Digital Commons Network^™

Meditations, Adrian D. Mosby

Theses and Dissertations

Adrian Demarco Mosby (b. 1991, Bronx, Ny) is a figurative painter focused on the use of allegory and narrative. His stone like figures depict a modern day apathy and disillusion. The narrative content is meant to formulate a moral philosophy that might combat such apathy.

Uncovering Potential Biofilm Modulators, Liliana Margent

Theses and Dissertations

Biofilms have negative and positive impacts depending on the context they develop. In this work, I optimized a biofilm assay to evaluate the effect of three different types of compounds indole derivatives, 2,5 Diketopiperazines, and 12-hydroxystearic acid on the biofilm formation of E. coli.

The Female Body In The Works Of Débora Arango And Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo: Colombian Modernism, Religion, And Politics, 1930s-1950s, Gina M. Vásquez

Theses and Dissertations

In 1930s-1950s Colombia, the social position of women was highly politicized by the government and Catholic church. This thesis investigates how Débora Arango and Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo painted the female body at this time, exploring themes of the nude, modernity, and violence in an era of political and religious animosity.

Power Dressing: Feather Fans And The Visual Language Of Female Portraiture, Charlotte Svetkey

Theses and Dissertations

Feather fans in sixteenth-century portraiture not only allowed the female sitter to express her own claims to wealth, status, and power but also acted as a visual indicator of changes that were occurring on the global stage. Both fans and sitters will be evaluated through ideas of gender and class.

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Kinstitution: A Topia Between Archive And Proposal, Christopher Lineberry

Theses and Dissertations

Situating Topher Lineberry's work, this paper offers a primer on institutional critique, preliminary developments of "kinstitutional critique," and the cultivation of family-derived art history through the work of the artist's grandmother, Helen Lineberry. Feeding into a working understanding of family-and-kin-as-institution, the paper ultimately locates Topher Lineberry's work between relations to place, historical archives, and speculative proposals.

To The Studio, In The Studio, Home, Miquel R. Veldkamp

Theses and Dissertations

A curated series of poems and mini essays that reflect on personal life, politics, art history, folklore, science, identity and race. It addresses the questions that inform my work, and echoes its ethos of play, exploration, curiosity, vulnerability.

Memories As Old As Outer Space, Nicholas Benfey

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings draw from personal memory, as well as the nostalgic longing and nightmarish foreboding of the irrational psyche. Cosmic ruptures, cliffs, cemeteries, and parking lots appear alongside snowglobes and canopy beds. I aim to suggest things to be wary of, while giving space for optimistic fantasy and reflective wonder.

A Draft: Up N’ Upper Or Sisyphus Lounge; Notes, Poems & Essays From The Road & The Cabin, Andrew M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations

This text imagines a reconciliation where the slick, sterile nature of contemporary objects and conditions might offer a sort of soft retreat. Sisyphus Lounge, a modular installation of light, near-defunct-technologies and carefully cluttered “stuff,” attempts to locate and explore value systems fogged by dis/information and the impossibility to articulate is-ness.

Some (Im)Material Girls, Living In (Im)Material Worlds, With Seeds, Stars, And Shit, Matthew Weiderspon

Theses and Dissertations

This writing situates material and gestural vocabularies cultivated in my artwork in relation to my lived experience; primarily my rural upbringing in Colorado. Scattered floor dispersals, calling sounds, and bodily movements desire reconsiderations of hope in precarity through a disorientation of place, association, scale, and language.

Yellow, Sisi Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The following paper is a constellational unpacking of yellow through notes on critical race and feminist theories, myth, science, science fiction, disparate histories, cyborgs, biography, virtuality, materiality, fungi, porcelain, language, internalization, melancholia, smells, sounds, tastes, feels, and more feels.

Moving Without The Ball: Labor And Collectivity Beneath The Body Of The She-Wolf, Cristina Covucci

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I consider my personal experiences as an artist, art handler, and athlete through the motif of the Roman She-wolf, addressing how value systems are constructed according to binaries by showing how the sculptural process can break down these binaries, giving agency to both the mother mold and “completed” form.

Mitochondrial Distribution Of Glycine Receptors In Motor Neuron Cell Lines, Katsiaryna Milashevich

Student Theses and Dissertations

Although non-essential, glycine plays an important role in major metabolic reactions and is most known for its anti-inflammatory effects. An accumulation of contemporary research has shown that glycine is able to stabilize membrane potential using glycine receptors at the cellular level and to protect mitochondrial function directly, whether it is from inflammation, heavy metal poisoning, or ischemia-induced neuroinflammation. In this research, the existence of a hypothetical mitochondrial glycine receptor is examined. Immunofluorescence imaging was used to examine the presence of the glycine receptor subunits alpha 1 and alpha 2 in both non- differentiated and differentiated neuroblastoma cell lines. The preliminary …

Nursing Assignment: Understanding Covid-19 Vaccines: Specific Strategies To Encourage And Educate Your Patients, Regina G. Lama

Open Educational Resources

Understanding Covid-19 Vaccines: Specific Strategies to Encourage and Educate Your Patients

This assignment focuses on the difference in Covid-19 vaccinations. The nursing student will discuss the different vaccinations and form a teaching plan for the patient in order to encourage the vaccination process. The student will then explore the patients expectations concerning vaccination.

As a presentation the students will be able to evaluate, share and reflect on teaching method.

Species In Vernal Pools: Anova, Lisa Manne

Open Educational Resources

A one-way analysis of variance exercise using data on species diversities from vernal pools.Data are from vernal pools in Willowbrook Park (adjacent to College of Staten Island's campus) in spring.

The typical ANOVA gives a straightforward result (significant anova, easily-interpreted Tukey-Kramer analysis). This data set requires more nuanced interpretation, as the ANOVA is marginally significant, and Tukey-Kramer yields one significant pairwise comparison between groups. Relative lack of variation within groups explains this apparent enigma.

Student Well-Being Matters: Academic Library Support For The Whole Student, Marta Bladek

Publications and Research

In response to a marked increase in the prevalence and severity of mental health problems among college students over the last decade, colleges and universities have been expanding their well-being initiatives and programs. No longer limited to health services departments, the support of student well-being has been taken up by multiple campus units, including academic libraries. As well-being has been shown to impact academic outcomes, the well-being initiatives libraries develop fit in with their commitment to enhance learning and student educational experience overall. A comprehensive review of wellness interventions in academic libraries, this article presents findings on student well-being and …

Discovering Kepler’S Third Law From Planetary Data, Boyan Kostadinov, Satyanand Singh

Publications and Research

In this data-inspired project, we illustrate how Kepler’s Third Law of Planetary Motion can be discovered from fitting a power model to real planetary data obtained from NASA, using regression modeling. The power model can be linearized, thus we can use linear regression to fit the model parameters to the data, but we also show how a non-linear regression can be implemented, using the R programming language. Our work also illustrates how the linear least squares used for fitting the power model can be implemented in Desmos, which could serve as the computational foundation for this project at a lower …

Thinking And Talking About Kinds, Ye Ji Seoung

Theses and Dissertations

Three experiments investigated whether definite singular generics (e.g., the dog barks) require that the kind does not contain multiple subkinds. No effect of generic form was found in experiment 1 and 3. However, experiment 2 found people thought there were fewer subkinds when definite singulars referred to the kind.

The Impact Of Location And Time Of Day On The Expression Of Social And Physical Maintenance Behaviors In Wild Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus) In Thailand, Summer Fiori

Theses and Dissertations

Much of what we know about Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) behavioral ecology is the result of long-term ethological studies on wild elephants in India and Sri Lanka or experimental research on captive elephant behavior and cognition. While it is important to study the behavior and ecology of elephants to understand the evolution of adaptations that have made them well-suited for their natural environments, there is also a growing need to study populations of wild Asian elephants for applied conservation purposes. More specifically, elephants are endangered and are facing increasing threats such as human-elephant conflict. In this study, behavioral data …

Pre- And Post-Partum Observations Of Signature Whistle Characteristics Of The Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus), Robert Dutchen

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes whistle usage in an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin during birth. Findings show the mother produces two predominant whistle contours. Congruities between the whistles were compared and showed that the type 1 contour bears structural similarity to the first component of the type 2 contour, indicating combinatorial whistle construction.

Influence Of Group Change On Scent Marking In A Wild Population Of Verreaux’S Sifaka (Propithecus Verreauxi), Julia C. Dickerson

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed scent marking rates of wild Verreaux’s sifaka during dispersals to investigate the impact of group changes on olfactory communication. Our results indicate that scent marking is affected by changes in group structure, but other methods of communication likely play a larger role in mediating group membership changes.

Hungry Hungry Humpbacks: A Preliminary Study Of Lunge Feeding In The New York Bight, Samantha E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have been observed feeding in the New York Bight (NYB). Humpbacks in this region have an increased potential for collisions with vessels. In this study, data of lunge feeding was analyzed to determine locations of lunge feeding, clusters of lunge feeding, and depths of lunge feeding.

Representation Of Sex-Linked Properties: Implications For Conceptual Representation And Generics, Olga A. Leus

Theses and Dissertations

Four experiments provide evidence that we represent principled connections between kinds and sex-linked properties such that one type of instance of the kind has a principled connection for the presence of the property and the other type has a principled connection for the absence of that property.

Investigating Social Preferences In A High Fission-Fusion Society Of Black And White Ruffed Lemur (Varecia Variegata), Patricia A. Adamo

Theses and Dissertations

Wild lemur primates were tested for social preferences across behaviors. Study found highly conservative social preferences that were very consistent across all behavioral states, despite high fission fusion traits common of lemur groups. This finding lays the foundation for using nearest-neighbor as a proxy of social preference for future endeavors.

Innovative Virtual Role Play Simulations For Managing Substance Use Conversations: Pilot Study Results And Relevance During And After Covid-19, Glenn Albright, Nikita Khalid, Kristen Shockley, Kelsey Robinson, Kevin Hughes, Bethany Pace-Danley

Publications and Research

Background: Substance use places a substantial burden on our communities, both economically and socially. In light of COVID-19, it is predicted that as many as 75,000 more people will die from alcohol and other substance use and suicide as a result of isolation, new mental health concerns, and various other stressors related to the pandemic. Public awareness campaigns that aim to destigmatize substance use and help individuals have meaningful conversations with friends, coworkers, or family members to address substance use concerns are a timely and cost-effective means of augmenting existing behavioral health efforts related to substance use. These types of …

Control Of Pre-Replicative Complex During The Division Cycle In Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, Amy E. Ikui, Noriko Ueki, Kresti Pecani, Frederick R. Cross

Publications and Research

DNA replication is fundamental to all living organisms. In yeast and animals, it is triggered by an assembly of pre-replicative complex including ORC, CDC6 and MCMs. Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) regulates both assembly and firing of the pre-replicative complex. We tested temperature-sensitive mutants blocking Chlamydomonas DNA replication. The mutants were partially or completely defective in DNA replication and did not produce mitotic spindles. After a long G1, wild type Chlamydomonas cells enter a division phase when it undergoes multiple rapid synchronous divisions (‘multiple fission’). Using tagged transgenic strains, we found that MCM4 and MCM6 were localized to the nucleus throughout …

Understanding The Nature And Dimensions Of Litigation Crowdfunding: A Visual Analytics Approach, Viju Raghupathi, Jie Ren, Wullianallur Raghupathi

Publications and Research

The escalating cost of civil litigation is leaving many defendants and plaintiffs unable to meet legal expenses such as attorney fees, court charges and others. This significantly impacts their ability to sue or defend themselves effectively. Related to this phenomenon is the ethics discussion around access to justice and crowdfunding. This article explores the dimensions that explain the phenomenon of litigation crowdfunding. Using data from CrowdJustice, a popular Internet fundraising platform used to assist in turning legal cases into publicly funded social cases, we study litigation crowdfunding through the lenses of the number of pledges, goal achievement, target amount, length …

A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis On The Efficacy Of Repeated Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation For Migraine, Guoshuai Cai, Zhu Xia, Leigh Charvet, Feifei Xiao, Abhishek Datta, X Michelle Androulakis

Publications and Research

Purpose: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may have therapeutic potential in the management of migraine. However, studies to date have yielded conflicting results. We reviewed studies using repeated tDCS for longer than 4 weeks in migraine treatment, and performed meta-analysis on the efficacy of tDCS in migraine.

Methods: In this meta-analysis, we included the common outcome measurements reported across randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Subgroup analysis was performed at different post-treatment endpoints, and with different stimulation intensities and polarities.

Results: Five RCTs were included in the quantitative meta-analysis with a total of 104 migraine patients. We found a significant reduction of …

Body States Of Asian Elephants Within And Around Protected Areas In The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand, Caitlyn Thai

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers are becoming increasingly aware that studying a species’ landscape of fear or, more broadly, their emotional states, can better inform cognitive questions about how animals navigate their environments. Vigilance behaviors are one way to determine how certain species perceive and respond to risky situations. Due to rapid environmental change, large animals such as elephants are experiencing risky encounters with humans more often than ever before. This study aims to investigate Asian elephants’ expressions of body states and how they might regulate their behavior based on perceived environmental risk or change. Specifically, we investigated the behavioral responses of Asian elephants …

Play In Juvenile African Naked Mole-Rats (Hereocephalus Glauber), Frank J. Diglio

Theses and Dissertations

Naked Mole Rats (NMR) and their close relative the Damaraland Mole Rat are the only eusocial mammals. This study investigated whether NMR juveniles engage in play-like behavior within a crèche chamber in a laboratory colony and whether the frequent interruption of juvenile social interactions by adults suppress social play. One colony at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, was observed over the course of six months. An ethogram based on the NMR literature was used to code juvenile behavior in the crèche chamber one to two times a week for a total of thirty video sessions ~ 25-40 minutes in …