local residents but limits housing supply, driving up home and rent prices. I study an increasingly popular middle ground approach: allowing homeowners to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on their property. In 2016, the state of California legalized ADUs on most single-family lots in the state, overriding local regulations. Exploiting geographic variation between single- and two- and three-family zones, I find upzoning had a significant effect on ADU construction. A single-family zone experienced .04 to .05 more ADUs permitted than a two- or three-family zone. Furthermore, I find that supply constraints strongly predict ADU construction, suggesting ADUs are filling gaps in rental supply. However, a linear panel model shows that ADU construction is insufficient to decrease rent. Through a difference-in-difference estimation, I find no evidence that an ADU has a nuisance effect on nearby property values. My confidence interval excludes effects larger than three percent, qualifying previous literature
Tag-LLM: Repurposing General-Purpose LLMs for Specialized Domains
No full textLarge Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable proficiency in understanding and generating natural language. However, their capabilities wane in highly specialized domains underrepresented in the pretraining corpus, such as physical and biomedical sciences. This work explores how to repurpose general LLMs into effective task solvers for specialized domains. We introduce a novel, model-agnostic framework for learning custom input tags, which are parameterized as continuous vectors appended to the LLM’s embedding layer, to condition the LLM. We design two types of input tags: domain tags are used to delimit specialized representations (e.g., chemical formulas) and provide domain-relevant context; function tags are used to represent specific functions (e.g., predicting molecular properties) and compress function-solving instructions. We develop a three-stage protocol to learn these tags using auxiliary data and domain knowledge. By explicitly disentangling task domains from task functions, our method enables zero-shot generalization to unseen problems through diverse combinations of the input tags. It also boosts LLM’s performance in various specialized domains, such as predicting protein or chemical properties and modeling drug-target interactions, outperforming expert models tailored to these tasks.Computer ScienceVersion of Recor
Red, White, And Sushi: The Journey of Sushi in the United States from 1893-1960s
No full textThis thesis investigated the journey of sushi in the United States before the 1960s, which is when previous examinations of sushi claim that it made its first appearance in the United States. This study traced sushi’s expansion in the continental United States and the overlooked then-United States territory of Hawaii. After careful investigation, this research illustrates that sushi had been in the United States for more than sixty years before the popular narrative. Proof of this was accomplished by combing through newspaper articles in decades prior to the 1960s that provided recipes on how to prepare sushi and by examining advertisements for restaurants, carnivals, and school functions that offered sushi for purchase at these places. Cookbooks and menus before the 1960s were also inspected for mentions of sushi. My research revealed that as the years got closer to the 1960s, sushi became more and more prevalent in the U.S. media and became a topic of notoriety. However, it is clear from my research that sushi was present in American cuisine well before the 1960s