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Isolation and Determination of the Composition and Structural Components that Comprise Dissolved Organic Matter Using Normal Phase Liquid Chromatography
Get PDFA comprehensive understanding of the reactivity associated with organic carbon is critical for recognizing the behavior of newly formed compounds in aquatic environments. In an effort to study the reactivity of complex mixtures, understanding the different processes affiliated with them are key. Understanding the reactivity associated with organic carbon can help to improve chromatographic separation. Using a combination of light and heavy crude oil, a separation procedure was developed to obtain a complete representation of the aromatic subfraction of the crude oil sample. The crude oils were separated into four distinct fractions based on the number of condensed aromatic rings present (saturates, 1 -2 ring, 3 – 4 ring and 5+ ring). Each ring fraction was placed in thin films (30 μm) over nanopure water and photodegraded for 12 hours. The dissolved organic matter (DOM) generated from each fraction was subjected to a photodegradation time series from 0 – 96 h in 24 h increments. Each DOM degradation time series was measured using excitation emission matrix spectroscopy (EEMs) and statistical analysis were applied using parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC), to identify the underlying fluorophores present in the sample set. Small scale preparations were performed to ensure the integrity of the separation would be maintained during a bulk scale up. It was determined that a 2 % loading of sample would yield desired fractions with minimal overlap. Dissolved organic carbon and absorbance measurements collectively decreased with increasing exposure time
The Wallpaper Man and Other Stories
No full textIn this collection of short stories, female-driven storylines in both speculative and realistic fiction focus on the themes of feminism, becoming one’s own hero, and the pain of lost love
Colonial Development: The Importance of the Backcountry Frontier in the Protection and Preservation of Lowcountry Power in Colonial South Carolina, 1730-1769
Get PDFIn general discussions and teachings about the American Colonies before the Revolution, South Carolina is often oversimplified. Students are presented with a picture portraying the beginnings of American slavery, with large, cash crop plantations being worked by enslaved Africans while the white owners of the enslaved reap the benefits and enjoy a life of relative ease and luxury in their plantation houses and in the city of Charleston. Even when this picture includes extreme measures the planter elite took to enjoy this lifestyle in the form of slave laws and punishments, the more indirect methods of suppression are often left out. Often excluded from the picture is the role the white settlers of the frontier had in the maintenance of this system. The inclusion of the Backcountry in this picture allows all to see just how extensive the efforts to maintain the wealth and power of the planter elite
Don’t Be Myth-taken: The Perpetuation of Historical Myths in New Orleans Tourism
Get PDFThe mythology that surrounds the city of New Orleans is expansive. In a city well known for its ghosts and culture, the tourism industry utilizes stories and mythology to entice tourists to visit the city. However, the perpetuation of myths as historical facts or as actual events to an unknowing public can cause more harm than good to the city and the understanding of its past. This essay utilizes interviews with current New Orleans Tour Guides to examines how the tourism industry in New Orleans presents mythology and historical evidence to tourists. This essay examines tours and tourism materials to better understand the industry alongside popular myths perpetuated in both the media and on tours. By utilizing tour guide narratives and their experiences this essay will demonstrate how the perpetuation of mythology in New Orleans has incorrectly informed tourists of the city’s historical background
Personality as a Predictor of Patterns of Substance Use
Get PDFSubstance use (SU) affects many people worldwide and is an important public health concern. Personality has been theorized to play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of SU. To test how personality is related to patterns of SU, a latent profile analysis was used to cluster individuals into SU classes with multinomial logistic regression used to test the relationship between personality and patterns of SU. Results suggested that polysubstance use was common, with variations in primary substance of choice among classes. As classes became more inclusive of more substances, they increased in psychopathological personality traits. Higher domains of personality traits were used to predict the classes while the least severe SU class was used as a referent. Results indicated that each domain of personality and facet level traits had an effect on the SU classes. Facet level traits are more so affected when considering levels of polysubstance use
Experimental Filmmaking: I Think. Therefore, I’ll Never Be.
No full text‘I Think. Therefore, I Will Never Be.’ is an experimental film delving into the ID of an intoxicated mind. With collaborated information from psychology studies and social forums, this film follows an avant-garde expression while telling the story of a drunken night. The editing of this project displays severe deviation from common film concepts to allow the viewer to explore the images and create a unique assessment about what is being presented
Evidence-based Assessment of Temperament in Preschoolers: A Measure
No full textIn the field of child temperament and psychopathology there is a large gap in the existing measurements that capture the facets of temperament and prove to be consistent across the lifespan. Currently, we are working on developing a new parent-report measure of child temperament to address the limitations of the existing measures, such as poor construct validity. The higher-order domains to be covered include Negative Emotionality/Neuroticism, Positive Emotionality/Extraversion, and Effortful Control. Previous models of child temperament/ personality that utilized the five-factor model were unable to replicate all higher-order factors in young children. As a result, we are using the three-factor model, because we find it will more accurately map across the lifespan. We are using a combination of top-down, theory-driven and bottom-up, data-drive approaches in creating the new measure of child temperament. So far, we have developed items for the Negative Emotionality/Neuroticism domain, incorporating several facets (i.e. anger, sadness, fear/anxiety, shyness, emotional lability, and guilt), which we have determined will be a comprehensive depiction of this construct based on the extant literature. All items were written at the 6th grade reading level to ensure the generalizability of our measure. We are currently preparing to conduct pilot testing of the new Negative Emotionality/ Neuroticism items, which will be followed by more comprehensive data collection, item pool reduction, item revision, identification of empirically based scales via factor analysis, and revision of the theory-based facets. Our intention is to create a cohesive, fundamental measure for future research in the field of child temperament
“Ce viol brutal… la fit ensuite se mépriser”: Rape Culture in La Curée
No full textCes derniers temps, la notoriété internationale du mouvement #MeToo et d’événements hautement médiatisés tels que l’épidémie de viols en Inde et le scandale des agressions sexuelles à Liberty University a suscité un renouveau d’intérêt au sujet du viol et de la culture du viol – celle-ci étant définie comme un environnement dans lequel le viol est prévalent et où les violences sexuelles faites aux femmes sont normalisées et excusées dans les médias et la culture populaire. Le roman La Curée (1871) d’Émile Zola, qui dépeint le viol de Renée Béraud du Châtel, âgée de 19 ans, et ses conséquences durant un Second Empire au despotisme féroce, offre un exemple d’une des premières œuvres littéraires à présenter une vision prémonitoire glaçante d’une culture du viol qui s’apparente de manière frappante à la nôtre. À partir d’une variété de sources académiques et d’analyses de féministes et d’experts spécialisés en matière de viol, je montrerai comment le texte de Zola révèle les attitudes et les mécanismes qui créent, maintiennent et perpétuent la culture du viol, et incluent par exemple le blâme de la victime, la protection de la réputation des violeurs, et le fait de raconter des plaisanteries au détriment des victimes de viol. Je démontrerai aussi comment Renée offre un exemple contemporain d’une survivante d’agression sexuelle qui présente nombre des symptômes associés au traumastisme dû au viol et maintenant identifiés par les experts. Ce faisant, je soulignerai l’actualité remarquable de cette œuvre de Zola, dont 2021 marque le cent-cinquantième anniversaire, et son attrait potentiel pour les étudiants d’aujourd’hui qui ont parfois des difficultés à saisir la pertinence des textes du XIXe siècle pour leurs propres vies.
Recently, the international renown of the #MeToo movement and high-profile news events like the rape epidemic in India and the sexual assault scandal on the campus of Liberty University, have sparked renewed concern about the harmful effects of rape and rape culture – the latter being defined as an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Émile Zola’s novel La Curée (1871), depicting the rape of nineteen-year-old Renée Béraud du Châtel and its aftermath during the ferocious Second Empire, is an example of an early literary work that paints a prescient and daunting view of a culture of rape bearing a striking similarity to our own. Using a variety of academic sources as well as findings of feminists and experts on rape, I will show how Zola’s text reveals the attitudes and mechanisms that create, sustain, and perpetuate rape culture – such as victim blaming, defending the reputation of rapists, the ostracizing of survivors of sexual assault, and the telling of jokes at the expense of rape victims. I will also demonstrate how Renée offers a contemporary example of a survivor of sexual assault, with many of the symptoms of rape trauma now identified by experts. In so doing, I will underline the remarkable timeliness of Zola’s work, with the year 2021 marking the 150th anniversary of its publication, and its potential appeal for today’s students who struggle at times to see the relevance of nineteenth-century texts to their own lives
Video Games as Drama
No full textAugusto Boal has this to say about games: “Games help enable the de-mechanisation of the body and the mind alienated by repetitive tasks of the day-to-day…games facilitate and oblige this de-mechanisation...they demand the creativity which is their essence.”
In other words, games have the ability to help us think and act in ways that are different from the everyday by engaging with parts of our minds that we don’t normally use. While he is talking about live theater games, computer games can also exercise what Boal calls the Aesthetic Process, or the process that artists go through to create a work of art. He says, “the Aesthetic Process allows the subjects to exercise themselves in activities which are usually denied them, thus expanding their expressive and perceptive possibilities”. Players get an enlarged view on life. Ebru, a Boal scholar, puts it this way, “Boal contended that it [theater] enabled people to observe their reality, ‘perceiving what it is, discovering what it is not, and imagining what it could become.
I believe video games have this potential as well, to not just entertain, but to awaken us to the world around us and enrich our lives. To that end, I present two video game projects, discuss their development, and how dramatic theory can influence video game creation
Analysis of Residual Neural Networks for Marine Mammal Classification using Multi-channel Spectrograms
Get PDFSurveys of marine mammal populations are an essential part of monitoring the welfare of these animals and their ecosystems. Marine mammal vocalizations provide a reliable method of identifying most species, but passive acoustic monitoring of underwater audio may generate large quantities of data that exceed the capacity of human classifiers. Preprocessing and machine learning techniques provide a method of automating the classification process. In this study, we explore machine learning approaches to vocalization classification using convolutional neural networks with residual learning. Optimal parameters for noise-removal, spectrographic window functions, preprocessing augmentations, and multi-channel spectrogram generation are derived through a series of tests. Test results inform the construction of a residual network, which we train to high precision. While we demonstrate that multi-channel spectrograms may provide additional acoustic information, we find that single-channel spectrograms offer superior classification performance in most cases