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Open Letters & Impersonal Forms: Diaries, Letters, And Self-Disclosure In Rilke’S Prose, Abigail Svetlik

English Honors Theses

This paper places Letters alongside two other works of prose by Rilke — The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) and Diaries of a Young Poet (1997). The first is Rilke’s only novel, in which a young man inscribes his thoughts, feelings, and activities in a series of journal entries; the second is a series of private journals which Rilke maintained between 1898 and 1900. Notebooks’ narrator resembles Rilke in several ways, but the novel’s fictiveness impedes upon readers’ instinct to treat the story as entirely autobiographical. In his actual diaries, published at the opposite end of the same …

Good Girls Don't, Tess Fresco

English Honors Theses

Set in the year 1980, "Good Girls Don't" is a bracing coming-of-age story about Cathy, a young woman in Los Angeles who dreams of escaping the city yet feels intimately bound to it. Los Angeles as a terrifyingly beautiful place, in this specific time, figures prominently in this novella; even as Cathy enjoys smoking pot with her best friend Heather, rolls her eyes at her boss at Jack In the Box, and moons over sexy surfer boys, the threat of a serial murderer targeting young women hangs over her mind. On a date one night with Jim, an older boy …

Other Bodies And Their Other Worlds: Reimagining The Victorian Femme Fatale, Tess Lamontagne Gordon

English Honors Theses

This paper explores Victorian and contemporary challenges to the Victorian femme fatale by comparing Yorgos Lanthimos' 2023 film Poor Things with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Vernon Lee's "Oke of Okehurst." It examines how each work constructs and deconstructs the figure of the femme fatale by placing their female protagonists in otherworldly settings that break the boundaries of conventional Victorian norms. Lanthimos' film presents Bella Baxter as a liberated "Other" in a whimsical, fantastical world, contrasting with the tragic fates of Catherine Earnshaw and Alice Oke, who are grounded in realism despite their otherworldly settings. The paper's analysis highlights the …

The Illuminating Power Of Christmas: Stories Of Community, Chloe Hanrahan

English Honors Theses

Christmas is an almost universal experience in the Western world. Its symbolism as a moment of community and connection reveals the human need to be with one another and fight our greatest fear—loneliness. Christmas is one of many winter festivals around the globe that demonstrate this need for connection, but because of Western media and culture it has become a holiday celebrated within and outside of the Christian faith and thus reaches a wide audience. It is a time when people come together to perform the same rituals every year and reflect. Christmas is a dedicated time to celebrate the …

The Accuracy Of Expected Goals In The Premier League, Max Mian

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Expected Goals are an analytical tool used in soccer which have picked up a lot of value in recent years. They are used to asses teams' quality to create goal scoring opportunities and converting them. Expected goals are commonly used at the end of games to give further insight on who deserved to win based off their goal scoring chances that they had or gave up. In this thesis I am researching the accuracy of expected goals predicting teams finishing position in the Premier League 2014-15 season. This thesis will show of expected goals and expected goals against in a …

An Analysis Of Nfl Betting Strategies: A Look Into High Value Bets, Brady Trenchard

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper uses data from NFL games throughout the 2013-2019 seasons and analyzes the profitability of several correlated parlays and straight bets. Independent variables such as temperature, wind, prime time, and divisional game status were incorporated. Using OLS regression analysis, several strategies are presented that would have been profitable throughout the sample period. Results suggested that wagers on the under in divisional games with high wind were profitable. Furthermore, it was profitable to wager on a home favorite and over parlay in prime time and non-divisional games. Results also indicated it was profitable to wager on a home underdog and …

How Does A Player's Involvement In Their National Team Given Their Ethnicity Affect Their Market Valuation In The Top-Five Leagues?, Kamal Ibrahim

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates player involvement in national team and how it effects their market valuation as it relates to ethnicity. Previous research has evaluated other factors that affect player market valuation such as age and position. However, this paper seeks to see if there are discriminatory effects on player market pricing based on a player’s ethnic origins. The three ethnic regions of focus for this paper are South America, African, and Europe. The focus of this paper is to determine whether European players are favored in relation to the other two regions of the world. Regression models consider player …

Navigating Generosity: A Comparative Analysis Of Charitable Donations Around The Great Recession Of 2008, Micah Blomberg

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper studies donations to non-profit organizations in the US and how they reacted to The Great Recession of 2008. I find statistically significant drop-offs in multiple donative subcategories, including religion, education, human services, public society benefits, and arts, culture, and humanities, making up over 50% of total donations. Donation levels after the 2008 crash tend to be slightly downward sticky, meaning the rate of increase is larger after the treatment effect. These increased rates of return allow for market correction post-recession but still reveal a deadweight loss when comparing trends in OLS betas before and after the recession, meaning …

A Gender-Based Ufc Demand Analysis, Nolen Michael

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has grown rapidly since its inception in the early 1990s. An important aspect of understanding the explosion of Mixed Martial Arts into mainstream appeal is the relationship between consumer demand and specific attributes of the sport. The UFC first began featuring female events in 2013. A robust division of women’s UFC fighters has developed in the years since. In this study I will be using econometric methods to evaluate the degree to which specific gender related variables influence consumer demand for the UFC. The Pay-Per-View format of UFC events is of critical importance because it …

A Study Of The Impact Of Social Trust On Economic Growth And Defining A Potential Threshold For ‘High Trust’ In Economic Research, Isaac Carey

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to 1. evaluate findings from previous literature that demonstrated evidence of social trust having a positive relationship with economic growth in the form of Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc) and 2. evaluate potential trust levels that can be used as a threshold for considering a country ‘high-trusting’ when conducting economic research. The study gathered data to measure social trust levels from World Values Survey where respondents answered yest to the question “most people can be trusted”. Then the study evaluated the relationship between trust and GDPpc with control variables including technology, education, labor, investment, and external …

The Impact Of Abortion Shield Laws On Abortion Access In The United States, Julian Wise

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) ruled that abortion access is no longer constitutionally protected resulting in each state deciding who has access to an abortion. This thesis examines if laws that restrict abortion access are effective because one can travel from a state that bans abortion to a state that allows abortion to obtain an abortion procedure. Specifically, this paper investigates the relationship between the increase in travel cost to an abortion clinic located in state with enhanced legal protections—known as abortion shield laws—and U.S. Census variables. Using Gary Becker’s legal analysis model, an abortion seeker will always …

Profit Shares And Cost-Push Inflation: Examining The Distributional Nature Of U.S. Inflation And The Effectiveness Of Monetary Policy, Devin Herbinger

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

The sharp increase in post-pandemic inflation coincided with a profit explosion characterized by a growing share of profit in output. This paper argues that the record profit share in the nonfinancial corporate sector entails a redistribution of income against real wages due to the current institutional and structural conditions of the U.S. economy. Using profit share as a proxy for markups, the results of this paper highlight the macroeconomic implications of excessive profitability in the face of a global exogenous shock. Chiefly, rising profit share correlates with accelerating CPI inflation from 2021-22. Moreover, this surge in profit share occurred when …

Assessing The Impact Of Tourism On Housing Price Dynamics: Evidence From Hawaii Highlighting Directional Causality And Vacation Rentals, Micaiah Ocalvey

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Tourism has been shown to impact housing prices and residents’ ability to afford housing in a host community as well as impacting several other aspects of the host community. This study uses Hawaii as a case study to examine how tourism impacts housing price dynamics and whether there is a different distribution of effects across the different islands due to tourism levels including an aspect about short-term rentals and housing prices. Compiled datasets spanning from 2000 to 2023 of monthly data and from 2019 to 2023 (short-term rentals) OLS and 2SLS regression methodologies were employed to analyze the relationship between …

Autumn In New York: Gotham And The Decline Of The New Deal Order (1967-1975), Lisle Jamieson

Political Science Senior Theses

In 1975, the city of New York looked out on the precipice of fiscal collapse. Years of borrowing, a fleeting tax base, deindustrialization, and the thinning of federal investment streams left the city short-changed and vulnerable, reliant on banks with waning interest in funding New York’s robust network of social services. [1] The conversations, contestations, and political resolutions that followed would reshape and remake the politics of a city that had, for four decades, represented a beacon of “social democracy.” [2] New York ultimately surrendered its commitment to urban liberalism and embraced a neoliberal politics of austerity, mirroring shifts taking …

Analyzing The Impact Of Covid-19 Driven Inflation On Customer Personal Consumption In The Us, Yinwei Li

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper focuses on the different effects of COVID-19-driven inflation on U.S. consumer spending on food, durable goods, and nondurable goods. The study used regression models to analyze changes in personal consumption spending on three categories between 2010-2017 and 2018-2024. The article emphasized that the economic instability caused by the pandemic and the fiscal policies utilized by the government have contributed to consumer behavior to a certain extent. The survey results show that the impact of inflation on food and non-durable goods spending is very clear: consumption on non-durable goods and food has increased. This may be due to increased …

Impact Of The Us-China Trade War To Chinese-Listed Companies' Stock Returns, Ling Zhu

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Since 2018, trade relations between the United States and China have become increasingly tense, with the United States attempting to restrict the development of Chinese companies through measures such as imposing tariffs and establishing entity lists. Chinese companies included in the entity list will lose opportunities to export products to the United States or import new technologies from the United States. This study employs the DID method, using Chinese A-share market-listed companies included in the entity list as samples, to examine the impact of Sino-US trade frictions on the stock returns of Chinese enterprises. The research findings indicate that this …

A Comparative Risk Analysis Of Sportsbooks And Options Sellers, Daniel Aybar

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

Both options sellers and sportsbooks are price-setters in growing speculative markets. With the increased availability of sports betting and options trading, potential inefficiencies in risk-taking behavior could be exposed in these markets. This paper serves to compare the risk taking behavior of sportsbooks and options sellers. Two proposed statistics were used to measure risk in these speculative industries. Risk premium, based on concepts from Arscott (2022) and Moskowitz (2021), measured risk from a per-dollar returns framework. Tail Risk Ratio is a novel addition to previous literature which compares the tail risk of sellers and buyers in speculative markets. The relationship …

The Airline Industry In The U.S, Do Airlines Choose To Price Their Airfare Off Their Own Model Being “Bag Fee” Or “Non-Bag-Fee” Or Are Prices Decided By The Market?, Phineas De Sola

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, we primarily study the years of 2017, 2020, and 2023 determining if there is a potential relationship between baggage fee charging airlines, non-baggage fee airlines and market level airfare prices in the U.S domestic commercial airline industry. We study these years to see how market fares have changed before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Previous literature has studied the question of if baggage fees have a relationship with market level fares, but none investigate the data from 2020 and how market level fares have changed since then. The data used for this study came from the …

The Effect Of Remittances On Educational Outcome In Uganda, Kaity Chen

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This study investigates the impact of remittances received on the highest level of education completed by the household members in Uganda. The results of our multinomial logistic regression analysis that uses survey data from Uganda in 2010 indicate that, after controlling for other variables, our independent variable—the total amount of remittances received—is only a significant predictor of the three highest level of education categories (Completed secondary education vs Didn’t complete primary education category, Post-secondary diploma vs Didn’t complete primary education category, and Degree and Above Education vs Didn’t complete primary education). This could be due to the fact that households …

The Relationship Between Ownership And English Premier League Players’ Salaries, Jacob Lipeles

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper looks into the relationship between professional soccer player wages and ownership characteristics. Previous research has shown that foreign owners invest more in their clubs but has not connected it to individual players’ wages. Previous player compensation models exist but have not incorporated advanced analytics or tied in the concept of MRP. Regression models have been calculated for club output, club revenue, and expected player wage. The expected player wage was then compared to MRP. These were then regressed with ownership characteristics. This paper has found that there is a statistically significant relationship between two ownership characteristics and player …

The Relationship Between Patient Satisfaction And The Interaction Of Physical Therapy Availability And Medicare Spending, Ruoxuan Wang

Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects

My research aims to find out whether the interaction of availability of physical therapy services and Medicare spending will impact patient satisfaction. This study also investigates whether improvements in patients’ breathing will impact patient satisfaction with nonparametric regression methodology. The findings show that patient satisfaction increases at a much higher rate when physical therapy services are available to Medicare beneficiaries. Further, the results demonstrates that a statistically significant association exist between patient satisfaction and the improvements in the frequency with which patients’ breathing improves. This study demonstrates that the government needs to increase both Medicare funding and accessibility to high-quality …

Weihnachten In Industrialized America: Christmas And The Making Of German-American Identity In Philadelphia, 1880-1920, Chloe Hanrahan

History Honors Theses

Christmas in the United States has been heavily influenced by immigrant communities. German-immigrants specifically have had a major impact on Christmas in America, as they brought with them an extensive history with Christmas and its motifs, emotions, and traditions. Christmastime in America at the turn of the 20th century, reveals a larger story of German immigration, assimilation, and also resistance to the loss of cultural markers. The first section of the thesis examines the history of Christmas in “Germany,” followed by a section focused on the emotional ties German Americans and Germans have with Christmas. The thesis next demonstrates how …

World’S Coolest Dictator: Nayib Bukele’S Populist Authoritarian Digital Footprint, Kaitlin Mcquade

Political Science Senior Theses

Across the globe, country after country is seeing populist movements gain power and even win office. When these populist ideas are adopted and utilized by authoritarian-leaning leaders, democratic erosion and the disrespect of human rights become a real threat. For my thesis, I will be looking to the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, as an example of this dangerous combination of populism and authoritarianism. Under his leadership, the country has achieved the highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world at 1.7%, he stacked the courts with loyalists that allowed him to run for a previously unconstitutional second …

The Collective, Skye Thomson

English Honors Theses

This novella follows the protagonist Katya as she fights for her chance at a better life. It is both psychological thriller and heart- wrenching romance and brings up questions of morality and humanity at every turn.

To Be Still: Poetry Portfolio, Leo Balaban

English Honors Theses

A series of poems about finding peace of mind.

Synthesis Of An Anti-Lysozyme Antibody Tagged With Gold Or Silver Nanoparticle For Faster Western Blot, Harunobu Kato

Chemistry Senior Theses

Western blot is an important protein analysis assay enabling protein detection by visualizing the antibody specific antigen-antibody interaction. As a commonly used assay, western blot is taught in upper-level biochemistry and molecular biology students. However, due to its exhaustive process and high cost of antibodies, a modification to western blot is proposed using gold or silver nanoparticles as a tag to the primary antibody for lysozyme. In this experiment, invisible anti-lysozyme antibodies were conjugated to colloidal gold and silver nanoparticles via photochemical immobilization technique, effectively facilitating a physically observable band on the western blot. To eliminate false positives by interactions …

The World Ends One Last Time, Winter Qiu

English Honors Theses

Two friends are reincarnated into alternate universes where they are destined to meet over and over again. Meanwhile, two otherworldly observers find themselves reflecting on their own bond with each other.

Heard: Pondering Life's Soundscapes, Carolyn Albright, Adam Berger, Lily Brooks, Amanda Denney, Liam Drehkoff, Jack Fink, Emerson Fraser, Benjamin Galligan, Marta Insolia, Sam Kleid, Finn Krol, Morgan O'Halloran, Keya Shah, Kit Simpson, Elliott Zajac

English

This collection explores the relationship between music, culture, and personal experience. The product of a fall semester honors Expository Writing course, Heard traces the songs that have impacted students' lives. From folk and punk to Broadway and yacht rock, the music of the collection has shaped each author's life in both small and profound ways.

The Last Puritans: Confessional Poetics In The New England Gothic, Emma Stratman

English Honors Theses

This paper proposes that the confessional mode has a place within the evolving genre of the New England Gothic, an assertion that within the scope of this project focuses primarily on the work of Anne Sexton as an example of the convergence of the New England confessional poets and the New England Gothic. Moving from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to Anne Sexton’s poem “The Double Image,” this paper evaluates the status of hereditary guilt, secrets, social critique, and madness within the framework of the New England Gothic and in doing so, situates the confessional mode within that framework. It combines …

Uncovering An "Arcane" History: How R.F. Kuang Demystifies The Entanglement Of Translation, Academia, And Colonialism, Kari Stein

English Honors Theses

The tagline of R.F. Kuang’s bestselling 2022 novel Babel (or Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution) is: “an act of translation is always an act of betrayal.” Thanks to the work of countless translation scholars, we know what this tagline means in the literal sense. In order to translate from one language into another, there is an unavoidable loss of meaning in the process. However, Kuang adds another meaning to this tagline in her work with Babel. Not only is she stressing the acknowledgement that all translation comes with a …