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John Gardner’s Grendel: The Importance of Community in Making Moral Art
Get PDFJohn Gardner’s Grendel examines the ways in which humans make meaning out of their lives. By changing the original Beowulf monster into a creature who constantly questions the conflicting narratives set before him, Gardner encourages us to confront these tensions also. However, his emphasis on Grendel’s alienation helps us realize that community is essential to creating meaning. Most obviously, community creates relationships that foster a sense of moral obligation between its members, even in the face of the type of uncertainty felt by Grendel. Moreover, community cannot exist without dialogue, which perpetually stimulates the imagination to respond to the tensions contained in a plurality of viewpoints. Gardner encourages us to question narratives which no longer serve us and to use our imagination to tell new stories that cultivate positive ideals such as love and hope
Timelocked: A Thesis
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The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the development and execution of the short film, Timelocked. I will focus on the complete process of the film’s creation, from the first inspiration of the idea through its planning, its production and, finally, its use beyond submission to my thesis committee for consideration. The most significant challenge for this project was remaining true to the story’s genre, tone, and theme throughout each iteration of its development. Therefore, the structure of the paper will serve to describe the entire process with respect to the preservation of these three aspects. My goal is to prove mastery in the fine art of film production by creating a film which effectively shows deep understanding of the time-travel sub-genre of science-fiction films, while subverting that sub-genre in a unique way, causing an emotional effect in the audience
Museum of Mercy
Get PDFThis is a collection of free-verse poetry focusing on themes of family, sexuality, community, and the body, viewed through the context of the poet\u27s other work as a massage therapist
The development and evaluation of small specialized turtle excluder devices to reduce sea turtle bycatch in various small shrimp gears
Get PDFIn the southeastern United States, skimmer trawls, pusher-head trawls, wing nets, and small try nets (headrope length less than 12-ft (3.66-m)) are exempt from using a turtle excluder device (TED) and instead must adhere to tow time restrictions as a mode to mitigate sea turtle bycatch. However, observer and stranding data indicate that these tow times may often be exceeded and result in mortality of sea turtles. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published a notice of proposed rulemaking in December 2016 to extend TED requirements to other trawl types, however there has been limited development of specialized TEDs for these smaller trawls. In anticipation of a regulatory change, we developed and identified multiple versions of a top-opening TED with a minimum width of 28-in (71-cm) and height of 24-in (61-cm) as the best option for small trawl gears. Prototypes were initially equipped within small try nets and tested for gear performance and sea turtle exclusion in Panama City, Florida. The final designs were then tested for target shrimp retention, bycatch reduction, and general usability of TEDs in the commercial fisheries. A paired comparison test was conducted in 8-ft (2.44-m) and 10-ft (3.05-m) try nets aboard the NMFS R/V Caretta, three commercial skimmer trawls in vesselsFarfantepenaeus duorarum) fishery. There was a general reduction of shrimp and bycatch averaging from a minimum loss of 3.31% in the Miami wing net fishery (FV FL-01) to 22.07% in the skimmer trawl fishery (FV LA-01). This dissertation research indicates that TEDs can function properly in small trawl types, however additional studies are recommended to minimize the shrimp loss and improve the overall TED effectiveness specific to each fishery and trawl type evaluated
Formulation of Hybrid Knowledge-Based/Molecular Mechanics Potentials for Protein Structure Refinement and a Novel Graph Theoretical Protein Structure Comparison and Analysis Technique
Get PDFProteins are the fundamental machinery that enables the functions of life. It is critical to understand them not just for basic biology, but also to enable medical advances. The field of protein structure prediction is concerned with developing computational techniques to predict protein structure and function from a protein’s amino acid sequence, encoded for directly in DNA, alone. Despite much progress since the first computational models in the late 1960’s, techniques for the prediction of protein structure still cannot reliably produce structures of high enough accuracy to enable desired applications such as rational drug design. Protein structure refinement is the process of modifying a predicted model of a protein to bring it closer to its native state. In this dissertation a protein structure refinement technique, that of potential energy minimization using hybrid molecular mechanics/knowledge based potential energy functions is examined in detail. The generation of the knowledge-based component is critically analyzed, and in the end, a potential that is a modest improvement over the original is presented.
This dissertation also examines the task of protein structure comparison. In evaluating various protein structure prediction techniques, it is crucial to be able to compare produced models against known structures to understand how well the technique performs. A novel technique is proposed that allows an in-depth yet intuitive evaluation of the local similarities between protein structures. Based on a graph analysis of pairwise atomic distance similarities, multiple regions of structural similarity can be identified between structures independently of relative orientation. Multidomain structures can be evaluated and this technique can be combined with global measures of similarity such as the global distance test. This method of comparison is expected to have broad applications in rational drug design, the evolutionary study of protein structures, and in the analysis of the protein structure prediction effort
A Machine Learning Assessment to Predict the Sediment Transport Rate Under Oscillating Sheet Flow Conditions
Get PDFThe two-phase flow approach has been the conventional method designed to study the sediment transport rate. Due to the complexity of sediment transport, the precisely numerical models computed from that approach require initial assumptions and, as a result, may not yield accurate output for all conditions. This research work proposes that Machine Learning algorithms can be an alternative way to predict the processes of sediment transport in two-dimensional directions under oscillating sheet flow conditions, by utilizing the available dataset of the SedFoam multidimensional two-phase model. The assessment utilized linear regression and gradient boosting algorithm to analyze the lowest average mean squared error in each case and search for the best partition method based on the domain height of the simulation setup
Structural connectivity and immunological correlates of emotion processing in children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome
Get PDFNeurological abnormalities are associated with emotion processing deficits seen in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Research suggests that inflammatory mechanisms can negatively impact brain structure and function and are thought to play a role in these processing atypicalities. Children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) exhibit emotion processing impairments and associated neural abnormalities. We investigated the roles of inflammatory factors and structural connectivity in relation to emotion processing deficits in 28 children with 22q11.2DS and 33 typically developing children (M = 11.12 years old; SD = 2.17). Results indicate poorer social skills and significantly lower emotion recognition scores in children with 22q11.2DS compared to controls. Additionally, children with 22q11.2DS had higher anisotropic diffusion in right amygdala to fusiform gyrus white matter pathways and lower serum IL-3 concentrations than their typically developing peers. Right amygdala to fusiform gyrus FA values partially mediated the relationship between 22q11.2DS and social skills, as well as the relationship between 22q11.2DS and emotion recognition accuracy. However, there was no indication that IL-3 mediated the relationship between diagnosis and abnormal connectivity. Future studies should employ longitudinal methods to characterize how these connectivity patterns influence social-emotional development as the child ages
Teachers\u27 Perceptions of How the Teacher Evaluation Process Impacts Classroom Instruction in Three High Poverty School Districts
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Improving the educational system for students and teachers is of the upmost importance. Educational leaders have realized that the best way to improve student success is by improving teachers’ instructional practices and measuring their effectiveness (Mathers, Oliva, & Laine, 2008). Because of this awareness, educators have realized the importance of connecting student achievement with instructional practices and instructional practices with teacher effectiveness. Evaluation tools are used to measure how effective teachers are in their classrooms. Evaluations are crucial in assisting our teachers in their professional growth. When evaluations are utilized as supportive tools, they help teachers and administrators identify strengths and weakness, but more importantly they prescribe strategies to assist teachers in improvement.
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of the evaluation systems and understand if and how they influence classroom instructional practices. The participants consisted of twelve teachers in the state of Louisiana. Data was extracted through semi-structured interviews and coded for common themes. Through these themes, the researcher formed a narrative format to voice the participants’ experiences. The study concludes that teacher evaluation has minimal influence on instructional practice. Data suggested issues with the design of evaluation systems, the implementation of such systems, and the basic challenge of using a single system to evaluate all teachers regardless of personal or workplace characteristics